CÉSAR CHÁVEZ

 

CÉSAR CHÁVEZ (1927-1993)

A true American hero, Cesar Chavez was a civil rights, Latino and farm labor leader; a genuinely religious and spiritual figure; a community organizer and social entrepreneur; a champion of militant nonviolent social change; a crusader for the environment and consumer rights; and civil rights activist who brought about better conditions for agricultural workers.

A first-generation American, he was born on March 31, 1927 near his family’s small homestead outside Yuma, Arizona. At age 11, his family lost their farm during the Great Depression and became migrant farm workers. Cesar finished his formal education after the eighth grade and worked the fields full-time to help support his family. Throughout his youth and into adulthood, Cesar traveled the migrant streams throughout California laboring in the fields, orchards and vineyards where he was exposed to the hardships and injustices of farm worker life. Chávez witnessed the harsh conditions farm laborers endured. Routinely exploited by their employers, they were often unpaid, living in shacks in exchange for their labor, with no medical or other basic facilities. Without a united voice, they had no means to improve their position.

Cesar’s career in community organizing began in 1952 when he was recruited and trained by Fred Ross, a legendary community organizer who was forming the San Jose chapter of the Community Service Organization, the most prominent Latino civil rights group of its time. Cesar spent 10 years with the CSO, coordinating voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, leading campaigns against racial and economic discrimination and organizing new CSO chapters across California.

Yet Cesar’s dream was to organize a union that would protect and serve the farm workers whose poverty and powerlessness he had shared. He knew the history of farm worker organizing was one sad story after another of broken unions and strikes crushed by violence. He knew that for 100 years many others with much better educations and more resources than he possessed had tried, and failed, to organize farm workers. He knew the experts said organizing farm workers was impossible.

Chávez changed that when he dedicated his life to winning recognition for the rights of agricultural workers. With $1,200 in life savings, 1962 he founded the National Farm Workers Association with 10 members – Cesar, his wife and their eight young children. The NFWA later became the United Farm Workers of America. Under Cesar, the UFW achieved unprecedented gains for farm workers, establishing it as the first successful farm workers union in American history.

In September 1965 he began leading what became a five-year strike by California grape pickers and a nationwide boycott of California grapes that attracted liberal support from throughout the country. Subsequent battles with lettuce growers, table-grape growers, and other agribusinesses generally ended with the signing of bargaining agreements.

Cesar made people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. He succeeded through nonviolent tactics (boycotts, pickets, and strikes). Cesar Chavez and the union sought recognition of the importance and dignity of all farm workers.

Through marches, strikes and boycotts, Chávez forced employers to pay adequate wages and provide other benefits, and was responsible for legislation enacting the first Bill of Rights for agricultural workers. Thanks to the United Farm Workers of America (UFW’s) efforts, California passed the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, giving all farm workers the right to unionize and negotiate for better wages and working conditions. This was the nation’s first and still the only law guaranteeing farm workers the right to organize, choose their own union representative and negotiate with their employers.

For his commitment to social justice and his lifelong dedication to bettering the lives of others, Chávez was posthumously recognized with the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

The significance of Cesar’s life transcends any one cause or struggle. He was a unique and humble leader, as well as a great humanitarian and communicator who influenced and inspired millions of Americans from all walks of life. Cesar forged a national and extraordinarily diverse coalition for farm worker boycotts, which included students, middle class consumers, trade unionists, religious activists and minorities. Cesar liked to say that his job as an organizer was helping ordinary people do extraordinary things.

Cesar passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 23, 1993 in the small farm worker town of San Luis, Arizona, not far from where he was born 66 years earlier.

(https://www.humanrights.com/voices-for-human-rights/cesar-chavez.html; https://chavezfoundation.org/about-cesar-chavez/#1517518277469-2f378389-b859; https://www.history.com/topics/mexico/cesar-chavez;

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cesar-Chavez)