Activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales was born in Denver where he graduated from Manual High School at age 16. After three years as an amateur boxer, Gonzales turned pro and was rated the number three featherweight in the world. Mayor Thom Currigan appointed him “Director of Denver Neighborhood Youth Corps,” a position from which he was later fired for being a “troublemaker,” a moniker which Gonzales was proud to claim as his own. His epic poem, “Yo Soy Joaquin,” published by Bantam Books in 1967, became the rallying cry for the Crusade for Justice, a Chicano social movement he founded in 1965. A branch library on West Colfax Avenue in Denver was named in his honor.
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