In Honor of Cesar
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
“A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is also an act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more.”
Today is Cesar Chavez’s birthday. I’ve written and spoken of him many, many times over the last three years, as I see him, along with King and Gandhi, as one of the great liberators of the last century. When I say “great liberator”, I don’t mean it in the traditional, almost romantic way we view liberators. Too often we want to see them as lofty saints, versus clever tacticians, which I believe limits their legacy. I’m not interested in holding somebody up as somehow different or above it all. Chavez was a simple man, plain and simple, who stood up, used his head and worked hard-everyday-to fight for a better world. Nor do I use the term because he fought for the rights of migrant farmers (and won), or because he organized and built the United Farm Workers, or because he fasted numerous times to draw attention to the quest. No, I use it because he recognized, like King and Gandhi, that the liberation of the oppressed was linked with the liberation of the oppressor. He knew that both sides were afflicted, and each needed to be healed if true justice was ever to be achieved. In short—he sought to liberate all. Each of these leaders used “non-violent resistance” to challenge authority and build momentum behind their goals. But their goal was never to simply organize those at the bottom, but to challenge—intellectually and spiritually—the members of the larger society who often were unaware of their role in the system that kept farm workers poorly paid, uneducated and living in squalid conditions.
If I may….the fight so many of us wage should not be about organizing the poor, but helping the vast majority of Americana’s overcome the understandable fear they have of thinking about why there ARE poor. The average American is a just, caring, generous person who truly wants to see a world that is color blind, even and fair. BUT they are afraid of the hard work and, frankly, sacrifices they will have to be part of if we are to get there. Simply put…it’s easier to think that if you are poor, left out or uneducated—it’s because you are lazy, dumb or unwilling to work. That’s what King, Gandhi and Chavez understood….and they sought to find imaginative and evocative ways to guide folks into this larger conversation. THAT’S why they were liberators…because they disguised the liberation of one group as a way to engage the larger community in a dialogue that would liberate everyone.
In Cesar’s case, he used the Grape Boycott. In 1966, he launched “La Causa” a multi-year campaign, to highlight the plight of farm workers. By 1969, led in large part by students, millions had boycotted grapes at home and at school to show their solidarity with underpaid and undervalued farm workers. Finally, on July 29, 1970…the first union contracts were signed. Not only had he helped organize and unite farm workers, but he engaged the larger citizenry in the discussion and got them to see that they had a role to play.
Let me cut to the chase….and make two big points.
1. When we romanticize leaders like Chavez, or see them as merely fighters for the rights of the poor, we limit their real agenda—which was to uplift the entire population and initiate a broader dialogue. Issues like exclusion, poverty, hunger and the like will not go away unless we talk about them and reason together to find a way out—together. It will not be easy, as fear makes most resistant to the dialogue. We must meet people where they are and guide them to the table.
2. Cesar Chavez got this country to the table using grapes. Do not loose site of that. Gandhi used salt. Dr. King used the dimes it took to ride the buses of Montgomery. Liberators don’t brandish weapons, nor do they descend from on high—the great ones use simple ideas in profound ways to bring people together…..and they never give up.
Neither should we.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Chavez.
(This blog post was origionally posted on this day in 2006. I post it ever year on the day we honor the memory and work of Cesar Chavez)
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