Samuel Martinez - Oakland

Samuel Martinez Helping out the Chicano Revolutionary PartyTeatro Triste Chicano Theater group Samuel Martinez is on the floorSamuel Martinez Today. He is an Aztec Danzante (Danzer)

Samuel Martinez (born March 26, 1950) is a part of the history in Oaklandʼs Fruitvale district. He is therapist, healer, social justice worker, activist, writer, traditional dancer and Chicano Radical. During the Native American Urban Relocation program of the 1950s, he and his mother were relocated from the State of Colorado to the Oakland housing projects where they faced racial inequalities and discrimination, which he says have “made him stronger.”

After refusing to join the Vietnam War, at 18 years old he became an anti-war activist and joined the La Raza Unida Moratorium Committee and helped organize the Oakland Chicano Moratorium that took place on July 26th, 1970. As a parent and organizer he helped create El Centro Infantil de La Raza and served on the board of directors.

As a Chicano Radical in the late 1960ʼs and Early 70ʼs Samuel Martinez Helped out the Chicano Revolutionary Party (CRP) were he did work with them in there Free Breakfast Program in Jingletown at Mary Help of Christian Church and also sold copies of their newspaper, La Chispa. Mr Martinez was also Part of a Chicano Theater Group Called Teatro Triste which did Local Theater dealing with Issues in the Chicano Latino Community in Oakland.

Martinez is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who contributed to the creation of a mental health department at La Clinica de la Raza. He refers to himself as a “Social Justice Healer offering a Traditional Healing Praxis.” His praxis began with his motherʼs traditional teachings of healing and in 1977 he incorporated the theories of Paulo Freireʼs pedagogy of the oppressed. In 1971 La Clinica de La Raza was established in the Fruitvale district in order to provide accessible health care for the neighborhoodʼs Latino population. La Clinica opened its first mental health site named Casa Del Sol in 1978.

In his backyard, Martinez leads community TemesCalliʼs or Sweat Lodges for family and extended family alike. Martinez says that the meaning of TemesCalli stems from “Calli” which means home and “Teme or tema is in a prayerful way.” He says that the prayer lodge is “the creation story in our five senses because we are beings of the five senses.”

As an author he has published several books including The Indian Dream: Surviving the American Holocaust and America and The Sounds of Silenced Survivors: Surviving Americaʼs Campaign to “Kill the Indian, Save the Child.”

During the late 1990ʼs and early 2000ʼs his son, Manuel Martinez, became a local Chicano rapper who went by the name MC Man who made several albums. He made songs with Local Oakland Rappers like Richie Rich.

(this is primarily copy/paste from another source, need permission)