The Power of The
Media
A life dedicated to exposing social injustice came to an unfair end on
August 29, 1970 as Ruben Salazar was killed by police during an anti-war march
in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times, his place of work, respected him as
“sometimes an angry man as he observed the inequities around him, yet he spoke
with a calm vigor that made his words all the more impressive and influential.”
Influential he was, as his death became symbolic of the injustice he was always
trying to bring to the surface. As a Times writer he won many awards for his
articles on Mexican Americans in California and the unemployment, poor housing,
and lack of political influence they were facing. He had an additional job as
the news director of KMEX, a Spanish television station, a job he died filming
for during the anti-war rally that day in 1970. His unyielding grasp of the
power of the media allowed him to make clear the inequalities Mexican Americans
were experiencing. Even as a 19-year-old college student he was speaking up for
those who were being oppressed. He printed an editorial about a Black football
captain in Texas that was told he couldn’t play the game because of his color.
He boldly asked readers, “How many draft boards would tell Tempe’s football
captain: ‘Sorry, but you can’t participate in this war, it is being fought
exclusively by whites?” This first story created the rest of his life, from
then on, he would almost obsessively tell the public of the discrimination
around them. Salazar’s journalistic career means something; he was and
continues to be incredibly important to both journalism and society. I aspire
to leave a mark on the world, to open people’s eyes like he did, to mean something. Ruben Salazar lived his
life fighting for equality and died a symbol of the power that the media hold. 
"Death of Ruben Salazar"
This picture is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Salazar stepped into the Silver Dollar Bar to escape the chaos of the anti-war rally and was struck and killed by a police-thrown tear-gas canister.
http://www.ccnma.org/SalazarBio.pdf
American Journalists Textbook
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=33584
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