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Corky was a Chicano boxer, business man, poet, and most famously known as an activist in the Chicano movement. He was the founder of Crusade for Justice, which was a community based organization advocating for social change for the Latinx community.

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To sum up the history of Chicano Park, after the the city demolished homes in a successful Mexican American community to build a highway, the community was promised a park under the bridge (compensation for ruining their neighborhoods). The city went back on this promise, so the community occupied under the bridge. Corky is speaking in celebration of the victory of Chicano Park.

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Corky Gonzales at 30th Annual Chicano Park Day

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The impact that Corky had on the Chicano movement was large. He really understood the struggle and wanted the best for the Mexican American community. Like the artist said in the video, his work has helped many Chicanos with their identities and understanding its make up.

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Behind the Doodle: Celebrating Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales

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(1972) "Radical Shit" - Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales at the La Raza Unida Convention in Texas

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During this speech, Corky is addressing systemic racism. He was trying to get the community to confront it. He wanted the community to begin organizing because even if they hadn't understood they were victims of the system, the time would come where they would face it.

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(1972) "Radical Shit" Snippet - Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales at the La Raza Unida Convention in Texas

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I made this meme to segway into the famous poem. Rodolfo Gonzales got the nickname Corky from his uncle, claiming he was always popping off like a cork. Joaquín comes from his famous poem where he describes the identity struggles that Chicanos experience.

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Not everyone was a fan of Corkys activist style. The militant style of activism was something that the Mexican community had looked down on for so long. Emma Tenayuca adopted this style of activism in the 1930s and was exiled for it...well that and her involvement with the communist party.

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Should a library in Denver be named after the late Chicano activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales? No

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Should a library in Denver be named after the late Chicano activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales? No

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"They go out into the gringo land and they never come back"

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"They go out into the gringo land and they never come back"

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Not only was it important to advocate for Chicanos to receive higher education, it was also important to remind them to not abandon their community if they make it out. Corky emphasized how important it is to bring your education back to your community, that is how it progresses.

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This iconic poem helps recognize the struggles Mexican Americans face when it comes to their identity and sense of belonging. It describes the history of colonization and its effects. The ending of the poem is a statement of, in my opinion, not assimilating and instead embracing the Chicano identity as a make up of multiple cultures and periods of history. -Colonized - indigenous - American

