THE GIANT AWAKENS: FAKE-DRUG CASE JOLTS DALLAS LATINOS

Watch closely. We are witnessing history in the making. After all, it's not
every day that hundreds of Latinos march on Dallas City Hall to make their
voices heard.

Yet that is what happened Sunday when hundreds of protesters gathered to
register outrage over the fake drug scandal and demand that the city punish
those responsible, as well as put in place safeguards so that such abuse of
power never occurs again.

The March for Justice Rally was organized by the League of United Latin
American Citizens and two dozen other local organizations in the Dallas
metro area. It was in reaction to the recent "not guilty" verdict in what
has been the only criminal trial related to the scandal. It also was in
reaction to the fact that dozens of people were illegally imprisoned in the
scandal two years ago and that to date not a single person has been held
accountable.

These injustices have stirred a community that has long been considered
dormant.

The Latino population in the United States has been dubbed the "Sleeping
Giant" because of its inability to transform extraordinary population
growth into political and civic power. The same goes in Dallas County,
where in the 1990s the Latino population grew 110 percent to total about 40
percent of the county population. Even with those numerical gains, however,
Latinos often have been criticized for being too passive and not doing
enough to take control of their own destiny.

Now a group of them has taken to the streets. And in so doing, they've laid
claim to a proud American tradition. Civil disobedience is as old - older
even - than the nation itself. Without renegade colonials dumping crates of
tea into Boston Harbor, there would have been no independence from Great
Britain. From Henry David Thoreau to the Rev. Martin Luther King to Cesar
Chavez, those Americans who are willing to fight the good fight for social
justice often have turned to direct action to advance the cause.

In a perfect world, there would be no need for protest. But then again, it
is hard to imagine how, without it, the reformers could ever make the world
a better place.