In the early morning hours of January 29, 1972, Rito Canales and Antonio Cordova were shot dead by police at a construction site in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Police alleged that, while attempting to steal dynamite, the two exchanged shots with officers, leaving both men fatally wounded. Almost fifty years later, the details of this incident are exasperatingly familiar: excessive use of deadly force by law enforcement, a dubious official account, and a city with an entrenched culture of discriminatory policing that provoked fear, anger, and mistrust among its Latinx residents.
Familiar, too, were the efforts of activists to confront and dismantle this system. As it happens, Canales and Cordova were both deeply involved in the Chicano movement as members of Las Gorras Negras (the Black Berets), a social justice organization emulating the militant ethos and style of the Brown Berets and the Black Panthers. Following the example of both organizations, the Black Berets published their own independent newspaper, Venceremos, where Cordova worked as a journalist and photographer.
Just several weeks later, and —perhaps the most prominent Chicano-movement paper in New Mexico—published a joint issue in memory of Canales and Cordova. The publication not only condemned the systemic conditions that enabled their deaths but also served as a rallying cry to transform them. Alongside photographs of the victims’
