Cesar Chavez's Leadership And Legacy

Cesar Chavez Leadership and Legacy

Melissa Lopez
Historical Paper

Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist, he left a legacy of changing the mistreatment of farm workers. Cesar Chavez worked hard for what he believed in and he believed that every farm worker should be treated fairly and not taken advantage of. He started his astonishing journey to leading others and making a difference in 1952 and ended in 1993 due to his peaceful death, but his legacy still remained. Those who believed in what Cesar Chavez was striving for still continued fighting for making a difference. Cesar Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 to a poor Mexican American family who ran a farm, grocery store, garage, and pool hall

In 1938, the Chavez family became migrant farmworkers due to losing their land during the Great Depression. They had to leave Arizona and headed to California to find work. They roamed from farm to farm just so they can find work. Once Cesar started school he soon realized how cruel the world really was. He had to deal with racist jokes and rulers getting whacked on his knuckles just because he spoke Spanish. In 1942, Cesar Chavez only in eighth grade decides to quit school just so he can work in the fields full-time because his father can no longer continue working. The only thing Cesar ever knew was hardships. At such a young age, Cesar knew that struggling for what he wanted was the only thing that was going to get him anywhere. Since then Cesar knew that it wasn’t a life people should be living, but sadly they had no choice just because they were “different”. No matter what these poor migrant farmworkers were going through, none of them ever spoke up just because they were afraid of losing their jobs. Cesar never spoke up directly to

Cesar Chavez’s leadership began when he joined the Agricultural Workers Organization Committee (AWOC) in Delano for the grape strike in 1965. Those five years they spent on the grape strike received a lot of national attention. The strikers marched 300 miles from Delano to Sacramento to present their commands in 1996. Cesar Chavez and his new union walked to the capital of California just so they can be heard. Cesar introduced the non-violence idea to his new members and soon enough they were on his side. They started with a strike against the growers and they noticed nothing being done so they decided to boycott and picket places selling grapes. None of that were really working as much as Cesar would of like so he soon decided he was going to have to suggest something big to be acknowledged. The walk from Delano to Sacramento took twenty-five days. They started only with seventy-five people in the march and once they got arrived in Sacramento, over 100,000 people joined them at the rally. The amount of acknowledgement was unbelievable and it was a complete success. Soon after the Schenley Vineyards Corporation signed a contract with NFWA for the demands of higher wages, better living conditions, and fair hiring practices. That was the farm workers first of many