Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by Christine Honders

Author:Christine Honders
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc

RODOLFO “CORKY” GONZALES

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales was an important leader of the Chicano movement. After a career as a boxer, he became interested in politics. He ran for state representative in Colorado and lost, then worked on voter registration during John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He was very successful and registered more Mexican Americans in Colorado than had ever been registered before.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty legislation, or laws, passed in 1964, Gonzales took a job as director of the Denver’s War on Poverty office. In 1966, he established the Crusade for Justice in Denver, which provided jobs, healthcare, and legal services for Mexican Americans. He also marched with the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968. He wrote the poem I Am Joaquin, which came to represent the spirit of the Chicano movement.

This is a section from the poem I Am Joaquin: “I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, caught up in the whirl of a gringo [white] society, confused by the rules . . . and destroyed by modern society.”

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