Roberto Maestas, who died of cancer on Wednesday, was known as one of the Four Amigos -- the other three being an African-American, Native American, and an Asian-American -- who together changed the face of Seattle in the 1970s with their united front in advocating for social justice.
His wife, Estela Ortega, said, "Roberto's legacy is multiracial unity. He believed in peoples of color and progressives coming together to make change in our city, our state, and our nation. Anybody you talk to will say that is one of his biggest contributions."
From the Seattle Times.
(Fellow Four Amigo and current member of the Metropolitan King County Council, Larry) Gossett said he and Mr. Maestas first met when Gossett was a student at the University of Washington and organized about 150 black students to protest a decision by the principal at Franklin High to kick two black girls out of school because they wore their hair unstraightened. That was March 1968. Teachers and staff left the school when the students occupied the principal's office. Mr. Maestas was the only teacher who stayed to hear their concerns.
"The righteousness of their cause had such an impact on him that the next morning he went into the teachers' lounge and said, 'My name is no longer Robert or Bob,' " Gossett said, "He said 'I am Roberto,' rolling those Rs as only he could do. That's when he became an activist."
And since then, Gossett said, "No one has been more on the front lines of every significant movement for social change in the Northwest than Roberto."