Mendoza, Margot

Margot Mendoza is an integral part of McLean County’s active grassroots community. From Human Rights to education and the arts, she considers it her life’s vocation to stand up for equality and fair treatment of all people.

Margot was as born in Kansas City, Kansas on July 8, 1934 during The Great Depression. She has traced her family’s Mexican-American roots back to her ancestors’ arrival in North America during the 15th century. Her father’s family traveled to the Midwest with the Santa Fe Railroad during the early 1900s.

Multiple run-ins with racism and discrimination during her youth in Kansas have influenced Margot’s fight for equality.  She grew up in a community with “separate but equal” schools, segregated movie theaters and restaurants that refused to serve minorities.  Margot persevered and not only graduated from high school, but went on to study sociology and graduate from Baker University in 1956.

Margot and her husband, Manny, and their three children arrived in Bloomington in October of 1973 when Manny was promoted at State Farm. She quickly found a comfortable place among fellow patrons of the arts and Margot introduced a new dynamic of diversity among community leaders at a time of limited opportunities for minorities in McLean County. She became president of both the Bloomington-Normal Symphony Guild and the McLean County Arts Council. Margot also served as secretary of the McLean County Arts Association and is on the Community Advisory Panel for the College of Fine Arts at Illinois State University. She and Manny are lifetime members of the McLean County Historical Society and helped with the Museum’s Latino History Project.

Margot says she uses her sociology degree every day, because it helps her figure out people and how to advocate for change. The best example of this would be her dedicated work with the Advocacy Council for Human Rights (now the Prairie Pride Coalition) when the city councils of Bloomington and Normal debated Human Rights ordinances to ban housing discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation. Despite some public push back, both councils approved the change. She has been an active volunteer with the organization for more than 15 years, advocating for lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender rights in McLean County and establishing the annual LGBT Film Fest at the Normal Theater.

Margot has been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union for more than two decades, serving on the local steering committee and connecting its many Central Illinois partners including the Urban League of McLean County, Minority Advocacy Council of Bloomington, Bloomington Coalition for the Advancement of Human Rights, McLean County AIDS Task Force, the Bloomington chapter of the NAACP, McLean County Democratic Women and Latinos Unidos of Normal.

She considers her marriage her most important equal partnership. Margot says her high-level of community service couldn’t happen if Manny didn’t support her passion.