Cesar Chavez: The Life and Legacy of 20th Century America’s Most Influential Labor Leader

“You stand today as a living example of the Gandhian tradition with its great force for social progress and its healing spiritual powers. My colleagues and I commend you for your bravery, salute you for your indefatigable work against poverty and injustice, and pray for your health and your continuing service as one of the outstanding men of America.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.'s telegram to Cesar Chavez in February 1966

As labor unions and movements began to form and coalesce in the 19th century, the tensions between workers and companies led to demonstrations, encounters, and even conflicts that descended into violence. Fighting in places like West Virginia, Colorado, and Illinois led to events that have been remembered as the Haymarket Affair, the Ludlow Massacre, and the Coal Wars, among others. Meanwhile, unions sprung up to advocate on behalf of employees on both local and national levels, leading to political fighting as opponents aimed to tar union activists and labor leaders. For those reasons, the major social movements in America during the 20th century often had gender and racial aspects to them as well, and the leaders of one campaign often served as inspiration and models for activism in others.

The most famous activist was Martin Luther King, Jr., who followed the principles of Gandhi and led non-violent protests, and in turn, the Chicano Movement of the late 20th century merged the public regimen of Gandhi and King. Not originally cast as a racial issue, Mexican Americans were roused to action for worker rights, in particular farm workers, but as the campaign for improved wages and working conditions expanded, Mexican Americans who had once considered themselves as a peripheral component of the white population became more closely allied to the civil rights causes championed by African American leaders, somewhat more loosely akin to conditions experienced by Native Americans.
Many such efforts were taken up for the Mexican farm workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by well-educated and well-organized figures and organizations. However, they all failed in the face of agricultural companies that kept wages absurdly low and suffocated all attempts at organizing. It was not until the late 1940s that an unlikely champion emerged from the mass of migrant workers in Arizona and California to challenge the status quo.

With a lack of formal education and scant financial resources, Cesar Chavez achieved what previous activists could not, negotiating contracts between unionized workers and corporate agribusiness concerns based on work strikes and retail bans against specific products. Where others had failed, Chavez found a national audience for his protests, tipping the balance for the Southwestern farm workers. The legendary Mexican American labor leader established the idea of “La Causa,” the phrase that emblemized the farm workers’ struggle in America, and maintained a non-violent but insistent push for equality.

In the 1960s, Chavez founded the National Farm Worker’s Association, later to be renamed as the United Farm Workers of America, and through this nascent organization, Chavez scored important victories in terms of raising pay and improving working and health conditions for farmers of the Southwest into the late 1970s. In the process, he earned the admiration of other labor leaders and civil rights activists, and he remains one of the most famous champions of workers rights to this day.