Transcripts For CSPAN3 Farm Worker Movement 20151024

Workersxt, united farm cofounder, though lotus where huerta,olores discusses the Farmworkers Movement and cesar chavez. It is about two hours. Panel brings one of the icons of the movement to our Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers Movement with cesar chavez. [applause] nationala directed the boycott during the National Grape strike. She has been involved in the fight since 1955. She has been arrested more than 20 times for leading nonviolent protests. Named one of the most important women of the 20th oftury, and has dozens really important awards, including the Eleanor Roosevelt award for human rights, which was bestowed on her by president clinton, and the president ial medal of freedom by president obama. [applause] her is miriam powell, a hasnalist, author who researched the united farm workers and cesar chavez. Her recent work won the Robert F Kennedy prize, and was a finalist for the National Critics circle. As a journalist, she has spent 25 years as an awardwinning , and has been an Alicia Patterson fellow, and was awarded the National Endowment to the humanities fellowship biography. Avez next to her is matt garcia. The garcia is director of religious studies department at Arizona State arrested, he also directs the comparative studies program there. He previously taught at the mercy of illinois, the receipt of, and brown university. Own,ok, a world of its won the award for the best book by the oral history association. His most recent book, from the jaws of history, won the celeb tough philip taft award. Garcia was also the outreach primaryr, and Co Investigator for the bracero project, and recipient of the history award. He completed his phd in history at Claremont Graduate School and 19 i seven. Again, i just want to ask again, have 25elists will minutes to present. Our timekeeper will inform you, as we approach the time, five minutes, three minutes, and one minute. To the audience, i would ask i would request that you silence your cell phones, and that you be respectful of our guests. A question and answer will follow the presentation. Ms. Huerta thank you very much for holding this panel and the strike. N of impact it had we can talk a little bit about that later, by thought i would give a little bit of background. There have been many attempts to organize farmworkers in the past. The laborers union, teachers and most attempts throughout history have failed. It was really unfortunate because of a child of, had the good fortune because cesar werez, and myself, we successfule to do a union of farmworkers. Both of us had attempted to organize farmworkers back in the 1950s, and organize farmworkers during world war ii. Shortly after we did that, the group dissolved. I had also organized farmworkers and turn them over to the butchers union. Again, they took over. Association had different organizers from different ethnic groups African American mexicans, of course, and filipino. I recruited someone from stockton, california, where i was from. One of the priests working with us at the time, father macola, mcdonald, went to washington and met with the aflcio to tell them about this group of artwork is that they had been organizing. They sent someone out there, and when we saw this huge group of i was with them for quite a while. Basically, they started working with labor contractors. With the mexicanamerican community, the africanamerican, o community, that did not really work. , and said, look it was interesting because what we decided to start the union, we actually had the Community Service organization in use los angeles. I always told a story. Cesar said, farmworkers will never have a union unless we do it. I thought he was kidding. I started laughing. No, he said, we have to do it, you and i. Not, he said, but, we will see a National Union in our the owners aree too rich, too powerful, and to racist. His family moved to delano to start the union. We started their with house meetings. This is the way fred lawson taught organizing, and wrote a lot of significant legislation for the latinos in california. I will not go into that now. When they started these house i wanted to mention some of the people who were really the foundation of the delano strike, and the people who made the sacrifices. Some of them are here with us today. Blanco. Come up. [applause] antonia saludado. Her family had the first house meeting, an early one. [applause] [indiscernible] a Young Volunteer that came to work, and volunteered to work at the boycott and San Francisco. Martha. [applause] write could not read or when she was sent to the boycott. Harvard,have yale, and all of these prestigious colleges, they were first one [applause] we have wendy greenfield, from new york city. She was a teenager at the time. [applause] friends, didl her the boycott. Bobby cruz, whose mother was one of thefirst members contract we had at the time. These are the people that made it happen, leaving their homes. Farmworkers left their homes, and went to places all over the United States of america, even canada. Polly parks is also in the room. [applause] striker, when that started i do want to thank you guys. [applause] when we had that strike, on september 16 i do want to say a little bit about relationship with the Filipino Workers. Larry and i always communicated. When i went to stockton, i would him, and when he came to delano, he would call me. The farmers would stop working, and the growers would give them a wage increase. Strikee workers went on on september 18, we did not know if it would be a stoppage or strike. Thethere was so much violence, we