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I Am Joaquin
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Yo soy Joaquín,
perdido en un mundo de confusión:
I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion,
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society.
My fathers have lost the economic battle
and won the struggle of cultural survival.
And now! I must choose between the paradox of
victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach.
Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success....
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life --
MY OWN PEOPLE
I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble,
leader of men, king of an empire civilized
beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés,
who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas.
I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot
And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization.
I owned the land as far as the eye
could see under the Crown of Spain,
and I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood
for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and
beast and all that he could trample
But...THE GROUND WAS MINE.
I was both tyrant and slave.
As the Christian church took its place in God's name,
to take and use my virgin strength and trusting faith,
the priests, both good and bad, took--
but gave a lasting truth that Spaniard Indian Mestizo
were all God's children.
And from these words grew men who prayed and fought
for their own worth as human beings, for that
GOLDEN MOMENT of FREEDOM.
I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest
Hidalgo who in the year eighteen hundred and ten
rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry--
El Grito de Dolores
"Que mueran los gachupines y que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe...."
I sentenced him who was me I excommunicated him, my blood.
I drove him from the pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me....
I killed him.
His head, which is mine and of all those
who have come this way,
I placed on that fortress wall
to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero!
all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made.
I died with them ... I lived with them .... I lived to see our country free.
Free from Spanish rule in eighteen-hundred-twenty-one.
Mexico was free??
The crown was gone but all its parasites remained,
and ruled, and taught, with gun and flame and mystic power.
I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed,
and waited silently for life to begin again.
I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution.
I was he on dusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives
as Moses did his sacraments.
He held his Mexico in his hand on
the most desolate and remote ground which was his country.
And this giant little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth
of his country's land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers.
I am Joaquin.
I rode with Pancho Villa,
crude and warm, a tornado at full strength,
nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earthy people.
I am Emiliano Zapata.
"This land, this earth is OURS."
The villages, the mountains, the streams
belong to Zapatistas.
Our life or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maize.
All of which is our reward,
a creed that formed a constitution
for all who dare live free!
"This land is ours . . .
Father, I give it back to you.
Mexico must be free. . . ."
I ride with revolutionists
against myself.
I am the Rurales,
coarse and brutal,
I am the mountian Indian,
superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamala
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español.
I have been the bloody revolution,
The victor,
The vanquished.
I have killed
And been killed.
I am the despots Díaz
And Huerta
And the apostle of democracy,
Francisco Madero.
I am
The black-shawled
Faithfulwomen
Who die with me
Or live
Depending on the time and place.
I am faithful, humble Juan Diego,
The Virgin of Guadalupe,
Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.
I rode east and north
As far as the Rocky Mountains,
And
All men feared the guns of
Joaquín Murrieta.
I killed those men who dared
To steal my mine,
Who raped and killed my love
My wife.
Then I killed to stay alive.
I was Elfego Baca,
living my nine lives fully.
I was the Espinoza brothers
of the Valle de San Luis.
All were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization
were placed on the wall of independence, heads of brave men
who died for cause or principle, good or bad.
Hidalgo! Zapata!
Murrieta! Espinozas!
Are but a few.
They dared to face
The force of tyranny
Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy.
I stand here looking back,
And now I see the present,
And still I am a campesino,
I am the fat political coyote–
I,
Of the same name,
Joaquín,
In a country that has wiped out
All my history,
Stifled all my pride,
In a country that has placed a
Different weight of indignity upon my age-old burdened back.
Inferiority is the new load . . . .
The Indian has endured and still
Emerged the winner,
The Mestizo must yet overcome,
And the gachupín will just ignore.
I look at myself
And see part of me
Who rejects my father and my mother
And dissolves into the melting pot
To disappear in shame.
I sometimes
Sell my brother out
And reclaim him
For my own when society gives me
Token leadership
In society's own name.
I am Joaquín,
Who bleeds in many ways.
The altars of Moctezuma
I stained a bloody red.
My back of Indian slavery
Was stripped crimson
From the whips of masters
Who would lose their blood so pure
When revolution made them pay,
Standing against the walls of retribution.
Blood has flowed from me on every battlefield between
campesino, hacendado,
slave and master and revolution.
I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec
into the sea of fame–
my country's flag
my burial shroud–
with Los Niños,
whose pride and courage
could not surrender
with indignity
their country's flag
to strangers . . . in their land.
Now I bleed in some smelly cell from club or gun or tyranny.
I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger
Cut my face and eyes,
As I fight my way from stinking barrios
To the glamour of the ring
And lights of fame
Or mutilated sorrow.
My blood runs pure on the ice-caked
Hills of the Alaskan isles,
On the corpse-strewn beach of Normandy,
The foreign land of Korea
And now Vietnam.
Here I stand
Before the court of justice,
Guilty
For all the glory of my Raza
To be sentenced to despair.
Here I stand,
Poor in money,
Arrogant with pride,
Bold with machismo,
Rich in courage
And
Wealthy in spirit and faith.
My knees are caked with mud.
My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich,
Yet
Equality is but a word–
The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken
And is but another threacherous promise.
My land is lost
And stolen,
My culture has been raped.
I lengthen the line at the welfare door
And fill the jails with crime.
These then are the rewards
This society has
For sons of chiefs
And kings
And bloody revolutionists,
Who gave a foreign people
All their skills and ingenuity
To pave the way with brains and blood
For those hordes of gold-starved strangers,
Who
Changed our language
And plagiarized our deeds
As feats of valor
Of their own.
They frowned upon our way of life
and took what they could use.
Our art, our literature, our music, they ignored–
so they left the real things of value
and grabbed at their own destruction
by their greed and avarice.
They overlooked that cleansing fountain of
nature and brotherhood
which is Joaquín.
The art of our great señores,
Diego Rivera,
Siqueiros,
Orozco, is but another act of revolution for
the salvation of mankind.
Mariachi music, the heart and soul
of the people of the earth,
the life of the child,
and the happiness of love.
The corridos tell the tales
of life and death,
of tradition,
legends old and new, of joy
of passion and sorrow
of the people–who I am.
I am in the eyes of woman,
sheltered beneath
her shawl of black,
deep and sorrowful eyes
that bear the pain of sons long buried or dying,
dead on the battlefield or on the barbed wire of social strife.
Her rosary she prays and fingers endlessly
like the family working down a row of beets
to turn around and work and work.
There is no end.
Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth
and all the love for me,
and I am her
and she is me.
We face life together in sorrow,
anger, joy, faith and wishful
thoughts.
I shed the tears of anguish
as I see my children disappear
behind the shroud of mediocrity,
never to look back to remember me.
I am Joaquín.
I must fight
and win this struggle
for my sons, and they
must know from me
who I am.
Part of the blood that runs deep in me
could not be vanquished by the Moors.
I defeated them after five hundred years,
and I have endured.
Part of the blood that is mine
has labored endlessly four hundred
years under the heel of lustful
Europeans.
I am still here!

