DiGiorgio Election Campaign
DiGiorgio Election Campaign
Altar chapel sitting on a station wagon, Delano, 1966. Photo by John Kouns.
The organizers leafleted in the morning, went to the Sierra Vista Ranch in the afternoons, and spent the evenings in town. After an injunction barring NFWA pickets and organizers from gathering on the road opposite DiGiorgio fields, a group of women, including sisters Antonia and María Saludado, suggested that the union set up a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe there instead, and hold a prayer meeting. César Chávez liked the idea and asked his brother Richard to convert Cesar’s old station wagon into a mobile chapel. The police couldn’t enforce an injunction against a religious ceremony. The union started holding mass every evening in front of the station wagon for other farmworkers, union supporters, and DiGiorgio workers who had just come off the job. The mass included a meeting, spiritual songs, and the signing of authorization cards. “It was a beautiful demonstration of the power of nonviolence,” said César Chávez
Tom & Ethel Bradley Center
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330
Phone: (818) 677-1200 / Contact Us