To March for Others
To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers
LAUREN ARAIZA
Series: Politics and Culture in Modern America
Copyright Date: 2014
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pages: 264
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hjkj9
Search for reviews of this book
Book Info
To March for Others
Book Description:

In 1966, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an African American civil rights group with Southern roots, joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers union on its 250-mile march from Delano to Sacramento, California, to protest the exploitation of agricultural workers. SNCC was not the only black organization to support the UFW: later on, the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Black Panther Party backed UFW strikes and boycotts against California agribusiness throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.

To March for Othersexplores the reasons why black activists, who were committed to their own fight for equality during this period, crossed racial, socioeconomic, geographic, and ideological divides to align themselves with a union of predominantly Mexican American farm workers in rural California. Lauren Araiza considers the history, ideology, and political engagement of these five civil rights organizations, representing a broad spectrum of African American activism, and compares their attitudes and approaches to multiracial coalitions. Through their various relationships with the UFW, Araiza examines the dynamics of race, class, labor, and politics in twentieth-century freedom movements. The lessons in this eloquent and provocative study apply to a broader understanding of political and ethnic coalition building in the contemporary United States.

eISBN: 978-0-8122-0883-2
Subjects: History, Political Science
You do not have access to this book on JSTOR. Try logging in through your institution for access.
Log in to your personal account or through your institution.
Table of Contents
Export Selected Citations Export to NoodleTools Export to RefWorks Export to EasyBib Export a RIS file (For EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, Zotero, Mendeley...) Export a Text file (For BibTex)
Select / Unselect all
  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. List of Abbreviations
    List of Abbreviations (pp. ix-x)
  4. Introduction
    Introduction (pp. 1-10)

    On March 17, 1966 a group of around sixty Mexican American farm laborers representing the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) began marching nearly 250 miles from the farming town of Delano through California’s Central Valley to the state capitol in Sacramento. Led by Cesar Chavez, who had founded the union in 1962 and would go on to become one of the foremost labor leaders in the United States, the farmworkers undertook this arduous, twenty-five-day pilgrimage to draw attention to their strikes and boycotts of grape growers in Delano. TheSun-Reporter, a progressive African American newspaper in San Francisco, reported on...

  5. CHAPTER 1 This Is How a Movement Begins
    CHAPTER 1 This Is How a Movement Begins (pp. 11-41)

    Elizabeth Sutherland Martínez had chosen her dress just for the occasion—it was red and black to match the flag of the National Farm Workers Association. As one of two Mexican Americans on the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee nationwide, Martínez had traveled from New York City to California’s Central Valley in March 1966 to show support for the union. Led by Cesar Chavez, the farmworkers were marching 250 miles from Delano to Sacramento to draw attention to their struggles against Schenley Industries, one of the largest grape growers in Delano. That evening, as the marchers rested, ate,...

  6. CHAPTER 2 To Wage Our Own War of Liberation
    CHAPTER 2 To Wage Our Own War of Liberation (pp. 42-70)

    Following the NFWA victory over Schenley Industries, journalist John Gregory Dunne asked veteran organizer Saul Alinsky what he would have done differently had he been in charge of the strike in Delano’s grape fields. Alinsky, head of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), was the virtual godfather to the NFWA. In 1947 he hired Fred Ross to organize Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, which led to Ross’s discovery and cultivation of Cesar Chavez as a farmworker organizer. Furthermore, Alinsky’s model of community organizing served as the blueprint for the organizing philosophy of SNCC’s Mike Miller, who initiated the alliance between the...

  7. CHAPTER 3 Consumers Who Understand Hunger and Joblessness
    CHAPTER 3 Consumers Who Understand Hunger and Joblessness (pp. 71-105)

    Esperanza Fierro Lopez was surprised by the minister’s reaction to her protest. After much discussion and debate with the other members of the UFWOC boycott committee in Philadelphia, Lopez had decided to fast in front of an A&P supermarket to draw attention to the plight of the farmworkers and persuade the store to remove California grapes from its shelves. She and the committee chose the A&P store at Progress Plaza, the first black-owned and operated shopping center in the United States, for her May 1969 fast because they believed its African American patrons would be supportive. As Lopez explained to...

  8. CHAPTER 4 More Mutual Respect than Ever in Our History
    CHAPTER 4 More Mutual Respect than Ever in Our History (pp. 106-139)

    In the winter of 1968, when agricultural employment was scarce and farmworkers and their families in the California’s Central Valley began to go hungry, many UFWOC members became frustrated with the slow progress of the union’s strike against Delano grape growers, which had been underway for two and a half years. Cesar Chavez recalled, “There was demoralization in the ranks, people becoming desperate, more and more talk about violence.” Minor acts of violence had already occurred, such as the arson of a few packing sheds, and he knew that if he did not act, the level of violence would only...

  9. CHAPTER 5 A Natural Alliance of Poor People
    CHAPTER 5 A Natural Alliance of Poor People (pp. 140-166)

    The small plane careened over the fields, buffeted by the strong winds of California’s Central Valley. Black Panther Party leaders Bobby Seale and Elbert “Big Man” Howard were taking the harrowing hour and a half flight, which seemed much longer to its passengers, to UFW headquarters at La Paz to meet with Cesar Chavez in March 1973. On landing, Seale and Howard were driven to the union’s fenced-in compound and taken to the dining hall, where members were preparing dinner, and told to wait for Chavez. The aptly named “Big Man” recalled being awestruck at the sight of the small-statured...

  10. Conclusion
    Conclusion (pp. 167-172)

    The black freedom struggle’s support of the UFW demonstrates the potential benefits of coalitions. Alone, the farmworkers of California’s Central Valley were virtually powerless against the forces of agribusiness. But by linkingla causawith the dynamic movements for social change of the 1960s and early 1970s, the UFW was able to attract allies beyond the farmworker community of California. Only with the support of these allies was the UFW able to publicize its fight for social and economic justice and bring nationwide pressure on the growers, resulting in the first union contracts for agricultural workers. However, these relationships also...

  11. NOTES
    NOTES (pp. 173-194)
  12. BIBLIOGRAPHY
    BIBLIOGRAPHY (pp. 195-208)
  13. INDEX
    INDEX (pp. 209-220)
  14. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (pp. 221-224)
University of Pennsylvania Press logo