said, we had no choice, we had to support the strike, so we did. We started organizing from 1962, and our plan was to not go on strike in 1968 because we wanted to be able to negotiate directly with all of the growers at the same time. This is what we were setting up all over the valley, the central valley. We wanted to make sure we had members everywhere so we could have this big strike at the same time. During that time, we were organizing, we did services for the workers. We did income taxes, we did immigration work. We integrated tons of people. By the way, in that time, it was easy to immigrate people. , and other things that the farmworkers needed. We were building up membership. We had insurance, what you called an insurance plan, with someone died in the family, the family got 1000. This is the way we build our membership. The members were paid 2. 50 per month. Half would go to the insurance company, half would go to the wages. By the way, our wages were very minimal. We were getting 25 30 per week. We would split whatever we could. Great, in a way, because we knew we had to work the same way the farmworkers lives. This was all building up to the original strike. When the Filipino Workers went on strike, we supported them. Eptember 16 was the launch it was, by the way, not just filipinos and mexicans. We had puerto ricans, africanamerican during that time of the strike, we were not making any money. You can imagine the kind of sacrifice that workers were making to walk out of the fields knowing that you had no money. Live, caravansto brought food and clothing. This is how we got our food. There was literally no money. Later on, we were able to increase the wages by five dollars a week. Then, 10 a week. One of the problems we had, once , we could contracts not win in the fields because there were court injunctions. These farms are huge. Have this court injunctions, this court orders, you could only have five tickets to a field. If we had more than five tickets to a field, they would take us to jail. Re was no way we could they could not see the picket line. We knew we had to do something different. On the boycott. And wentft their homes to the citys. There were 17 million americans that supported the farmworkers. Get theable to finally growers to come to the table. Contracts, ite was difficult for the filipino leadership. Pete belasco became the secretarytreasurer of the united farm workers. He was with us until the very end. When he passed away, he was living in headquarters. Larry had a lot of pressures on him. , these were workers all licensed contractors. Once we got the contracts, you could not have a separate crew, Filipino Crew and mexican group, puerto rico and crew. The growers would always use one group against another. Filipino crews are working faster, mexican crews are working faster. Ews. Esegregated the cr accordinge dispatched to seniority. We have a lot of americans that came out of that. Some young filipinos they brought in, they could not speak english. Somehow, they communicated. There was a lot of pressure because we broke up the system they had before. I know there was a lot of pressure. Before, the leadership of the crew, they would get so much money for every box the worker picked. Once you have the contracts, you cannot do that. Workers have a set wage and the crew leaders were like they had a set wage. They were not making as much money as they can before. They could get whatever it was, . 10 a box or whatever. The workers could make a lot more money. Dissension lot of and larry would talk to us about the pressure he was suffering. Stayed. The brother they stayed until the very end. We formed our own village so the brothers would have a place to stay and eat and get the medical care they needed. That was a very important point and we need to raise that. What did we win with that strike . One of the first things in that first contract we signed, toilets. How about that . Toilets in the field. Cold Drinking Water in the field. , theyof the humiliation had no place to go to the bathroom. They would have to hide behind a blanket or sheet to go to the bathroom. These farms are 20 miles out of town. The workers would have to often have one tub of water, maybe a soda can. Everybody would have to drink out of that same cup. The whole crew of 40 or 50 people drinking out of one cup. That was another thing we got in the first contract. Water with have individual cups for the workers. We got the first medical appliance for the workers. The employers had to contribute to the workers. We got the First Pension plans. Today, farmworkers here in our area are getting Pension Plans from the Farmworkers Union. This was unheard of before. Of course come a we talked about the legislation we were able to pass. Theere able to pass seasonal migrant labor act that covers workers when they bring them over 50 miles. They have to make sure they get them housing, they get than the wages they were promised. They have to be able to work in safe areas. We passed the amnesty bill in 1986. Farmworkers other legalization got there legalization. [applause] the persons that helped us get that bill, ted kennedy, rodino theo Seasonal Agricultural workers act. I was actually placed on a commission. We went through the whole United States of america having hearings to see what the impact of that was. Over ers had to bend they have to cut the weeds in the field. They can do that with a long handle. Insurance, we got that in 1975. In addition to the organizing in the fields, one thing we always did was to get people registered to vote. We were involved in many campaigns to get people elected to office, making