Cesar Chavez

He passed away of unspecified causes in San Luis, Arizona and was interred at the National Chavez Center in Kern County, California.

There have been countless books on his life, one of the most famous being, ‘Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983: A Chicano Struggle for Educational Self-Determination’.

Cesar Estrada Chavez was born into a Latin-American family in Yuma, Arizona. His family was into the ranch business and they also owned a grocery store, however, all their businesses were lost during the Great Depression.

The family moved to California, where they faced a number of problems, while settling as migrant farm workers. He quit school in 1942, when he was in 7th grade, because he wanted to help his mother in the fields.

In 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy and served the same for two years. However, later in life, when he looked back at this time, he deemed it as the ‘worst two years of his life’.

Once he got out of the Navy, he worked in the fields until 1952. It was during this period that he became the organizer for the ‘Community Service Organization’, a civil rights group. Six years later, he became the CSO’s national director.

In 1962, he co-founded ‘National Farm Workers Association’ with Dolores Huerta. The organization was later renamed to ‘United Farm Workers’. He also supported the ‘Delano grape strike’, by Filipino American farm workers who fought for higher wages, three years later.

In 1965, along with the NFWA, he led a strike of California grape pickers on the momentous farmhands march from Delano to California state capitol in Sacramento for parallel goals. This strike persisted for five years and attracted extensive national attention.

In 1966, Robert F. Kennedy, who was a subcommittee participant of the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, openly voiced his support in favour of Chavez’ grape strike. The same year, Chavez led the UFW to Austin in support of farm workers’ rights. His protests and movements stimulated the establishment of two popular unions - Oberos Unidos and Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

In 1968, he fasted for a total of 25 days to promote the principle of non-violence, inspired by Gandhian principles and the Catholic tradition of ‘penance’.

He co-founded the ‘National Farm Workers Association’ along with Dolores Huerta, to augment the working conditions of farm workers. People from all backgrounds including Americans, Mexicans, Filipinos and African-Americans joined his organization to support his cause. This later came to be known as the ‘United Farm Workers’ union. Together, they initiated the Delano grape strike and more such boycotts, which eventually led to the founding of two other independent unions - Oberos Unidos and Farm Labor Organizing Committee.