Rafael Carlos "Ralph" Estrada
10 Jan 1903 - 1979
bornTempe, Arizona, USA
SchooltblData
BiographyLawyer; judge; political activist.He was a graduate of Tempe High School and the Tempe Normal School. He was the Normal
School baseball team captain. He then attended Colorado State University and UCLA. He taught in Arizona and California.In 1923 was an interpreter for Ariz/ Cotton Growers Assn., lived at 927 Van Ness Ave. In the early 1930s, he became involved with Democrat party politics. He co-founded early Latin American clubs, and was vice-chairman of the Arizona Young Democrats. In 1936, he entered the University of Arizona College of Law. He practiced law in Phoenix, and eventually became a Phoenix city magistrate. As an attorney, he won several civil rights cases for Mexican-Americans in Arizona, California, and Texas in the
1940s. He became a prominent civil rights lawyer after 1950, when he successfully challenged the segregation policies in Tolleson School District No. 17 in federal District Court. He was Supreme President of Alianza Hispano Americana, 1954-1962.
In 1956, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and in 1960, he was national coordinator for the Viva Kennedy Clubs. In 1962, President Kennedy appointed him as Mission Director for the Agency for International Development (AID) in Nicaragua, in charge of Alliance for Progress programs. He was praised by both Nicaraguan President Luis Somoza and from rebel opponents of the Nicaraguan goverment. In 1964, he returned to Phoenix to practice law with his sons. He was a member of Los Abogados and LULAC. In 1923 wiffe was Ruby, not Rafaela.
He was the father of three sons who were also lawyers.
Lived on 1st Street in East Tempe in 1910.
BIO-Estrada
Federal census (Tempe), 1900, 1910
TDN, 26 Apr 1971
Ralph Estrada obit, Phx Gaz, 5 Oct 1979
Ralph Estrada obit, TDN, 5 Oct 1979
Pete Estrada obit, TDN, 11 Jul 1980
Solliday, Journey to Rio Salado, pp. 119-120 Tempe CD 1923
Person TypeIndividual
