THE FIGHT FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE
The struggles of farmworkers and a belief in equality for all unified Cesar Chavez and RFK
In a park in California’s agricultural Central Valley, Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, and New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy sat side by side. The two men came from vastly different backgrounds but were united that day by at least two things: a shared vision for economic justice for all Americans — and a desire for Chavez to eat.
It was March 10, 1968, and Chavez had just completed a 25-day, wateronly fast to recommit the union to non-violent resistance. He had lost 35 pounds. It wasn’t particularly cold that day, but in his delicate condition, he was bundled in a jacket and had a blanket draped over his legs.
Kennedy wore a suit with the union’s black Aztec eagle pinned to the lapel. He had flown from Washington to the city of Delano to join thousands of farmworkers at a Mass celebrating the end of Chavez’s fast.
Chavez was too weak to speak that day, so Kennedy addressed the crowd.
“We have come here out of respect for one of the heroic figures of our time — Cesar Chavez,” Kennedy said in his iconic Boston Brahmin accent. “I also come here to congratulate all of you,
you who are locked with Cesar in the struggle for justice for the farmworker.”
Less than a week after the fast, Kennedy announced his candidacy for president. He won the California primary June 5, 1968, and was shot that night, marking a devastating moment in a pivotal year in U.S. history.
The incident was especially painful to Chavez and the farmworkers, who regarded Kennedy as the first major political figure to support their movement.
“I think what really bonded them was that they really had this abiding faith in the promise of this nation, that equality and opportunity should be afforded to everybody, and they were willing to sacrifice for that,” said Cesar Chavez’s son, Paul, who was 10 in 1968.
‘Weaker and weaker and weaker’
California’s Central Valley is sandwiched between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It stretches 450 miles and includes the inland cities of Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento.
The region is one of the most agriculturally productive in the world, yielding more than $35 billion a year in milk, grapes and almonds, among other farm products.
The bounty doesn’t always extend to the people who grow the crops: The Valley has been called “the Appalachia of the West” because of its entrenched poverty.
In the 1960s, Central Valley farmworkers were paid less than a dollar an hour and didn’t have toilets in the fields. Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and others founded a farmworker union in 1962 to fight for improved pay and working conditions.
In 1965, Filipino farmworkers walked out of the fields to protest those conditions. The mostly Latino union voted to join them in the strike.
Nearly three years into the strike, some workers had grown impatient with the lack of progress. Some said they were beaten up and verbally abused on the picket line. During that cold, foggy winter, some frustrated young men talked of resorting to violence.
Chavez, a devout Catholic, viewed non-violence as a moral imperative. He began his fast in February 1968 as an act of penance, saying he had failed as a leader to impart this message to union members.
He spent more than three weeks in a tiny storage room in an adobe brick building that served as the union’s cooperative gas station. It was on the union’s Forty Acres property, just west of Delano.
“What I recall was this man that was pretty healthy — he was always in motion and going strong — becoming weaker and weaker and weaker,” Paul Chavez said.
The farmworkers held daily Mass during the fast. They made crosses out of grape cuttings, one for each day of the fast. They sang religious songs.
Over more than three weeks, some strikers and staff left the union because they disagreed with Chavez’s pacifist approach, said Marc Grossman, communication director for the Cesar Chavez Foundation.
The majority recommitted themselves to non-violence and, as his health deteriorated, Chavez determined the fast had been successful.
He decided to end the fast on a Sunday, when most farmworkers have the day off. He wanted Kennedy to be there.
Kennedy agreed to go to Delano “for the simple reason to get him to eat,” said Peter Edelman, who was a legislative assistant for Kennedy. “What he said to me was, ‘I’m worried about him.’ ”
The Latino support for Kennedy was deep-seated.
He had a record of supporting the poor and underserved: As a senator, he saw hunger and poverty when he visited the Mississippi Delta. He helped start a redevelopment project in the impoverished Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in New York City.
On top of that, the Latino community and Kennedy clan shared their Catholic faith.
“People would say that John Kennedy was the Mexican president,” Huerta, a union co-founder, said with a laugh. “I think that kind of rubbed off to Robert also.”
On March 16, 1968, Kennedy announced his candidacy, challenging President Lyndon Johnson and Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota.
Johnson dropped out of the race,
Cesar Chavez and Robert Kennedy “had this abiding faith in the promise of this nation, that equality and opportunity should be afforded to everybody, and they were willing to sacrifice for that.”
Paul Chavez
spurring Vice President Hubert Humphrey to enter.
From March through California’s primary June 5, Chavez essentially shut down union operations and dispatched hundreds of farmworkers to Latino neighborhoods across California to campaign for Kennedy.
It was a chance for the union to take the organizing clout it developed during the grape strike and use it to influence American politics. Its mission was to register people to vote and convince them to pull the lever for Kennedy.
The farmworkers slept in church halls and on people’s floors, eating tacos and burritos prepared by volunteers, as they signed up thousands of people to vote.
“Are you registering as a Republican or a Democrat?” Ed Chiera, who worked as a researcher and organizer for the union, recalled asking people in Spanish.
“Kennedy,” he said they’d reply enthusiastically.
When the farmworkers hit the pavement, their strategy was to go door-todoor to find people who would serve as precinct captains, Huerta said. They would leave them with a voter list and ask them to persuade their neighbors to vote for Kennedy.
‘The death of the future’
On June 5, the union volunteers joined the Kennedy campaign at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to celebrate the senator’s victory in the California primary.
Champagne flowed. A mariachi band prepared to perform.
“I want to thank Cesar Chavez, who was here a little earlier … and all of those Mexican Americans who were such supporters of mine,” he said in his victory speech.
Moments later, Kennedy exited the stage and walked through a kitchen pantry.
Huerta thought she heard fireworks. They were bullets.
Three hit Kennedy.
Kennedy died 26 hours later.
“I never thought I would see the death of the future,” Huerta said, quoting feminist Gloria Steinem, her friend. “The death of the past, yes, but not the death of the future. And that’s kind of what it was like — it was the death of the future.”
Long live Kennedy and Chavez
Kennedy’s death devastated the nation. It was particularly painful for the farmworker union.
Huerta said his death disappointed a generation of activists.
“So many people became cynical,” she said. “They gave up, they didn’t continue working on political stuff. I think that was another one of the big losses.”
In March, nearly 50 years after Kennedy joined Chavez to end his fast, Huerta called on the two men’s legacy to inspire a new generation.
At the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel, she urged kids to adopt the values of the two leaders and live a life of service.
She ended her speech with a call and response.
At nearly 90 years old, she could still rile up a crowd.
“Que viva Cesar Chavez!” Huerta called out. The Spanish-language phrase translates to “Long live Cesar Chavez!”
“Que viva!” the students roared. “Que viva Robert Kennedy!” she shouted.
“Que viva!” they cheered.
Cesar Chavez’s son