Cesar Chavez is equaled as a civil rights leader
only by Martin Luther King, Jr.
(narrator) The year was 1965.
Women were demanding equal pay for jobs
and equal opportunities in education.
Students were protesting the Vietnam War
on college campuses across the nation.
Black Americans were marching for equal rights.
And in California, one man led a strike
of California migrant farmworkers,
a strike demanding higher wages and better working conditions
for his people.
This man was Cesar Chavez, and his strike signaled
the beginning of the Hispanic civil rights movement,
the call for equality and social justice
for all Hispanic Americans.
As a result of the Mexican-American War of 1848,
Mexico ceded its northern provinces
to the United States.
Many Mexicans chose to stay with their farms,
homes, and businesses
but increasingly faced discrimination,
segregation, an unsympathetic legal system,
and racism by the Anglos
who poured into the former Mexican territories.
By the turn of the century, many Hispanic Americans
faced the same struggles as black Americans
in finding fair housing,
equal employment opportunities, a good education,
and political rights.
Indeed, during the 1930s' Mexican repatriation campaign,
many Hispanic-American citizens
were forced from the only home they had ever known
and deported to Mexico.
Then, during World War II,
nearly 400,000 Hispanic Americans
served their country honorably.
Hispanic soldiers had fought for democracy abroad
and now demanded it here at home.
During the surge of postwar prosperity,
more Hispanic Americans left their small towns and barrios,
taking advantage of the opportunities
offered in the GI Bill for education and housing
to partake in the American dream
and become part of the rising middle class.
As a result,
a new sense of pride emerged in Hispanic heritage,
and an Hispanic civil rights movement
began to take shape.
It encompassed a broad range of issues,
from the restoration of land grants
to farmworkers' rights
to equality in education and to voter rights.
At the same time,
there was a growing culture of migrant farmworkers,
laborers who moved from place to place
harvesting and tending crops for large farm owners
throughout the U.S.,
from the lush fields of California in the Southwest
to the fruit orchards of Washington and Oregon
to the vegetables for canned goods
grown on the Midwestern farms in Minnesota,
Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Since World War I, these migrant workers,
often Hispanic Americans and Mexican immigrants,
had accepted the low-wage jobs and harsh working conditions
that other Americans refused to take.
Cesar Estrada Chavez, born on March 31, 1927,
near Yuma, Arizona,
was initiated into this migrant farmworker culture
when his family lost their farm during the Depression.
In the eighth grade, Chavez became a farmworker,
and in 1948, Chavez started his life's work
as a farm labor organizer,
fighting against the large farm owners
and huge conglomerates
for better working conditions, higher wages,
and equal rights.
In 1962, he organized
the National Farm Workers Association,
which became the United Farm Workers of America in 1965.
That year, Chavez made Hispanic civil rights
a national issue
when he started the grape pickers' strike
and called for a nationwide boycott
of table grapes.
By involving television and radio,
Chavez brought to the attention of all Americans
the inhuman working conditions,
low wages, and mistreatment endured by migrant farmworkers.
The strike and boycott lasted five years.
Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez read Gandhi
and never wavered from the principles of nonviolence,
even though farmworkers and their supporters
were jailed and beaten and killed.
Through it all,
Chavez kept the movement together.
In 1968, to underscore
the horrible conditions facing migrants,
he fasted for 25 days, drinking only water.
His sacrifice brought the national media attention
back to the movement
and gave hope and purpose to the activists.
Finally, in 1970,
United Farm Workers won concessions
for their members:
better working conditions and higher wages.
At last, Hispanic Americans won a victory for civil rights.
Following the grape pickers' strike,
other Hispanic leaders emerged,
and the Hispanic civil rights movement began in earnest.
Also known as the Chicano civil rights movement,
it focused on improving conditions
for Hispanic Americans.
In 1966, Reies Lopez Tijerina
started a land-grant movement in New Mexico
to convince the federal government
to honor the land-grant provisions
of the 1848 Mexican-American War treaty.
Dolores C. Huerta,
cofounder and secretary treasurer
of the United Farm Workers,
rose to become vice president of the AFL-CIO.
In the same period, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales
started the Crusade for Justice in Denver, Colorado,
a more radical Chicano rights movement
demanding civil rights and equality
for Hispanic Americans.
Hispanics were on the road to full equality
with all Americans.
Yet in the 21st century,
the cause of Hispanic-American rights
broadened into a national debate on America's border policy
and illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America.
Indeed, in post-9/11 America,
the issue was whether the United States
must have a secure border or welcome the Hispanic workers
that American businesses needed to fill the low-paying jobs
other Americans did not want.
Cesar Chavez was a national leader,
a rallying point for Hispanic rights,
a man who Hispanic Americans to this day
revere above all others
for improving not only workers' rights
but all Hispanic Americans' lives.
Chavez continued to work for migrant farmworkers
until his death on April 23, 1993.
In 2000, the California legislature set aside March 31st
to honor his life and work,
the first holiday in U.S. history
to honor a Hispanic American and a labor leader.