Cesario “César” Chávez was born in Yuma Arizona on March 31, 1927. When he was ten, the Chávez family was forced to leave Arizona and they moved to California where they worked in the fields. Right after finishing junior high school, César went to work full-time. In 1946, he enlisted in the Navy. He was honorably discharged and soon after he married Helen Fabela in October 1948. After an attempt to work on timber jobs and moving to Crescent City, César and Helen moved back to San José’s neighborhood Sal Si Puedes (Get Out If You Can).

César Chávez leaning on a rail during the march to Sacramento, 1966

Unlike the March on Washington of the Civil Rights era that had a group converged on one place, the pilgrimage to Sacramento chose Mao’s model of a traveling march that organized people along the route. Thus, the march was planned to pass through as many small towns as possible. The march was led by a farmworker carrying a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico, made by 22-year-old Alicia Jiménez from Sacramento. American and Mexican flags were also carried at the head of the procession. As the marchers walked single file along Highway 99 and on small roads, people used to come to cheer the workers on and offer food or drinks. Sometimes, music performers welcomed the marchers and a few of these local musicians joined the march to Sacramento. A farmworker advanced team devised strategies to mobilize local farmworker committees and groups to welcome the marchers, feed them, organize a rally each evening and a mass the next morning. At each rally, Luis Valdez proclaimed the “Plan de Delano,” calling for the liberation of the farmworker. The plan was modeled after Emiliano Zapata’s Plan de Ayala. Teatro Campesino also performed during those rallies. The physical suffering of the long march enhanced the religious aspects. “Every step was a needle,” César Chávez recalled. He suffered from a swollen ankle, blisters, and fever for a day or two. Then, he continued the march hobbling a cane. “The penance part of it,” he said, “is the most important thing of the pilgrimage.”

After the assassination of King on April 4, 1968, Chávez gave a speech at the Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan in May 1968. There he explained how the farmworker struggle was more than a union dispute: “People raise the question: Is this a strike or is it a civil rights fight? In California, in Texas, or in the South, anytime you strike, it becomes a civil rights movement. It becomes a civil rights fight.”