sure that we did the work. We had a lot of support in the state legislature to finally pass Unemployment Insurance for farmworkers. We and hawaii are the only two holiness states of america to have full Unemployment Insurance for farmworkers. Unitedhe whole states of america to apple Unemployment Insurance for farmworkers. To have full Unemployment Insurance for farmworkers. We got over a dozen pesticides that were bad. The deadly dozen. On come i can go on and about the effects. It would be nice if we could say more they are no just passed in the sealants pesticides in the fields, but they keep coming up with new ones. Hold issuen get a put under department of health and Human Services and out of the epa. Thats the way we can finally see an end to the issue of pesticides. Agricultural Labor Relations law, the union was very sure that when we passed it allows farmers to organize into a union. If theres any retaliation against the workers when they are trained to organize, the to compensate those workers. They have these protections income of the workers can organize. As we get those contracts in 1970, we were able to organize. We had almost 100,000 workers under contract. One might say, what happened . , the Farm Bureau President nixon, powerful forces we have out there, they conspired and said they would get rid of the Farmworkers Union. They did. When our contracts were up for when we are negotiating to get our new , they signed these contracts with no protections for the workers. Its a huge strike. All over the valley, there was a huge strike. It took a long time to get those contracts back. We paste we had to have elections. We were never able to get all those contracts. Why . Governor jerry brown was not reelected and you and another a republican governor. The workers, the people in charge, they were more program or. Pro grower. Unfortunately, that is still the situation today. Just recently, the farmworkers signedas able to get contracts with some of these companies that have been 20 years since we had elections. Why were we able to get those contracts now . Thanksjerry brown to jerry brown, there was a law passed in sacramento that the workers joinr the the union, if they do not bargain, they can take them and get a bargaining order and force them to sit down and bargain. Elections won by the workers 20 years ago and they are able to barely does barely able to get those contracts. And they are barely able to get those contracts. When we think about the work of the union i do want to mention this when we talk about cesar chavez, i worked with him for many years in the beginning until his passing. The men only had an a grade education, but he was a genius. Thats a great education. The man only had an eighthgrade education, but he was a genius. Roomt know who in the would do what he did. Days,hout eating for 25 water only and communion. 1968. Then 1972 in arizona. They passed a law in arizona that if farmworkers when on strike, they would be let go for six months. Days, water only for 36 days, water only, and holy communion. So that the public would know made, the sacrifices he the sacrifice of the farmers made, they have to be taken into consideration. See a tabloid , many of the farmworkers themselves are not the one spoken to. People dont get their stories. Thatis really important the farmworkers stories are the ones that are told. Foundationhavez they havee built homes, low income homes for farmworkers, they have thousands of units in many states. They have programs in those homes for the farmworkers. The work continues. Most recently, they were able to get a lot of contracts. Im not with the union anymore. I left in 2002 to go back to committee organizing. That community organizing. There are some in the union that can update us. They are still continuing to organize. They are continuing to organize. Lets give him a big hand over here. [applause] we will have time after the other people speak. You can bring people up to date about the current state of the Dolores Huert united farm worke. Weve had five martyrs, five People Killed in the struggle for the decent human rights of farmworkers. In 18yearold student from boston who was killed in a strike in florida. An arab worker killed in california and the strike we had in 1973. Wanda shot down in the picket line. Lopez, young 18yearold young man killed because he got asked me to organize the union so that workers and his company at his company would have medical plans and Pension Plans. These people gave their lives of farmworkers could have the basic human rights. If you want to learn more about the union, there are documentaries. They talk about the boycott. Thank you for doing this. The impact of the farmworkers we canther units do it. [applause] is a hard act worker dolores ha to follow. Im only a writer. The president of the united farm workers, the head of the Chavez Foundation is here today. Thank you to the president of the college. And to everyone for staging this event. Its important in the spirit of te pope who was able to talk o a fractured congress and bring some you become its important that people come together and talk about issues we might not agree is ant all important piece of history. I cameto talk about how to write about farmworkers and the united farm workers and farm workers movemen cesar chavez. At the losorter angeles times, spent a year writing a series about united farm workers, the union today. I got into the history and past and present. Area in san in this diego. In a long been there time. I assume they still live there. That thete astonished 2005 farmworkers were living in shacks like these with no Running