HistoryLUC's video: The Ellacur a Tapes Introductory Video

This video serves as an introduction to the public history project The Ellacuría Tapes: A Martyr at Loyola. In May 1986, Loyola University Chicago awarded Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., rector of the University of Central America in San Salvador and a well-known Liberation Theologian, an honorary doctorate. Three years later, he was one of the six Jesuits brutally murdered, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, in their shared home on the university’s campus. The tragedy of the Salvadoran Martyrs became an impetus for worldwide activism and solidarity with the peoples of El Salvador and a call for a broader movement to end U.S. aid to El Salvador. This movement was alive and well at Loyola. The Ellacuría Tapes public history exhibit reveals the ways in which faculty, staff, and students at Loyola responded to the conflict in El Salvador and the murder of Fr. Ellacuría and his fellow priests. Using archival footage of Ellacuría's visit to Loyola, as well as images and documents from a variety of sources, this exhibit shows how Loyola played a central role in the solidarity movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. This project is sponsored by the History and Latin American Studies departments, with assistance from the Modern Languages department and the University Archives and Special Collections.