Dancers, politicians and everyday people sang and chanted as they memorialized Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales during a march across Denver on Sunday morning.

Gonzales, a world-ranked professional boxer, firebrand Chicano activist and internationally known champion for human rights, died Tuesday at his home in Denver. He was 76.

Gonzales, a contemporary of César Chávez and Martin Luther King Jr., would have enjoyed the crowd that whooped and chanted with little encouragement, friends and family said.

"My father could walk the halls of power, but he loved to sit down with common people," said his son, Rudy Gonzales.

At least 2,000 people - friends, family, fans and protégés - marched 3.5 miles in two hours, from Escuela Tlatelolco, the school Gonzales founded in the West Highland neighborhood, to Curtis Park near downtown Denver.

Colorado U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, U.S. Rep. John Salazar of Manassa and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper were among an all-star list of Democratic politicians in attendance.

Ken Salazar said Gonzales preached equality for everyone.

"He was a champion for inclusion," said Salazar, a 20-year friend of Gonzales. "He fought to ensure that the Hispanic community had a voice."

Thirty members of the Grupo Tlaloc dance troupe sang and danced Sunday in Aztec ceremonial garb - loincloths, sashes, sprawling feathered headdresses and body paint.

"Corky Gonzales is a respected figure for all our people," said the troupe's leader, Carlos Castaneda. "He inspired people to follow the traditions of their ancestors, to find their roots."

But Gonzales' influence extended beyond his race, said Rick VanWie, co-chairman of the Denver Green Party, who pushed a stroller toting his dozing 3-year-old son, Joseph.

"Corky not only made an important contribution to the Chicano community but to all of us," VanWie said. "He set an example for all of us to stand up against what's wrong and make a change."

In the 1960s, Gonzales founded an urban civil-rights movement.

He backed student walkouts and protests over police brutality and the Vietnam War.

He wrote the epic Chicano poem "I Am Joaquin" in 1967 and led Chicanos in the 1968 Poor People's March on Washington, where he delivered his "Plan of the Barrio," calling for better housing, schools and Chicano businesses.

In 1969, he organized the first Chicano Youth Liberation Conference, a national effort to instill self-determination.

A few blocks from Escuela Tlatelolco, where the march began, 21-year-old Eladio Lucero smoked cigarettes on his mother's porch.

He works as a mechanic part time.

He had not heard of the march, or of Corky Gonzales.

"If he's for equality for all us, I'm for that," said Lucero, who is Latino, after hearing an explanation. "But it looks to me like we have a long way to go."

© 2005 by Denver Post

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