Water and no access to anything that would remotely be considered an acceptable life. I will keep going. Thank you. How thisto understand could come to be and how and had come to the trajectory it had come to. , somen to talk to people of the people he were introduced to buy Dolores Huerta, who were the pioneers of this movement. As a historian, to be writing about a time that is long enough ago that it is history but is reason enough that there are people who were resources who lived through it my will talk about the primary sources that i relied on to write quite a bit. As i met people who had come through the movement in the 60s never talk to someone who does not say it was the most important part of their life and that they would not be doing the things they are doing today if not for the experience with the ufw. I want to understand what that movement was that had changed so many lives. So, i left the newspaper and wrote my first book, the union of their dreams. A narrative history that only dealt with the time from 1965 through roughly 1980. It told the story through a different people, farmworkers, students who had been key pieces of that coalition that came together and help the union achieved what it did during that time. Eight different people. Im done writing about the farmworkers. As people began to say there is no biography of cesar chavez, you should write one. My response to that was the same as many other peoples had been. In 1993. There was no biography written for many years until 2014. The reason for that is because he was a complicated person and everyone who knew a lot about him new that he was a complicated person. There was a fear that writing about him in all of his complexity would tarnish a man who is a preeminent latino icon in this country to this day. My initial reaction was that i did not want to be that person and i had no interest in writing that book, either. I became convinced in talking to historians that there was a reason to write it. The reason to write it was that far from tarnishing his reputation, the lack of any serious scholarship about cesar chavez was contributing to the fact that people do not know who he is anymore. You are all here today, you will know who he is. Some of you may know more than others. I talked around the country about cesar chavez and around the state. It is shocking how few people have ever heard of him. It is not just me, there was a movie that came out at the same time as my book by diego luna called cesar chavez. Diego luna at the premiere of the movie at sxsw stood on cesar chavez boulevard with a camera and asked people walking by if they knew who cesar chavez was. Thatok him five people to she got the president of venezuela, the boxer. Ignorance isa ne quite large. There was the premiere of the movie and washington, d. C. The secretary of labor got up and said people know that he had something to do with farmworkers but they cannot get to the next sentence. Thats why i wrote the second book, the biography. His work and his life were far too important and he is too important a person in history for people not to be able to get those next sentences. Of more work that is now im not the only person writing about it. People know him as a folk face on atage stamp postage stamp. People are more interesting than postage stamps. There was a mythology that grew up around cesar chavez. Of that he created himself and some of that other people created around him. Fascinating and is an important part of understanding who he is and what he did. If you talk to any successful , organizers create myths sometimes because they do it to help them organize. When i write about the mythology book, i chavez in my tried to do it anyway that explains why he did the things that he did to create those myths. He did them for a reason, for a cause, in the interest of helping to further his own cause and his organization. Yet, one of the fascinating things about him is that as he was doing that, he also was a student of history, he was incredibly well read and he had a sense of history and a sense of his own place in history. Even as he was creating his own mythology, he was preserving his remarkable record of history. Atch of that history is the labor library. He1967, a young walter said to him, history is being made. You need to make sure that it is preserved. From 1967 on, there was a resolution in the archives in which the farmworkers ossetian icated the Library Association dedicated the library. Told to box of everything and send it. There are thousands of boxes of documents. There are tapes. The students in the audience probably have never seen anything like this. This is a tape recorder. I spent many hours threading tapes. Between 1969taped in the early 1980s. He taped meetings of the executive board of the union, taped conferences, taped lectures he gave. Classes he gave in educating farmworkers about organizing. Its a remarkable record of the past. Verbatimhear his voice and understand it. I relied heavily on those tapes in writing the book. People. To lots of this is notes restricted to this group of people, but memory in general is incredibly unreliable. As a historian, he tried to find things that are primary source documents. You try to find things that are primary source documents. People would say i was not there and i would listen to the tape of the meeting is a you were there and say you were there. To cesar chavez, we have this remarkable record from which to tell his story. That is not the only archive, theres lots of other great resources. The diocese of San Francisco and try to write about something that the archdiocese is interested in