From: "RICHARD P.F. HOLT" <holtri@vax1.elon.edu>
Subject: Cesar Chavez
Cc: holtri@vax1.elon.edu
Status: OR
For anyone who was involved with the social and political movements of the
1960s, the struggle of the farm labor movement under Cesar Chavez in 
California stands out as a success story. Starting out as a community worker
for Saul Alinsky's Community Service Organization, Chavez learned the skills
that allowed him to form one of the most important political movements of the
1960s. Through  moral courage and hard-headed tactics Chavez was able to win
the sympathy of politicans, intellectuals and the general public alike. From
this external support and a committed staff of workers and volunteers Chavez
was able to form the United Farm Workers -- the first agricultural union to
survive the power and political force of agribusiness in California.

What gave the UFW power and opportunity to succeed, as compared with past
efforts to organize farm workers in California, was the UFW's ability to
mobilize domestic farm workers and external resources simultaneously. Chavez
concentrated on forming close bonds with the domestic farm labor population
and the subgroups that surrounded them, while he was also tapping the 
resources of larger and richer social and liberal groups in the United States.
By taking advantage of a national environment favorable for political change,
the UFW was able to demand changes within the political and economic
structure of California agriculture that otherwise wouldn't have occurred.

Chavez was a man of contradictions, but he knew what was important. He
seemed to have an inner compass that would always point him to the morally
right thing to do. The first time I met him he just finished giving a talk
which wasn't that good, but up close one was taken by the splendid and
very intelligent eyes he had. From those eyes you could tell you were
in the presence of a very spiritual man. During my teenage years I was
very much involved with the UFW boycotts and from that experience it gave
me a sense of purpose and social responsbility. Besides myself, I'm sure
Chavez gave hundreds of other youths a sense of moral purpose in their lives.
Our society truly needs more men and women like Chavez today. Our country
owes him a lot.
-Ric Holt