TUCSON, Ariz.
The University of Arizona’s Media Democracy and Policy Institute will join with the United States Postal Service on Thursday to unveil a stamp commemorating the work of Rubén Salazar, a Latino journalist killed while on assignment in 1970 at the age of 42.
Salazar is one of five American journalists being honored on a sheet of 20 stamps that will be issued this week. The other journalists are Martha Gellhorn, John Hersey, George Polk and Eric Sevareid. The Postal Service said they were selected because they risked their lives reporting some of the most important events of the 20th century.
A first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony will take place Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, as part of the club’s 100th Anniversary.
“These distinguished journalists risked their lives to record the events that shaped the modern world,” said Postmaster General John E. Potter, at the October 2007 preview of the stamp images. “Their body of work stands as a towering monument to the importance of a free press. It is our hope that Americans will use these stamps to honor these outstanding individuals who served the cause of journalism so well.”
Salazar was a Mexican-American who was news director of KMEX-TV, a Spanish language station, and a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where he had worked since 1959. He was killed on Aug. 29, 1970, while covering the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War, in which a disproportionate number of Hispanics were killed. The march ended in a disturbance that was broken up with the use of tear gas by sheriff’s deputies. Salazar took cover in the Silver Dollar Bar, and a coroner’s inquest showed that he died of wounds from a tear-gas projectile shot at his head at close range.
The unveiling ceremony on the UA campus kicks off a day of events commemorating Salazar’s work, including a video documenting Salazar’s contributions; a welcome by UA Vice Provost Juan Garcia; and remarks by Salazar’s daughter, Lisa Salazar-Johnson; U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva; Bob Navarro, a Los Angeles journalist, and Postmaster Carl Grigel of Tucson, the university announced.