because they have great archives. There are papers at Stanford University and yell and lots of things that people say in their garages and an experience Stanford University and yale. And lots of things that people save in their garages and antics. Cs. Atti you got a good sense of the frome, what it was like the perspective of someone in it. I want to reinforce something she said about how hard it was. Ont know how many people how many younger people have ever been in a strike or seen a strike or had parents involved in a strike. There are not that many strikes these days in a strike in the field is so much harder than a strike in a factory. A factory has one entrance annex appeared you can stop people coming out. Three factory has one entrance and exit. Do, toey were trying to get people to come out of the fields. Noran indoor miss mislead difficult undertaking. Difficultsly undertaking. There had not been strikes that ended in contracts. This was about something more than just getting a wage increase. It was about Getting Union recognition. That was the only way to get contracts that would give the workers rights that they would not otherwise have. This is such an important piece of the history. December of 1965, three months into the strike when walter delano and to marched with cesar chavez and pledged 10,000 a month to the strike. Without that kind of support from luther and the labor community, the strike might never have gotten very far past that point in time. Since this is history in your backyard there are students here who are one or two generations away from farmworker families come all the more important to really understand the significance of the strike and its history. The march to sacramento was in march of 1966. Hundreds of farmworkers marching along highway 99 from delano to sacramento. Workers who never would have imagined themselves doing this. All theke was about things youve heard about in terms of conditions in the fields and money and security and bathrooms and water. It was also about dignity and respect. Possibility to instill workers with belief in their own power was one of the most important and lasting pieces of his legacy. Ability toavezs instill workers with belief. This is a very 1960s kind of picture. The boycott was something that ught farmworkers farmworkers who went to boston and chicago gave the strike a human face. Suddenly, it was not about people in california or a labor union. It was about people who left their homes and families and traveled across the country for the first time and did not necessarily speaking wish i were there asking people to do this one simple thing, not to buy grapes. That was an incredibly powerful thing. One boycott was not 17 Million People who stopped eating grapes. What won the boycott was an example of what cesar chavez called organizational jujitsu. Using your opponents strength against you. Because farmworkers were not covered by the national Labor Relations act which was considered by the growers to be the advantage they did not want their workers to be covered by the National Labor law. They were also, not subject to its restrictions. That allow them to conduct a secondary boycott. When i ask you not only to buy grapes, but not shop at any place that sells grapes. Thats how the strike was won. The union was able to put pressure on major supermarket chains. This executive said we have labor problems, tubing. Solve your problems. Thats why the boycott was successful. We have labor problems, too. That was part of Cesar Chavezs strategic genius. This is a picture of the successful signing of the great contracts in 1970. A high point in membership for the union. , for thosethe film who saw it. I added that picture last night this is dorothy and fresno. She went to jail. Was won through civil disobedience in 1973. This is one of the lead organizers. And dorothy day. I dont know who the priest is. That is a picture of jerry brown when he had hair. [laughter] the first time he was governor. He was a very important figure in the history of farm labor in california. He sign, but he was personally negotiating the Agricultural Labor act. Its a lot of credit for it. He viewed it as an important part of his legacy. Passed and that we just mark the 40th anniversary of that Labor Relations act. It was in september of 1975 that elections began. This is a picture of an election in a field. Suddenly, you have thousands of farmworkers, many who had never voted in their lives for anything in the voting and having the ability to exercise that right. Becoming engaged in a civic participation they had not before. There is a lot more to this story. I will end their in terms of the end there in an terms of the knology. Chronology. Notr chavez himself was enthusiastic about the idea of the law from the beginning. Theres a lot of interesting conversations on the tape about how he sees in many ways much earlier and part of history as a leader was his visionary ability and he often saw several steps ahead of other people. One thing he saw sooner than others did was how radically the law was going to change the nature of the union. When the strike began in 1965, wetated in an interview have to find a cross between being a movement and the union. He was very clear, he believed in the need for contracts and to be a little reunion, but he believed in the need for a movement. The law was going to change everything. Suddenly, you had hundreds of elections between september and february of 1976. 