Tlatelolco 1968

This image honors the protesters killed by the Mexican Armed Forces in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, while demonstrating against the upcoming 1968 Olympics. As many as 400 people were killed, with thousands more injured and arrested. In the poster, a traditional Aztec figure holds a wounded student in their arms.

The massacre ten days before the Olympics opening ceremony (which went on as planned) marked the end of a period of expansion and revolutionary fervor amongst Mexico’s social movements including students, workers and the poor. The following decades saw increased state repression, requiring social movements to engage in different forms of struggle; these conditions formed the groundwork for the emergence of the EZLN (Zapatistas) in 1994, three months after the 25th anniversary of “La Noche Triste”.