Jennie Morales wasn't always calm and she wasn't always polite.
She was an outspoken community activist who, for decades, campaigned on behalf of her South Side neighborhood and Hispanics living in Tucson.
Morales advocated for equal employment opportunities and better housing. She served on more than a dozen councils and boards. She ran for City Council and for mayor. And she helped establish several organizations to promote Mexican-American culture and unity.
All as a single, working mother.
"She always told me she was up for the challenge because she knew that so many Mexican-Americans were not being well-represented," said her son, Michael Lopez. "So she wanted to make sure the Hispanic community was well-represented in City Hall on local issues."
Morales was a dedicated advocate for more than 40 years. Friend and fellow advocate Ann Montaño said it was her purpose for living.
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In the end, Morales perhaps gave too much of herself to others. For years she'd suffered from health problems, including lupus. She had open-heart surgery in 2004. And she never quite recovered from a 2007 stroke, suffered after losing her childhood home on Kroeger Lane in a predatory lending scheme.
Morales was living in a Tucson nursing home when she died of pneumonia June 20, four days shy of her 71st birthday.
Morales was born in Lordsburg, N.M., as her parents were traveling from El Paso to Tucson for work. She was the youngest of seven children and the only girl.
Interest in helping others was instilled by her mother, Morales said in a 1972 Arizona Daily Star article: "My mother would give away her last penny. She taught us it is in giving that we receive."
Morales was recognized by the Mexican-American Unity Council that same year for her efforts to establish a cultural center — one of many awards she would receive during her career — and she made a spirited but unsuccessful run for a seat on the Pima Community College Board of Governors. In the interim, she was instrumental in getting the dusty streets paved and lighting installed in her neighborhood between "A" Mountain and the freeway.
In 1975, and again in '79, Morales waged campaigns for the Ward 1 seat on the City Council. She was unsuccessful in those elections and in her later run for mayor, yet she was a surprisingly viable contender. She was a political neophyte who launched a door-to-door drive in search of support without taking any campaign funds or spending any money.
In a 1975 Tucson Citizen article, Morales was billed as the "barrio candidate." Her emphasis was on how campaign issues affected the people in her ward: "I may be too much of a humanitarian to be in politics, but I'd like to try."
Her interests ranged from crime reduction, urban renewal, water contamination and equal employment opportunities to improving living conditions and education.
Her first action for change came in 1965, when she picketed the state employment services and the governor's office to get Mexican-Americans hired. In those early years, she was a member of President Richard Nixon's Interagency for Mexican-American Affairs.
"It took years of working behind the scenes for politicians to start paying attention to Mexican-Americans," she said in 1972.
Henry M. Vega Sr. worked on a number of causes with Morales.
"She was quite an advocate. She was always fighting for her neighborhood, primarily, and for the government to help with the programs to better the community. Politically, she was very involved and very outspoken. She was trying to help the cause for the underdog, and she would take care of herself last," Vega said.
"Jennie was quite a fighter; she didn't take too much bull from the fathers. Pobrecita (Poor little girl), she just let herself go for the cause."
As her ailments took their toll in recent years, "she had to let go a little bit, but she was still that fighter," her son said. "She was trying to stay as active as she could."
For decades, Morales organized a holiday party for children in her neighborhood who might otherwise have no Christmas, and a December Mass at the foot of "A" Mountain for the Virgin of Guadalupe, Montaño said. Each Independence Day, on behalf of the Mexican-American Unity Council, she honored local unsung heroes for their good works.
"She spent her life commemorating what other people did," Montaño said.
Mac Hudson met Morales when he was president of the Menlo Park Neighborhood Association, which once included in its boundaries Morales' home on Kroeger Lane. He admired her passion but said her zeal could be misunderstood by those who didn't know her.
"She was very fiery. You knew where you stood with her right away," Hudson said. "When you first met her, she could be a bit caustic . . . but she wasn't coming from an angry place. She could get angry because she got fired up, but it really came from a place of love."
the series
This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories.
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