192 places where you have to go and negotiate contracts with who are not rushing to find best sign a contract with you. Naturee administrative of that, once you have members, members have expectations. They are paying dues, they want certain things. Not all members are committed to a level of sacrifice that cesar andez, Dolores Huerta others believed in. For many, it was a transaction. They wanted to make more money. He believed workers needed to be educated, there was more and things were more important than making money. You have hundreds of contracts that need to be negotiated come if you negotiate a contract, that has to be administered, there is a medical plan and pension plan and all of this is being done within exclusively volunteer staff. Volunteers come and go. People dont necessarily want to put their lives on hold forever for five dollars a week. Period that followed the inaction of the law becomes a confused time. There are conversations on the tapes about what the direction of the union is going to be. Are we a movement or union . How do we do both . Richard chavez, member of the he would sayay it is time to be a movement or union. We have to choose. For him, the choice was we should be a union. Was, if iezs answer have to choose, we will be movement. Will end there one of the things that is most important to me about having written a blog or be to transmit to people the idea that heroes are human. Having written a biography. Inting about cesar chavez all his complexity, strengths and weaknesses and good things of the movement and bad things of the movement in no way lessens his legacy or takes away from his importance in history. If you think about people like Martin Luther king, in no way did the things written about him detract from his importance. It helps ensure they have a place in history and that these things are talked about. This is the last slide, a picture of cesar chavez in 1969 when he has spent most of the last year in bed, unable to sit up, holding on to that part. That far. That bar. What she told him was he had a severe case of asymmetry. Once but was longer than the other. That was causing his problem. He was elated. He called his brother. The doctor looked at Richard Chavez and said you are little crooked, to bank, but not as o, but not as much. He can be in a rocking chair and do other things. I know all of this because he taped the entire interview. , getting a sense of what i did as sidebar for as a biographer and his sense of his own place in history. At the time when he was flat on his back and could not sit up straight without holding onto that bar, he had the presence of mind to put on the tape recorder to preserve for history the record of this encounter. Thank you very much. [applause] i want to thank Cal State University of bakersfield for being part of this welcome committee. Thank you very much for having me. Miriam vivian is here, who has done most of the correlating to appreciate that. From bakersfield college, all of her respondents have been instrumental. Theres been a lot of productive communication and i really appreciate being here. We were asked to talk about what inspires us to write the books we wrote. And how they changed the narrative of the Farmworkers Movement. Given the controversy that our books and appearance generated, i wanted to clarify my intent in writing the book come explore the art of Historical Research and writing and identify questions perhaps uncouple once that our books have produced. Onesrhaps uncomfortable that our books have produced. Work through it with the crowd. We do have veterans in the crowd. Its nice for them to talk about those moments. By sharinge to start the advice that my advisor gave me when i was an assistant professor starting to write my first book. She said remember, matt, while we are 20 of century historians and have the bench up talking to people who are alive and taking the picture had the bench up talking to people who are alive and taking the picture, you have the burden of writing things that people who are still alive can come back and critique you about. Talkingthe advantage of to the people who are alive and taking their picture. It has rescued cesar chavez and vfw from obscurity. Ufw from obscurity. I want to say what the book is about. It is not a dog of the. Not a biography. My book looks at cesar chavez from a radically different perspective based on new sources and united farmworkers in a radically different perspective. What does the book do . The first indepth study of the ufw grape boycott and how this strategy delivered the first contracts for farmworkers in california in 1970. I revealed the Farmworkers Movement was not primarily a mexicanamerican or two, movement, but rather a multicultural one. Movement, but rather a multicultural one. When the Farmworkers Movement succeeded, it often did so because of collective action. Not just the actions of cesar chavez. Or Dolores Huerta, for that matter. It takes many people to build a successful social movement if you are a historian of social movements, you are obligated to tell the history of the people who made the movement move. That is something that has really compelled me to write this book the book explains how and why the unions did not the union did not fill its goal of becoming a National Farmworker movement. Decisions made in the executive i captured on tapes want to note that we were on parallel tracks. I was there and did not know miriam was there. We were working separately. Miriam is too modest. What is involved here is actually archaeology. Lifting these things, these items you saw how old this recorder was. The recordings themselves deteriorate over time. If you go to the archives today, it will be very difficult to decipher what is happening. You have to listen very closely. Students