Cesar Chavez

By carolineporter

  • Birth

    Birth
    Cesar Chavez is born in Yuma, Arizona, to a poor Mexican American family that runs a farm, grocery store, garage, and pool hall.

  • Family Eviction

    Family Eviction
    The Chavez family is evicted from its land after losing their livelihood in the Great Depression. They become migrant farm workers in Arizona and California.

  • School

    School
    Chavez quits grammar school to work full-time in the fields.

  • Navy

    Navy
    Chavez enlists in the Navy, where he serves for two years in the Pacific.

  • Marriage

    Chavez marries Helen Favela. Over the years, they have eight children. Chavez works as a ranch hand and at a lumber yard in San Jose, California.

  • Organizer

    Chavez joins the Community Service Organization (CSO) in San Jose, California, and becomes an organizer in the Mexican American community, spearheading voter registration drives and fighting racial and economic discrimination.

  • Executive Director

    Chavez becomes executive director of the CSO, and moves to its headquarters in Los Angeles.

  • NFWA

    Chavez founds the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in Delano, California, with labor leader Dolores Huerta. The organization is dedicated to the rights of migrant workers, including a minimum wage, insurance, and collective bargaining.

  • Joining

    The NFWA, primarily made up of Mexican Americans, joins the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), primarily made up of Filipino Americans, who had begun striking against grape growers in Delano. It is the beginning of the five-year Delano grape strike, which received much national attention. Chavez advocated strikes, picketing, boycotts, marches, and other non-violent means to achieve the union's aims, modeling his movement on Gandhian philosophy.

  • UFW

    The strikers march 250 miles from Delano to Sacramento, California's capital, to present a list of their demands. Several grape companies agree to sign a contract with the union. These were the first contracts for American farm workers.
    That same year, the NFWA and AWOC merge, forming the United Farm Workers (UFW), which becomes an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

  • Boycott

    Chavez leads a national boycott of California table grape growers, which becomes known as "La Causa." By the end of the boycott in 1970, 17 million Americans supported it, including many political and civil rights leaders. Robert Kennedy was a particularly strong supporter. Chavez goes on a 25-day hunger strike, hich attracts enormous national attention. The fast reaffirms his movement's belief in non-violence.

  • UFW 2

    The UFW signs a contract with most California table grape growers, ending the strike, Chavez organizes a nationwide lettuce boycott.

  • Fast

    Chavez undertakes a 24-day fast.

  • Strike

    The UFW organizes a lettuce growers strike.

  • Act

    The California Labor Relations Act goes into effect, allowing farm workers the right to boycott and to collective bargaining.

  • "Fast for Life"

    Chavez undertakes a 36-day "Fast for Life" to call attention to the health hazards farm workers and their children face by exposure to pesticides.

  • Death

    Chavez dies.

  • Award

    President Bill Clinton awards Chavez a posthumous Medal of Freedom.

  • Holiday

    California establishes a state holiday on Chavez's birthday to honor him.