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7 unusual facts about United Farm Workers


Bill Walczak

Originally from New Jersey, he came to Boston on a Boston University scholarship but dropped out after one semester to work on the lettuce boycott of the United Farm Workers.

Eli M. Black

United Farm Workers president Cesar Chavez said that his career was proof that management could work with farm labor "for the betterment of all." Black served as a trustee of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The American Jewish Committee, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, Babson College, the Jewish Guild for the Blind, and the Jewish Museum.

Keir Pearson

Pearson also wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film Chávez, about the American American labor leader César Chávez, who founded the United Farm Workers.

Olga Rodriguez

As Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Los Angeles in 1973 and governor of California in 1974, Rodriguez used her campaigns to support and publicize the struggle of working people, including the battles of the United Farm Workers union.

Philip Vera Cruz

He was a co-founder of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, which later merged with the National Farm Workers Association to become the United Farm Workers.

United Farm Workers

The union publicly adopted the principles of non-violence championed by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Other UFWOC activists joined Nelson in Rio Grande City, including Gilbert Padilla, Antonio Orendain, and Bill Chandler.


Estela Ruiz

Meanwhile, her husband Reyes, who had long been involved in many Catholic activities, including the encuentro movement of Spanish-speaking Catholics in the United States, the Catholic farmworkers rights campaigns, and prison ministries, forged ties with Father Jack Spaulding of St. Maria Goretti Church in Scottsdale and his group of nine young Marian visionaries.


see also

Forty Acres

The Forty Acres, the United Farm Workers compound founded by Caesar Chavez and designated a National Historic Landmark