an army of and they listened carefully and we realized what we had. It was very important. There was a professor before us who had converted them from realtor real to audiotapes reel to real to audiotapes. We needed to digitize them. We were trying to digitize them. When digital was still a little recorder. Money, take this to be remastered and the final form the existent today exist are much better that underscores the importance, the Critical Role that libraries play in preserving archives and preserving history. It is so appropriate that we are here in a library. A lot of this is about the archives. It drove the story i told and changes the history o in meaningful ways. First, i want to get back to my intent. After i finished my first book, i was really interested in the people that addressed the plight of workers, the workers i talked about in my first book. I turned to the united farmworkers. I was compelled by the men here in the center of fred ross. Ross was when i wanted to right about. I should have taken miriams advice that she just gave us. I was sitting in my office at the university of illinois and i was going to write about him and an editor came to me and said what is your next project and i said fred ross and he said, who is that . Nobody knows about him. I was young and discouraged. I should have taken your advice. There are people writing on ross. He is an incredibly important figure. Thank goodness that is coming. Had was tontention i write the filipino history of the farmers movement. As a young student, i was learning about cesar chavez, learning about the united farm workers. We never got larrys story. Thats when i was going up to the library, combing through the papers. Why do we never get told this story . Amazing. From have seen today orissa and don, i knew this work was coming. Im pleased that i can should be did to it a little bit. Contributed to it a little bit. The archives drove me to a different project, the boycott. The boycott was also forgotten in many ways. Theres a lot of talk about the strike and the marches. There was really no history of the boycott. I started to meet people that changed my mind and opened my eyes to it. Why it succeeded. That was gilbert padilla. He and Esther Padilla gilbert was here earlier. He is still there in fresno. I went and talked to gil and esther was there and esther is chiming in. It was an amazing moment. Gil started opening my eyes about what the movement was about. Why the boycott was so important. He gave all the credit to jim drake. Identify him as the person you dont have to take it from gilbert. Jim tells to himself in the archive at wayne state. When thethe story of strike was the season was over, the harvest was picked, what are we going to do with all these people who organized . The first rule was, when you have people who organize coming you keep them engaged. One thing he said, why dont we boycott . The first thing they were boycotting was wine and products of the things coming out of the central valley. In a waythe boycotts boycotts have been run before. Gilbert was a part of that. They started to hit the ports in los angeles and San Francisco to work with allied unions to enforce a blockade of the docs were these grapes were coming in. Working with teamsters appealing to the teamsters transporting the greats, according to longshoremen. Dolores was incredibly important in this era. Once they realized they could do this in california, they went across the country to york. To new york. Appealing to the Meat Cutters Union and the Seafarers Union to block the grapes from going from new jersey to manhattan. They succeeded for a time. , ifuse of the wagner act you were blockading a product going to a supermarket and you have no beef with that supermarket, you are in violation of the wagner act. Thats why the Seafarers Union and Meat Cutters Union had to stop because an injunction came down upon them. Were notd farmworkers inhibited by that injunction because they were outside of the Labor Relations act. That is the birth of the consumer boycott. They took the message to the towns and cities and people who were the consumers. ,hat is so important about this the boycott is not just this intuitive thing where you go out and ask people to stop buying in support of the workers. It has to adjust. At first, it was the allied labor and then the consumers. I will show you how it should happen that. Shifted after that. Young people came into the movement and started to look at the tactic and what of those people was jerry brown. A different jerry brown. Was a cornell graduate student, came to delano, wanted to write this dissertation about the farmworkers and cesar chavez said you will have to contribute time on the line. He did that for a while. He said i have a lot of data and i think i can help boycott. One thing jerry found, the boycott was conducted intuitively and haphazardly. This was exhausting volunteers and exhausting ufw resources. The growers responded to the loss of sales in one city by shifting sales to another in an effort to out run the ufw. They moved the sales to where the ufw boycott was not. Including rural areas. Groapes to rural areas throughout the country. Jerry knew the ufw needed another approach. He helped create that approach along with leroy. What did he do . Created an urban strategy. Concentrate the ufws efforts in the most consequential markets. Brown found that the majority of grapes were being sold and 50 of the markets and 10 north american cities. 