Blackwell Reference Online

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The former leader of the Poor People's Party (Partido de los Pobres, PDLP), teacher Lucio Cabañas Barrientos was born in Atoyac de Álvarez on December 12, 1938 and killed in combat against the Mexican army in Tecpan de Galeana on December 2, 1974, both villages located in the southern state of Guerrero, Mexico. Cabañas participated in a number of political movements. In addition to the PDLP, in which he worked with Octavino Santiago, Félix Bautista, Serafín Núñez, César Núñez Ramos, Inocencio Castro, and Jacob Nájera, he was active in the Communist Party (PC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (Movimiento de Acción Revolucionaria, MAR), the Revolutionary Teachers' Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario del Magisterio, MRM), with Othón Salazar, and the Guerrero Civic Association (Asociación Cívica Guerrerense, ACG), with Genaro Vázquez Rojas, in which he lead the Atoyac branch. The regional director of the public education ministry sent Cabañas and Serafín Núñez to the northern state of Durango, where they organized protests. On their return to Guerrero, after several attempts at being recognized as a political organization, the ACG became the PDLP. On May 18, 1967, as secretary of section 14 of the teachers' union, Cabañas led a protest when the head of an elementary school in Atoyac de Álvarez asked poor students for extra money. The protest became a massacre, for which the Guerrero ... log in or subscribe to read full text