by Randy Shaw on March 31, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
UFW Founder Offers Lessons for Activists, Movements
Today’s Cesar Chavez Day comes 59 years after Chavez’s historic 300-mile march from Delano to Sacramento. The journey put Chavez and the farmworkers’ movement on the national stage. The past six decades has seen remarkable growth in Latino political power, electoral clout, and in unionized Latino workers; sadly, the plight of farmworkers has not advanced as much as was hoped following the UFW’s success at the end of the 1970’s.
Chavez always insisted that bringing change would not be easy. His legacy offers a powerful reminder that progress toward greater social and economic justice does not proceed on a straight path. In 2008, Barack Obama harkened back to Chavez and the UFW’s legacy when he led crowds in chanting the farmworker rallying cry, “Si Se Puede” in its anglicized, “Yes We Can.”
Today, rulings by a right-wing Supreme Court, powerful billionaire interests, and a MAGA-driven Republican Party promoting white supremacy and attacks on government itself exposes the difficulty of securing transformative progressive change.
But the progressive idealism that fueled Chavez and his movement remain. We see this in the protests going on across the nation. We see it in the crowds flocking to Bernie Sanders and AOC rallies and among the many groups mobilizing resistance.
Chavez and those who got their start as UFW activists knew well how quickly politics can turn. And the former UFW leader would be the first to argue that the opportunities for real change remain strong, and that it is up to activists to keep up the struggle.
Having written Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century on the ongoing legacy of Cesar Chavez and the UFW, I believe that today’s activists can learn much from the farmworkers movement. In past Chavez Day stories I urged readers to use Cesar Chavez Day to “rediscover Cesar Chavez,” focusing on how the UFW demonstrated the potential success of national grassroots campaigns, reinvented grassroots electoral outreach, and offered the greatest activist “incubator” of our times.
Cesar Chavez Day is a good time to recall how Chavez and the UFW experienced their own major setbacks through the 1960’s and 1970’s but surmounted them by never giving up the fight. This year’s Cesar Chavez Day also marks the initial showings of American Agitators. This inspiring film tells the story of Fred Ross, Sr., organizing mentor for both Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Be sure to see it when it comes to your city.
The UFW’s Legacy of Challenges
In 1962, Cesar Chavez began a seemingly impossible effort to organize California’s migrant farmworkers. By 1966, Chavez had gotten national publicity and was building strong religious community support. While he did not have the best of relationships with California Governor “Pat” Brown (Jerry’s Dad) – Chavez did not hesitate to publicly criticize Brown just because the Governor was a Democrat – UFW pressure moved Brown to act favorably toward farmworkers.
Ronald Reagan’s victory over Brown in the 1966 California Governor’s election began eight years of official anti-UFW hostility. Richard Nixon’s 1968 election aligned the federal government against the UFW as well.
Chavez and the UFW helped Robert Kennedy win California’s 1968 presidential primary. The UFW’s Latino voter outreach for Kennedy was key. Chavez had a close personal bond with the man who, but for his assassination, would likely have won the presidency.
Despite these setbacks, Chavez and the UFW continued building the farmworkers movement. In 1970, the union won its legendary grape boycott, as growers finally gave in to the massive consumer avoidance of grapes (Nixon’s Defense Department bought three million more pounds of grapes in 1969 over the previous year to help make up for the boycott. It would similarly triple its lettuce purchases during that UFW boycott).
But winning a three-year grape contract with growers through the boycott did not end the fight. When the contract ended, the growers switched their contracts to the then mob-controlled Teamsters union. Because the National Labor Relations Act did not cover farmworkers, and California had no independent law, the UFW could lose its hard-won contracts without a vote of those working in the fields.
In January 1975, the New York Times wrote a story arguing that the UFW had failed. It claimed the Teamsters would soon control the table grape, wine and lettuce industries. All the story did was inspire the UFW to intensify its boycott against Gallo Wine.
To refute the Times‘ prediction, Fred Ross, Jr. led a march from San Francisco to Gallo’s headquarters in Modesto. The UFW brought 20,000 marching into Modesto, even more than had participated in Chavez’s 1966 “pilgrimage” from Delano to Sacramento that had put him on the national stage. In June 1975, less than six months after the Times’ prediction, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act was enacted and the Teamsters soon left the fields.
Lessons for Today
A big difference between the mindset of Chavez and UFW activists and those today reflects our changing perceptions of time. Because social media posts cross the world in seconds, some activists, the media and the larger society expect movement victories to occur instantly.
Cesar Chavez never had a particular timetable or deadline. When Chavez started organizing farmworkers, nobody knew it would take 13 years to win labor rights, or if the campaign would win even after two decades.
Nearly sixty years ago, Cesar Chavez dared to pursue a dream of organizing farmworkers. He had no government or foundation funds, no wealthy benefactors, and no online funding operation – all he had was the force of his personality and he and his wife’s commitment to the struggle. For all of the reversals, disappointments and challenges left unmet, Cesar Chavez created a legacy that inspires us to this day.
Randy Shaw is also the author of The Activist’s Handbook. His new book is the updated second edition of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
