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Urban civil rights and
Chicano cultural movement leader Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez died from
complications of congestive heart failure at the age of 76 on April 12, 2005, at his home in Denver.
Many know Gonzalez best as
the author of the 1965 epic poem about the Mexican and Chicano
struggle, “I am Joaquin / Yo soy Joaquin.” In
1966, he founded Denver’s Crusade for Justice
(CFJ), a Chicano nationalist organization whose political lessons point
the way forward for the struggle for justice and freedom today.
Gonzalez’ fighting spirit
was nurtured at an early age by his father, who related personal
stories of serving in Pancho Villa’s army
during the 1910 Mexican Revolution. In 1947 he began a successful
boxing career.
After hanging up his gloves
in 1957, Gonzalez continued work in the political arena that he had
begun in the late 1940s. A quick rise within Denver Democratic Party
campaigns led to the top spot in the national party’s 1960 “Viva Kennedy”
campaign.
While administrator of the
Neighborhood Youth Corps (NYC), a jobs program for Denver youth, the Rocky Mountain
News attacked him for saying that lower-income Chicano youth should
have first priority for jobs. The next day, Gonzalez called for a
boycott and picketed the paper. That crossed the line of acceptable
behavior within mainstream politics, and Mayor Currigan
fired Gonzalez from his NYC post in April 1966.
Neither a 1200-person rally
outside Denver’s Civic Center protesting Gonzalez’ firing nor a
year-long debate with Democratic city officials had the effect Gonzalez
was expecting—to pull the Democrats to the left so that they would
truly represent the interests of Denver’s poor and oppressed. His ties
to the Democrats and twin-party politics were not completely severed
until about 1967, though his actions the year before signaled that
break.
One indication of his
changed political outlook took place on Aug. 6, 1966, at a Vietnam antiwar rally in Denver. According to the records
of the FBI, which had begun to keep tabs on Gonzalez, he railed against
“ruthless financial lords of Wall Street,” who, Gonzalez said, “are the
only real recipients of the tremendous profits to be made by the
conduct of wanton, ruthless war.”
Crusade for Justice was an
expression of Chicano self-determination and radical nationalism during
the relatively favorable climate for social and political militancy of
the late 1960s. It was inspired by other struggles of the era,
including the antiwar movement and the emergence of the Black Panther
Party. Though primarily focused on the Chicano community in Denver, it supported struggles of
Chicanos, Latinos, and Puerto Ricans throughout the country and
internationally.
CFJ championed the struggle
of Chicanos who were demanding control of land within the southwestern United States, an area historically a
part of Mexico. Thus, they gave backing to Reies Lopez Tijerina’s 1966-67 Land Grant Movement in New
Mexico, which claimed that the U.S.
government had broken the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in
denying property to the Mexican inhabitants of the region.
In Denver, CFJ played a leading role
in the early 1970s in organizing Chicano community members to take
control of two parks that had become popular centers for cultural and
political events. CFJ, Brown Berets, and Black Berets worked together
to push back police repression in the parks.
When local Chicano high
school students demanded an end to faculty racism and genuine teaching
of Mexican history, CFJ helped them mobilize thousands for a “blowout”
in March 1969. The event involved more than 20 schools, community
members, various Chicano groups from local universities, and other
groups. The effect of the “blowout” awakened the consciousness of
Chicano youth, and suddenly CFJ’s ranks
filled with this new
generation of activists.
With the momentum of the
“blowout,” the first ever Chicano Youth Liberation Conference the same
month was a major success, with over 1500 Chicano, Latino, Puerto Rican
and even Black youths attending. The following year another youth
conference adopted a proposal to launch La Raza
Unida Party—an independent Chicano political
party—as a national party.
Though a LRUP National Convention
was held in 1972, national unification was never achieved among
relatively isolated chapters throughout California, Colorado, and Texas.
Should a mass, independent
national Chicano political party become a reality in the future, the
dynamics would dramatically shake twin-party capitalist politics and
give a strong political voice to Chicanos as both an oppressed
nationality and a large component of the working class.
“The truth is that both
parties, the Elite Republicans and the party of promises, the Democrats, … are ruled and controlled by money and
racism,” said Gonzalez in 1970. “The two-party system is one animal
with two heads eating out of the same trough. … Look around at our
politicos today and ask them … if they have done away with unemployment,
racism, discrimination, irrelevant education, police brutality,
political corruption, organized crime, do-nothing service agencies, bad
housing, high interest rates, and WAR.”
A memorial for Gonzalez took
place on April 17, with 2000 friends, family, and activists marching
from Escuela Tlatelolco
(an all-Chicano school started by CFJ in the early 1970s) to downtown Denver.
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