Rodolfo Gonzales

Rodolfo Gonzales (born June 18, 1928, Denver, Colorado, U.S.—died April 12, 2005, Denver) Mexican American boxer, writer, and civil rights activist who was a leading figure in the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and ’70s. Because of his prowess as a boxer, he was known as the “fist” of the movement.

Gonzales’s mother died when he was two years old, and his father raised him and his siblings. The family was poor, and Rodolfo often helped his father, a migrant worker, in the sugar beet fields. He earned the nickname “Corky” after his uncle commented on his personality, saying that he was “always popping off like a cork.” In 1944 Gonzales graduated from high school, and he subsequently enrolled at the University of Denver, hoping to pursue a degree in engineering. However, due to financial issues, he left after one semester.

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Meanwhile, Gonzales had begun training as a boxer in 1944. He won several important amateur competitions, and in 1947 he turned professional, fighting in the featherweight division. He had a successful career, retiring in 1955 with a record of 65 wins, 9 losses, and 1 tie.

Gonzales entered the business world, first opening a neighbourhood bar and then a bail bonds establishment. He also became politically active, dedicating his time to helping poor Chicanos. In the 1950s and ’60s he ran unsuccessfully for several political offices, including on the Denver City Council and in the Colorado state legislature. He also lost bids to become a state senator and the mayor of Denver. In 1960 he campaigned for John F. Kennedy’s presidential run and worked to attract Chicano voters to the Democratic Party. In 1965 the mayor of Denver appointed Gonzales director of the local chapter of the Neighborhood Youth Corps, which provided job training for poor and underprivileged young people. However, he was fired the following year after he organized a protest against a newspaper for printing racist remarks about Chicanos.

In 1966 Gonzales founded the organization Crusade for Justice. Until its demise in the mid-1970s, the group offered the Chicano community such benefits as job training, a food bank, and a bilingual school for children that encouraged cultural pride. Crusade for Justice also protested against police brutality, racism in the media, and employment discrimination. In 1969 the group helped Denver high-school students organize a walkout when the school administration failed to fire a teacher who had used racist language.

Crusade for Justice also joined other civil rights organizations in national movements. The group notably participated in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Poor People’s Campaign, which culminated in a demonstration in Washington, D.C., in 1968. Protesters—who included African Americans, whites, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans—demanded that the government address the employment and housing problems of the poor throughout the United States. In addition, Gonzales joined Cesar Chavez, who had helped organize poor farm labourers into the powerful National Farm Workers Association, in marches and demonstrations.

Throughout his life Gonzales wrote about Chicano experiences. His document “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán” (“The Spiritual Plan of Aztlán”) encouraged Chicanos to strive for economic, cultural, and political freedom and, ultimately, self-determination. (Aztlán refers to the ancestral land of the Aztecs that the United States annexed from Mexico under the treaty ending the Mexican-American War in 1848.) The First National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference, which Crusade for Justice hosted in 1969, chose the plan as the Chicano Movement’s manifesto. Gonzales is perhaps best known, however, for the epic poem I Am Joaquín (Yo Soy Joaquín), which was published in both English and Spanish in 1967. Its narrator discusses Mexican and Mexican American history and outlines the struggles that Chicanos have endured in their quest for a cultural identity and equal rights.