The Life and Times of Pancho Villa

It was a scene he would have loved. Despite the cold, blustery weather that November day in 1976, throngs of people lined the street in the old city of Parral in the state of Chihuahua. They had heard the news that Pancho Villa's remains, which were buried in Parral, would, as the result of a decree passed by the Mexican president, be transferred to the Monument of the Revolution in Mexico City. This constituted a belated recognition by a Mexican government of his revolutionary merits. As Villa's casket, flanked by members of his family, came into view, masses of people began clapping and cheering. Many burst into the old rallying cry of "Viva Villa! "

What would have impressed Villa was the fact that practically none of these enthusiastic spectators had ever known him, since more than 50 years had elapsed since his death, and even the parents of many who now stood on the streets of Parral to watch him go to join the remains of his enemies in the mausoleum of revolutionary heroes in Mexico City had never seen, heard, or met him. It was a measure of the influence he still exercised in his adopted state that so many years after his death, thousands came out to cheer him. Another expression of the emotions his memory aroused was the fact that thousands of others are said to have refused to come out, that many sent harsh letters of protest to the newspapers, and some avidly read Rodrigo Alonso Cortés's 1972 book Francisco Villa, el quinto jinete del apocalipsis (Pancho Villa, the Fifth Rider of the Apocalypse), which depicts Villa as a monster, and similar works.