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Free Sample Lessons for K-8 Curriculum

Celebrate Cesar Chavez Day with free sample lessons from the Cesar Chavez Summer Learning Program.

Please fill out the form to access your free lessons.

If you want to learn more about the Cesar Chavez Summer Curriculum for your school or district, please get in touch with edu.partnerships@chavezfoundation.org for more information.

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A Shared Vision: Cesar Chavez and the Black Panthers

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In celebration of Black History Month, we are highlighting Cesar Chavez and the farm worker movement’s deep roots and successful collaborations with the Black Panther Party and African American activism in Oakland.

Before starting to build what became the United Farm Workers in 1962, Cesar helped organize and lead the Community Service Organization, California’s largest and most effective Latino civil rights group in the 1950s and early ‘60s. The first CSO chapter Cesar organized on his own was in West Oakland around 1953.

Founded in Oakland in 1966, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was ideologically rooted in Black Power, self-determination, and the right to defend oneself against oppressive systems. It quickly gained the trust and respect of Black community members thanks to its Community Survival Programs such as free breakfasts, health clinics, food banks, health clinics, and more.

Greeting young African American children in Oakland (from left) Cesar Chavez, Bobby Seale, and Chavez aide Richard Ybarra.

In its early years, the UFW organized farm workers by providing them with services such as a credit union, death benefit insurance, a service station where migrants could buy cheap gas and fix their cars, and service centers to help them with myriad problems. Cesar and his colleagues believed workers weren’t just workers. While only a union could remedy abuses in the fields, workers faced other crippling dilemmas when they returned to their communities. So, it would take more than a union to overcome those dilemmas; it would take a movement.

Black Panther founders and early leaders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton emphasized dismantling systemic injustice. By focusing on the laws, bureaucratic structures, and economic incentives that maintain white supremacy and capitalism, they strove to dismantle them from the roots.

Meantime, from the UFW’s inception, Cesar Chavez inspired farm workers to challenge and overcome a farm labor system in this country that treats them as if they are not important human beings—as if they are beasts of burden—through self-organization and collective action.

Those visions perfectly positioned the Panthers and the UFW to share a commonality of missions and led them to support each other’s struggles.

Walking precincts in West Oakland in the mid-1970s (from left) U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums, Alameda County Supervisor John George, Cesar Chavez, and Assemblymember Tom Bates.

The Panthers joined the UFW’s international boycott of California table grapes in the late 1960s by picketing major supermarkets in Oakland. They supported farm worker boycotts of grapes, lettuce, and Gallo wine in the early-to-mid ’70s. The party refused donations to its free breakfast program from boycotted stores and organized carpools to shuttle shoppers to other markets.

Cesar and the UFW campaigned to send Ron Dellums to Congress in 1970, the first African American ever elected from Oakland. Cesar and the farm workers worked with the Panthers in Bobby Seale’s unsuccessful 1973 run for Oakland mayor, and in 1977, they helped elect Lionel Wilson, the first African American mayor of Oakland. Cesar walked precincts in West Oakland alongside African American elected officials.

Throughout their decades-long connection, each organization supported the other. The inspiration from their model of multi-racial solidarity is perhaps more relevant in this time of increasing polarization and ideological entrenchment. Their alliance is a reminder that authentic coalition building is possible when we connect through a larger shared vision for systemic change.

Would you like to know more about Cesar Chavez’s legacy? Please visit the National Chavez Center, an organization that is committed to promoting and conserving the memory of Cesar Chavez through his words and images, and the place where he lived during the last quarter century of his life – the César E. Chávez National Monument.

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Announcing the 2024 Speakers Bureau

The National Chavez Center Speakers Bureau is a year-round program dedicated to sharing the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez. Official Speakers and representatives from the National Chavez Center present at nationwide conferences, community-based events, marches, universities and more, lending contemporary meaning to Cesar’s core beliefs and values.  To learn more or to request a speaker, please submit a Speakers Request Form.

2024 Speakers Bureau

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A Message From Our New President and CEO Manuel Bernal

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At the end of 2023, the Cesar Chavez Foundation (CCF) Board of Directors announced Paul Chavez’s retirement and my appointment as CCF’s President and CEO. During his 30 years with the Chavez Foundation and more than 50 years with the farm worker movement, Paul has ensured that the legacy and values of his father continue inspiring people to make a difference in their lives and communities. I am humbled and honored to follow in his footsteps as we move forward into this next chapter.  

