César Chavez

César Chávez, June 1974

César Estrada Chávez (* 31 March 1927 in Yuma , Arizona ; † 23. April 1993 in San Luis , Arizona) was the founder of US farm workers union United Farm Workers (UFW).

Life

Chávez was born in 1927 as the second of five children to a smallholder family in Yuma. In 1939 the family sold the farm to pay their tax debts and joined migrant workers to earn a living in Arizona and California . In 1944 he went to the United States Marine Corps . In 1948 he returned to California and married Helen Fabela .

From 1952 he sat in the Community Service Organization (CSO) for social issues, where he was supported by Fred Ross . In 1962 Chavez left the CSO to set up the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Dolores Huerta . In 1965 the NFWA and the Agricultural Workers Organization Committee (AWOC) merged to form the United Farm Workers union .

His birthday, March 31st, is a public holiday ( Cesar Chavez Day ) in several US states .

In 2014, the biography Cesar Chavez was released .

Awards

Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 8, 1994
Pacem in Terris Award
Name of an asteroid after him on August 27, 2019: (6982) Cesarchavez

literature

Peter Matthiessen : Sal si puedes: César Chávez and the new American Revolution . Dell Publications, New York City, USA 1969.
Volker Hornung: Economic boycott as a non-violent weapon in civil rights movements. Two case studies of the American civil rights and farm labor movements. Frankfurt: Haag + Herchen Verlag, 1979, 342 pages. ISBN 3-88129-193-8
Levy, Jacques E .: Cesar Chavez. Autobiography of La Causa. New York: WWNorton & Company, 1975, 546 pp., ISBN 0-393-07494-3
Brown, Eric: Cesar Chavez. Fighting for Farmworkers. Capstone Press, 2005. ISBN 0-7368-4631-X
Nathan Heller: Hunger Artist . In: The New Yorker , April 14, 2014
Ronny Baier: Chavez, Cesar. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 22, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-133-2 , Sp. 186-193. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Cesar Chavez , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 28/1993 from July 5, 1993, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : César Chávez - collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Chavez, César
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Chávez, César Estrada (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American founder of the United Farm Workers union
DATE OF BIRTH	March 31, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH	Yuma , Arizona
DATE OF DEATH	April 23, 1993
Place of death	San Luis