Archive | Crusades of Cesar Chavez

Chavez and RFK

Forty-seven years ago today, Robert F. Kennedy went to Delano, California to help Cesar Chavez break his first and most famous lengthy fast. Speculation was rampant about whether the junior senator from New York would enter the Democratic presidential primary, a contest where, at the moment, President Lyndon Johnson faced a challenge from the left from Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy. On […]

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The Wink

Tomorrow, March 10, is the anniversary of the day that Cesar Chavez broke his first and most famous fast, in 1968. That ceremony produced what may be the most iconic photo of Chavez from that era, breaking his 25-day fast with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (More on RFK and Chavez tomorrow, but here’s a link to a post […]

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Clothes make the man

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is the source of many famous quotes and aphorisms, including the paraphrase of a line from Polonius that we have come to know as the saying, “clothes make the man.” Cesar Chavez, who left school after 8th grade, had likely not discovered Shakespeare when the 25-year-old discovered his lifelong passion: community organizing. But he instinctively […]

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An Historic Day for Labor

Labor Day falls this year on the anniversary of a truly historic labor victory. Forty-eight years ago today, workers gathered in a hall in Delano, California, nervously awaiting the results of the first election in the fields: The fight to represent farmworkers who picked grapes at giant DiGiorgio Company. It was an election, Cesar Chavez later said, that […]

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Crusades of Cesar Chavez, Week One

It’s been a whirlwind first week! I’ve done about 25 interviews with local and national print, radio and television media — in studio, skype podcasts, and phone interviews. The conversations have been thoughtful and thought-provoking, touching on issues including immigration, movement-building, and of course, details of Chavez’s life. I’ve also written a couple of pieces, […]

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Carlos Almaraz

Carlos Almaraz was a brilliant artist whose short life intersected at significant moments with Cesar Chavez and the farm worker movement. In one of his last stories for the Los Angeles Times, Reed Johnson (whose terrific cultural reporting will be sorely missed as he moves to the Wall Street Journal’s Brazil bureau) wrote on March […]

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