César E. Chávez Chronology
(1927-1993)
1920s
1927, March 31 – Césario Estrada
Chávez was born in Yuma, Arizona,
near the small farm his grandfather homesteaded in the 1880s.
1930s
1937 – César’s family lost their farm in the Great Depression. The
Chávez family migrated across the Southwest laboring in the fields
and vineyards, finally settling in California.
1940s
1942 – César quit school after the eighth grade to work in the
fields full-time to help support his family.
1944 – He joined the U.S. Navy for two years and served in the Western Pacific. Just before shipping out to the
Pacific, César was arrested in a segregated Delano, California, movie
theater for sitting in the “whites only” section.
1948 – César married Helen Fabela
whom he had met working in the vineyards of San Jose, California.
They settled in the East San Jose barrio of Sal Si Puedes (Get Out
If You Can) and would eventually have eight children and thirty-one
grandchildren. 1948-1949 – He began studying the social teachings of the Catholic
Church. 1950s
1952 – Community organizer Fred Ross met
César, then a young farm
worker laboring in apricot orchards outside San Jose, and recruited
him to work for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a
prominent Latino civil rights group. 1952-1962 –
César and Fred Ross organized 22 CSO chapters
throughout California. Under César's leadership, the CSO became the
most effective Latino civil rights group of its day. It helped
Latinos become citizens, registered them to vote, battled police
brutality and pressed for paved streets and other barrio
improvements. 1960s
1962, March 31 – On his birthday,
César resigned from the CSO and
moved his wife and eight small children to Delano where he founded
the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and dedicated himself
to organizing farm workers full-time. 1962, September 30 – The first NFWA convention was
held in
Fresno, California. 1962-1965 –
César often took his youngest children to dozens of farm
worker towns as he painstakingly built up NFWA membership.
1965, September 16 – On Mexican Independence Day, César's NFWA, with
1,200 member families, voted to join a strike against Delano-area
grape growers that was initiated by the mostly Filipino-American
members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (AWOC).
This began the five-year Delano Grape Strike.
1966, March-April – César and a small group of strikers embarked
upon a 350-mile
Peregrinacion (pilgrimage) from Delano to the steps of the state
capitol in Sacramento to draw national attention to the suffering of
farm workers. During the march and after a four-month boycott,
growers negotiated an agreement with NFWA, which was the first
genuine union contract between a grower and farm workers in U.S.
history. 1966, Spring-Summer – The NFWA and the Filipino-American AWOC merge
to form the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW).
1967 – The UFW began a boycott of all California table grapes.
1967-1970 – Hundreds of grape strikers fanned out across North
America to organize an international grape boycott. Millions of
Americans rallied to support the farm workers' cause known as “La
Causa.” 1968, February-March –
César fasted for 25 days to rededicate his
movement to nonviolence. U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy joined
César and more than 8,000 farm workers and supporters at a mass
where César broke his fast. Senator Kennedy called César
“one of the
heroic figures of our time.”
1970s
1970, Summer – César called for a nationwide boycott of lettuce.
1970, December 10-24 – César was jailed in Salinas, California, for
refusing to obey a court order to stop the boycott against Bud Antle
lettuce. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visited César in jail.
1971 – The UFW moved from Delano to La Paz in Keene, California,
which is southeast of Bakersfield. With table and wine grape
contracts, and some agreements covering vegetable workers, UFW
membership grew to nearly 80,000. 1972, May 11-June 4 –
César fasted a second time for 25 days in
Phoenix, Arizona, in protest
of a law that denied farm workers the right to strike and/or boycott
for better working conditions. 1973, Spring-Summer – A bitter three-month strike by grape workers
in California's Coachella and San Joaquin valleys began. Thousands
of strikers were arrested for violating anti-picketing injunctions,
hundreds were beaten, dozens were shot and two were murdered. In
response to
the violence, César called off the strike and began a second grape
boycott. 1973-1975 – A nationwide Louis Harris poll documented that 17
million Americans were boycotting grapes. Many were also boycotting
lettuce and Gallo wine in support of UFW campaigns.
1975, June – Jerry Brown became governor and signed a state law that
guaranteed California farm workers the right to organize and bargain
with their employers. César’s efforts pushed the landmark
Agricultural Labor Relations Act through the state legislature.
1979 January-October – The UFW began strikes against several major
lettuce and vegetable growers throughout the state. Rufino
Contreras, a 27-year-old striker, was shot and killed in an Imperial
Valley lettuce field by a grower's foremen.
1980s
1980s – The number of farm workers protected by UFW contracts grew
to nearly 45,000. 1984 – César declared a third grape boycott.
1986 – César kicked off the “Wrath of Grapes” campaign to draw public
attention to the pesticide poisoning of grape workers and their
children. 1988 – At the age of 61,
Chávez conducted his last and longest
public fast for 36 days in Delano to call attention to farm workers
and their children stricken by pesticides.
1988-1993 – César recovered from his fast and continued pressing
the grape boycott and leading farm worker organizing efforts.
1990s
1992, Spring-Summer – César worked with then UFW First Vice
President Arturo Rodriguez to lead vineyard walkouts in the
Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. As a result, grape workers won
their first industry-wide pay hike in eight years.
1993, April 23 – César died peacefully in his sleep at the modest
home of a retired San Luis, Arizona, farm worker. César was in
Arizona conducting UFW work at the time of his death.
1993, April 29 – More than 40,000 mourners marched behind
César's
plain pine casket during funeral services in Delano.
1993 – Chávez family and friends established the César E.
Chávez
Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization dedicated
to maximizing human potential to improve communities by preserving,
promoting and applying the legacy and universal values of civil
rights leader César E. Chávez. |
