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CHAVEZ, CESAR 1927-1993

LABOR ORGANIZER

United Farm Workers

Cesar Chavez was the most effective labor leader of the 1970s, rising from poverty as a Hispanic migrant worker in Arizona to international celebrity as the leader of the United Farm Workers Union. In 1962 Chavez left his job as director of the Community Service Organization in California to establish the National Farm Workers Association. His success with Hispanic and Filipino farm pickers led to the formation of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1966.

Democratic Support

Supported by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther, and other prominent liberals, Chavez adroitly used church meetings, sit-ins, picket lines, consumer boycotts, and media propaganda to win a bitter strike against twenty-six California table-grape growers. The growers signed a contract with the UFW in July 1970, and in 1972 he negotiated a contract with the agribusiness giant Minute Maid in Florida.

Nonviolence

Chavez promoted social change by nonviolent tactics at a time when protest violence was becoming endemic, thereby earning public admiration. He also organized workers and supporters across ethnic, class, gender, and racial lines while the country became more segregated and stratified. In 1970 his chief assistant, Dolores Huerta, was elected vice-president of the UFW, demonstrating that the UFW could also overcome sexist barriers under the charismatic leadership of Chavez.

A Moral Example

His self-imposed poverty (he was paid only five dollars a day like all UFW organizers), humility, courage, and insight inspired respect and admiration. His popularity and prestige transcended the southwestern Chicano community, and more than 14.5 million Hispanic-Americans in 1979 looked to Chavez for leadership and moral example.