I have endured in the rugged mountains
Of our country
I have survived the toils and slavery of the fields.
I have existed
In the barrios of the city
In the suburbs of bigotry
In the mines of social snobbery
In the prisons of dejection
In the muck of exploitation
And
In the fierce heat of racial hatred.
And now the trumpet sounds,
The music of the people stirs the
Revolution.
Like a sleeping giant it slowly
Rears its head
To the sound of
Tramping feet
Clamoring voices
Mariachi strains
Fiery tequila explosions
The smell of chile verde and
Soft brown eyes of expectation for a
Better life.
And in all the fertile farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.
La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
Chicano!
Or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
And
Sing the same.
I am the masses of my people and
I refuse to be absorbed.
I am Joaquín.
The odds are great
But my spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

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Corky spoke out against the war in Vietnam and was a part of the 1970 anti-war demonstration in East LA. He was one of many to be arrested.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-25/chicano-movement-generation-in-search-of-its-legacy?_gl=1*dzo3n0*_gcl_au*OTI5Mjg2NS4xNzQxNzE2OTQ2

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It seems that Rudy Gonzales keeps Corkys legacy alive through his work with Servicios de la Raza. Even continuing to quote his fathers famous poem.

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Chicano school created by Crusade for Justice

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Chicano school created by Crusade for Justice

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Escuela Tlatelolco was a bilingual school in Denver for Chicano children that promoted empowerment and cultural pride. It was the location of the First Annual  Chicano Youth Conference. This is where El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan was created which has been known to be the manifesto for the Chicano movement.

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In order to fully embrace our vision and mission, students are surrounded in a prepared learning environment embraced by Escuela Tlatelolco’s Four Educational Cornerstones:

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Rudy, Corky's son, followed in his father's footsteps of activism and helping the Latinx community. He is the CEO of Servicios de la Raza. They provide services and supports for the community. Members of Crusade for Justice helped with the founding of this organization, which is so cool to me that Corkys organization's members helped create an organization his son is now CEO of.

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From the moment we opened our doors, every day has been spent in dedicated service of our mission to provide and advocate for culturally responsive, essential human services and opportunities to our community.

As an organization founded by those MOST impacted by social and economic challenges plaguing our communities, Servicios de La Raza embraces and welcome ALL with open arms.

Servicios de La Raza serves as an integral chamber in the heart of Metro Denver's Latinx community. Our trusted hands are an accessible community resource, strategically linked with churches, schools, and myriad private, public sector agencies in a collaborative effort weaving an unbreakable web of support for the community.

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From the moment we opened our doors, every day has been spent in dedicated service of our mission to provide and advocate for culturally responsive, essential human services and opportunities to our community.

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Before he became an activist, Corky took up boxing as a way to make money. He boxed from 1947-1955.

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Despite the many critics saying he was an inciter of violence, the library commission did name a library branch after Corky. I think his daughter Nita is right, defending yourself from police violence is not inciting violence. Defending community does not equal inciting violence.

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<p>(Photo: Courtesy Nita Gonzales)</p>

In some ways, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales was an unlikely leader of the Chicano movement in Colorado. He was a college dropout and a Golden Gloves boxer.

But Gonzales was also drawn to books. They fueled his writing and speeches, which inspired countless people in the era of Denver's Crusade for Justice, part of the Chicano "Movimiento" of the 1960s and 1970s.

