RUBEN is a font inspired by journalist Rubén Salazar and remnants of the 1970 National Chicano Moratorium.
The end of August in Los Angeles has historically been a time of sad recollections for Latinos, especially activists who remember a triumphant civil rights march that turned murderous.
On Aug. 29, 1970, some 25,000 activists gathered in East Los Angeles to take part in what was billed as the National Chicano Moratorium march, and protest against the Vietnam War.*
They were protesting the disproportionately large number of Latino soldiers who were being killed in Vietnam. It never occurred to any of them that one of three people who would be killed that day as a result of the march would be perhaps the most important Hispanic who would die in the age of civil rights protests—Rúben Salazar.
Rúben Salazar, a journalist and crusader for Latino rights — especially against law enforcement — was slain when Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies fired a tear gas projectile that struck him in the head, killing him instantly. No one was ever arrested — then or since — in connection with Salazar’s violent death. *