Over the past several years, Paul and I have worked together crafting a vision for CCF. I made a personal commitment to continue the work of impacting lives through the guidance of Cesar’s values. My intention as the new President and CEO is to steer CCF into the future and facilitate growth so more needs are addressed as we work to improve the quality of life for Latinos and working people. While we will continue focusing on growth in the Southwest, we are placing special emphasis on growing our presence in Texas, and looking forward to working with partners as we advance our mission of inspiring and transforming communities.   

CCF has experienced tremendous growth and has never been stronger. We have a Board of Directors committed to the ideals that started the National Farm Workers Service Center 60 years ago, and a management team and staff dedicated to implementing the daily work.  What started as an organization to address the fundamental needs of working families, CCF has grown and transformed into a successful collection of social enterprises supporting millions of Latinos and other working families with nearly 400 employees across five Southwestern states. As we prepare to cross the billion-dollar mark of investment in underserved communities through CCF social enterprises, the organization is poised to achieve new heights.  

Thank you for your continued support. I am grateful to be on this journey with you.

 

Manuel H. Bernal, President and CEO
Cesar Chavez Foundation 

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The farm worker movement was in Mario Vargas’ heart

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We learned with sadness about the passing of Mario Vargas, whose love for the farm worker movement led him to dedicate his life to La Causa and to become one of the longest serving staff members at the National Chavez Center, movement headquarters at La Paz in Keene, Calif. Mario, 80, passed away on Tuesday, January 23 in Bakersfield.

He was one of 10 children of Angelino Vargas and Maria Costa, born in 1943 on the island of Faial in the Azores, where he grew up until age 24. The family immigrated to the United States in 1967, fleeing destruction from a volcanic eruption. Mario and his brother Norberto quickly went to work in Livingston, Calif. at E&J Gallo wine grape vineyards, a huge company with many Portuguese workers. They soon met Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Roberto De La Cruz as they organized Gallo workers and explained their United Farm Workers contract. Union organizer Aggie Rose, who was also Portuguese, translated for the workers.

Mario served as a union steward at Gallo, helping enforce the UFW contract and defend workers from mistreatment. After their UFW contract was arbitrarily turned over to the Teamsters by Gallo in 1973, both Vargas brothers walked out on strike and spent months on picket lines. They were arrested and jailed with many other strikers for violating anti-picketing injunctions—among 3,500 nonviolent strikers behind bars across the Central Valley that summer. “We went through hell,” Norberto recalls, “but we were young and full of energy.”

Cesar Chavez sent Mario and Norberto Vargas to San Francisco to boycott Gallo wines, grapes, and lettuce. They worked with both Fred Ross Sr. and Jr. and were jailed again while picketing supermarkets.

Mario and Norberto returned to Livingston in September 1975 to vote for the UFW at Gallo in one of the first elections under the historic California farm labor law. Mario stayed with the union, joining a team of organizers helping farm workers organize throughout the state. “Mario was an effective organizer, strong and fearless—when there was a lot to be fearful about,” affirmed UFW President Emeritus Arturo S. Rodriguez. “Workers respected Mario.”

Mario took part in most major UFW organizing, boycott, and political campaigns, traveling across the state.

Eventually settling at movement headquarters in La Paz, Mario was part of the team that cared for the grounds there and at the movement’s “Forty Acres” facility in Delano. He supported building or renovating the Visitor Center and Memorial Garden at Keene, now part of the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument. He later performed the same duties when the Villa La Paz Education and Conferencing Center (the old North Unit) was extensively renovated. When union families got new assignments, Mario would show up with a truck to help them move. Cesar Chavez Foundation Board of Directors Chair Paul F. Chavez recalls Mario helping move him at least five times.

More recently, he spent years on security and patrolling La Paz, particularly at night. He remained living on the grounds. After Cesar died in 1993, he took special care protecting the grave site. Mario and Norberto reunited during those years as they worked security and performed other duties at La Paz and the Forty Acres.

Mario committed his life to the farm worker movement. “We used to talk,” Norberto noted, “and Mario would say, ‘I love the union. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying with the union.’ The union was in his heart,” Norberto added. “Mine too.”

“Mario was a constant presence at La Paz for decades,” Paul Chavez said. “Succeeding generations of movement activists who knew him were inspired by his example.”

A very private man, Mario never complained, even as his health declined.

Mario Vargas is survived by eight of his siblings: Maria, Angelino, Rufino, Gabriela, Norberto, Edwina, Thelma, and Roy. Another brother, Armando, preceded him in death.

Services are pending.

Image Credit: Mario Vargas at the Villa La Paz Education and Conferencing Center at the National Chavez Center in Keene, Calif. Photo by Victor Aleman