Community Leaders

Community Leaders Fought for Social Justice

CHamoru Activist

Eddie Leon Guerrero Benavente was a lifetime CHamoru activist leader, public servant, and educator. In the 1990s, Benavente became a founding member of Nasion Chamoru or Chamorro Nation with the organization’s first spokesperson, Angel Leon Guerrero Santos. From 1995-2003 Benavente served as Maga’låhi of Nasion Chamoru where he led the organization in advocating to enact the Chamorro Land Trust Act, as well as to establish the Guam Ancestral Land Commission and Commission on Decolonization. In 2003, Governor Felix P. Camacho appointed Benavente to be Executive Director of the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission and the Commission on Decolonization where he deeded hundreds of acres of ancestral land back to their original landowners. Benavente also served as a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School where he taught CHamoru language classes, as well as an adjunct faculty member teaching at the University of Guam and the Guam Community College where he taught Guam History courses.

Senator, activist, icon

Angel Anthony “Anghet” Leon Guerrero Santos III was a United States Air Force veteran, a former senator of the Guam Legislature, and an icon of CHamoru activism. Santos was elected as a Democratic senator in the 23rd, 24th and 26th Guam Legislatures where he fought for the implementation of the Chamorro Land Trust Act and the return of excess federal lands. In 1991, Santos became president of the newly formed United Chamorro Chelus for Independence and helped found the Nasion Chamoru (Chamorro Nation) where he served as the group’s first spokesperson. With his fellow members, Santos worked to increase awareness of CHamoru rights and engaged in several memorable protests, including sit-ins and marches at the Governor’s Complex in Adelup, and a hunger strike in 1995 over land rights. Santos was an advocate of social justice that epitomized the social and political activism in Guam’s recent history.