Ronald William Lã³Pez Sr

Ronald William López, Sr. was born in Santa Paula on August 19, 1938 and passed away peacefully on March 10th, 2022 in Sacramento, California, in the hands of his loving granddaughters and immediate family members. The son of Helen Macias, a packing house worker, he graduated from Villanova Preparatory in Ojai. As a young man, he served in the National Guard, worked as a junior engineer, a mathematician for Lake Casitas Dam, and on the Blackbird spy plane project. He was an Accion volunteer, serving in Venezuela. While a student at Ventura College, he spearheaded the Viva Kennedy Campaign. There, he met and married Lola Taylor, and they had two sons: Ronald and Antonio. Together, they attended San Fernando Valley State College (now CSU Northridge), and then UCLA where he was active in the emerging Chicano movement. He was an early member of United Mexican American Students (UMAS) at UCLA and participated in El Plan de Santa Barbara. He was a member of the Chicano Coordinating Committee on Higher Education, the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference at Camp Hess Kramer, and was the founder and executive director of the Mexican American Studies Center, the precursor of the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at the Claremont Colleges. After leaving academia, Ron was the director of the Venice Drug Coalition, a restauranteur, and a consultant. By the early 80s, Ron returned to teaching history at several Los Angeles area community colleges, influencing generations of future professionals and academics. Retiring in 2007, he moved to Sacramento to be closer to his family living in Northern California. Weekends were often spent with his son Antonio enjoying local restaurants and trips to Santa Rosa to visit his son Ron and participate in his granddaughters’ lives. His brother Tony, also living nearby, often treated him to Sacramento’s restaurants for celebrations or just because. Ron is remembered by many for his quick wit, keen intellect, and as a mentor to many. Ron would prepare huge cauldrons of “ranch style” menudo, and westside suburbanites and eastside activists would eat and celebrate side-by-side at parties sometimes lasting several days. Ron is preceded in death by his mother, Helen Macias, stepfather Tony Macias, and older brother Leo López. He is survived by his sons: Antonio López, Ron López, and Maurice Agrillo; brother Anthony Macias, granddaughters Paola, Itzel, and Melissa, daughters-in-law Maria López and Christina Zapata, former wife Lola Taylor, and many nieces and nephews.