Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers labor union. Chavez is especially remembered for the “Delano Grape Strike” which he initiated in 1965 to protest for higher wages for Filipino American farm workers.

Chavez stayed active in his later years; in 1991, the year this portrait was made, he launched a “Public Action Speaking Tour” of U.S. colleges and universities. His standard speech at these events covered the problems facing farmworkers, the dangers of pesticides, the alliance of agribusiness and the Republican Party, and his view that boycotts and marches were a better means of achieving change than electoral politics.

This portrait has been newly added to this website’s database.