Dionicio Morales

Dionicio Morales (1918, Yuma, Arizona – September 24, 2008, Beverly Hospital, Montebello, California) was a Latino civil rights leader and social entrepreneur. Morales was the founder of the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation (MAOF), the largest Hispanic nonprofit in the nation. He spent his life fighting segregation and prejudice in the United States. His abilities to work with corporate and political leaders opened the doors and jobs for thousands of Latinos in the U.S. His personal relationship with President Lyndon Johnson allowed MOAF to win significant civil rights victories for Latinos. His civil rights activism earned him recognition as “an urban Cesar Chavez” and social entrepreneur. He worked tirelessly inspiring several new generation of Mexican American business and political leaders as he pursued his vision of a U.S.A. where all Latinos have equal opportunities in education and the workplace.

Morales was awarded an Ohtli Award in 1997 from the Mexican government for his work in activism and MAOF. In 1998, Morales wrote his autobiography, Dionicio Morales: A Life in Two Cultures, where he described his family's migration from Mexico and their fight against poverty and discrimination in the United States.

Morales studied at Santa Barbara State Teacher's College and became a compliance officer with the Bracero program, which brought Mexican workers to the U.S. to labor in the fields and factories depleted of workers by the war effort. It was here he first met Cesar Chavez. He went on to work as a probation officer for Mexican American youth and later a labor organizer in East Los Angeles. His years in East L.A. helped lay the groundwork for the formation of what would become the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in 1963. In 1978, Morales became the first Mexican American, through MOAF, to be the recipient of a million-dollar government contract.