Given Gonzales' love for the written word, it seems fitting that a new branch library on Denver's Irving Street, just off West Colfax Avenue, bears his name. The branch opened Feb. 28. But what would he have thought about that?

"He would have protested first and said, 'Um, hmm...,'" says his eldest daughter, Nita Gonzales. "He never wanted that."

Nita Gonzales has followed in her father's footsteps as a community activist. She has been recognized as a White House Champion of Change, and now runs a school her father helped found, Escuela Tlatelolco, a nationally recognized model for Chicano, Mexicano, and indigenous education in Denver.

Public comments solicited by the Library Commission overwhelming supported Gonzales' name for the branch, though the process also re-ignited an old conflict. Among the several people who expressed opposition to naming the library for Gonzales was David O'Shea-Dawkins, a retired Denver police sergeant. He recalled being injured during a shootout in 1973. He claims that Gonzales had a legacy of supporting people who resorted to violence.

"Unless history is to be rewritten, Rodolfo Gonzales was not the champion of the rights of Hispanics," O'Shea-Dawkins wrote. "In the final analysis his leadership was divisive and his cabal of youthful bullies intimidated anyone who would not agree with their methods. His righteous beginnings were a wasted opportunity after he chose to support violence to reach his goals."

O'Shea-Dawkins could not be reached for comment. Accounts of the March 17, 1973, shootout he referenced are contested by Gonzales' supporters. In incident involved officers, an explosion at a Crusade for Justice Office near East Colfax Avenue and Downing Street in Denver, and the death of activist Luis Jr. Martinez. Read O'Shea-Dawkins' account here, reprinted by The Denver Post.

Nita Gonzales responding to the retired police sergeant's letter to the Library Commission
"That, to me, is hogwash. You're talking about police interaction with community now? It was 10 times worse then. And when you talk about violence, I will tell you this: Not once in any rally, in any march, in any time I was with my father, did he advocate us to be violent.

"We always were taught to defend ourselves. I will not deny that, but we were living in a time when you all should remember as well where students at Kent [State] were shot down; where people in the South disappeared and were killed and murdered for standing up. This was not at the hands of those people nor here in Denver did the Crusade ever, at its rallies, at its marches, advocate that, but we did defend our people.

"What [the retired police sergeant] is talking about is March 17, 1973, and what I recall is that our building was blown up and Luis Jr. Martinez was left dead. I'm sorry. That's hogwash in my mind. I absolutely would suggest, no, encourage people: learn the history of that time. And here we are now, in 2015, still dealing with this kind of interaction with police and community."
On her father's popular poem, "Yo soy Joaquín" ("I Am Joaquín")
"I think you need to understand that in that time, in his time, in his era, where was he ever going to learn about who he was? How would he ever be able to read or hear someone talk about his people's history, their contributions? You couldn't find that anywhere.

"He was like an archaeologist. He was out there kind of digging and trying to find this history, this truth, this place that people need to have in the world. And so, the poem was the end result of this digging -- of his dig, his historical cultural-political dig. And it also was a way for him to give voice to, 'We maybe look this way or are known this way, but we are this.'

"It was also awakening for him around that indigenous part of who we are because you recognize that in that time more people were embarrassed and shamed to be anything but maybe Spaniard or Spanish-American -- definitely not Mexican. That was lower. And then, oh, definitely not indigenous. And that was on both sides of the border and he wanted to speak out against that because that's exactly who we were. So he was trying to give us a sense of pride, a sense of place, a sense of geography, a sense of history that until that time we had no knowledge of and clearly wouldn't read in any school history books."
On what her father would say about a library named for him
"Mayors and other individuals had asked him about that -- a park or a street or something. And that's not something he wanted or aspired to. But I think this place, because of what it is, what it allows -- it's open, it's free to the public, it's where no matter what your income status is you can go in and you can use computers and you can read and you can have story time. He would have been humbled by that, I believe."

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Corky Gonzales' legacy highlighted as Denver names library for him | Colorado Public Radio

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Denver Chicano activist might have protested that a library branch would be named for him, his eldest daughter says. For some, the library process re-ignited some old divisions.

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This video gives insight and first hand accounts to the massive protest in East LA that Corky was a part of.