Cesar Chavez

Cesar E. Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 on a farm in Yuma, Arizonia. He started school at the age of seven but he didn't stay that long because he only knew how to talk in Spanish and he couldn't understand English. At 10 he became a farm worker. Later Cesar and his family migrated through the Southwest. In 1945 he joined the U.S. Navy and he served in World War II. In 1948 he got married to Helen Fabela. He met her in the vineyards where they both worked together.

He served as a CSO national director in the late 1950's and in the early 1960's. Ceaser had many dreams but the one he wanted to happen the most was for him to create an organization to help the farm workers. In 1962 he quit his CSO job. He and his wife and his eight kids moved to Delano, Califorina where he made the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). While Helen (Cesar's wife) would work in the fields he would stay home and look after the children.

In September 1965 Cesar's NFWA, which had 1200 members, all joined the AFL-CIO union. Cesar led a successful five year strike boycott that had millions of people that supported the United Farm Workers. He had two groups merge in 1966. They were mostly made up of church groups, students, minorties and consumers. The name of the group was UFW. That was then added to the AFL-CIO.

In 1965 the strikers took a pledge to have a non-violence concept. Cesar then in 1968 fasted for 25 days. By the 1970's his boycott gave most grape growers a chance to sign contracts with the UFW. When all of the UFW table grape agreements came in 1973, the growers had almost 10,000 farm workers in California in the coastal valley walk out of the fields in their protest. Cesar wanted to have a new and better grape boycott. In 1975 a poll showed that 17 million American adults were trusting in the boycott. Also in 1975 a Agriculture Labor Relations Act was made.

By the early 1980's farm workers were working under the UFW contracts. Then in 1984 Cesar had another boycott. For the boycott he had a 36 day fast called the "Fast for Life". On April 23, 1993 Cesar Chavez died at the age of 66. He had his funeral at Delano. There were more than 40,000 people at his funeral. They buried him in a rose garden at the foot of a hill were he use to stand to watch the sun rise. The legacy of Cesar E. Chavez still lives on.