50 being sold in 10 north american cities. If they would concentrate the efforts into these 10, he calculated if you cannot down the shipment by 10 knock down the shipment by 10 , it would bring the growers to their knees. Boston down 42 . A better than him percent. Better than 10 . Wasy city besides montreal about 10 . Above 10 . They still believed they could move the grapes around. They went to the international jessicahere people like , a native of bakersfield moved to montreal. 3 is a victory in montreal. If you are going to shifted to another city, that number should happen 60 or 80 . The challenge is she encountered as a spanish and english speaker but not french speaker, were considerable. The place i found was consequential for them is a place that is not captured in the movie that miriam mentions. It was a young 21yearold grad student at the school of oriental and African Studies in the grapesblocked from europe. Someone who is a veteran of the new york boycott. She knew jerry when she was an undergrad. She was going to be a historian. She was studying characters off vase. Ng dynasty the vietnam war is going on, i want to go to delano. She got on the phone and she called and jerry checked with caesar stay there and try to block the grapes. Realized a consumer boycott would have little appeal in england. They did not understand the kind of Race Relations and restrictions against mexican and Filipino Workers. Race was a foggy concept. What they did know was collectivebargaining. They responded to the fact that farmworkers, workers in america were being denied rights that y english people folded hold near and dear to their hearts. Boycott shifting to an earlier strategy. Away from consumers to allied workers. She appealed to the transporter. On december 22, 1968, she got an agreement. She had to go to the docs. She found where the grapes were on those ships and she allow them to pull out all the stuff that needed to be sheet worked with the dockworkers there. They shipped them to sweden. She worked with the dockworkers there. They shipped them to sweden. They kept moving. Trains, no planes, automobiles. Documentary films being created on the spot in norway. Rotting ons ended up the docks of hamburg germany in the early 1970s. Amazing, amazing heroics by people. Helpedre the people who the movement move in addition to the leaders we have learned about. , he really warmed to the idea of the boycott as a critical strategy. 1970s he said the consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness down which farmers have had to walk for many years. So this success really bread a belief that it could be done. Right . This is where a lot of the history stops when i started this project. The 1970s was neglected. There are questions earlier, what happened . , andi found in my research i wont go through it in detail, i will give you some information from the archives. Student,arned as a went to berkeley, winter clairmont, learning about the farmers movement, the perception was that the growers were resistant to unions. That is why the union didnt continue. That is why what happened . Growers were resistant. The republican opposition, reagan, nixon was there. Ufw. Aw was against the and finally the teamsters. While there was an ounce of truth to all of this, there were also things that were happening in the 1970s that kind of explained that this is not the whole story. What we have to recognize is that growers had accepted unionization but disliked ufw mismanagement. I learned this in the records , i am talking to people andng his name right now, it is all documented in my book, but these are the people who said we had some trouble out of the gate in terms of organizing. The growers responded to that in the first three years. I think it was a jet event, because they were a social movement becoming a union. They had to learn it. , andrms of the law republican opposition, yes, into officewho came and really identified himself as a supporter of the farm workers came in 1974. In 1975, the agricultural relations Labor Relations act was passed. The teamsters legal action reached a packed in which they pact in which they seated the farmworkers to the ufw. What happened . They agricultural Labor Relations act was problematic. Mary made that point. The law started to shift the priorities of the union away from the kind of missionary work they talked about of reaching the public, changing hearts and minds, to very legalistic maneuvers, and seated a lot of work to the legal team, so there were people in those executive the talked about going back to jerry brown, cancel the law, and go back to , but this was not possible because there were already commitments to organizing workers and winning , uniteds, and in fact farm workers were winning more elections than they were losing, right . And they were winning far more than the teamsters and have the growers on the ropes. Im not saying it is perfect, and identify all of the problems , but we have to deal with the fact that they were winning more than they were losing. Im not the first one to say this. There is great work by sociologists the documents this. We put it in this grand narrative now, so people look at it. The other problem was how to become a union. You have to pay people sometimes to acknowledge their labor, and this is talked about in the executive committee. The volunteer structure of this union as it became more professional or had to become more professional was a big problem. Going out, doing organizing, being paid very little, right . So there were debates in the in 1977 thatrd said against a lot of people in the board that they want to take a clear position and we are going to have to pay people. That chavez was against and ultimately it did not go that way, which included the lawyers, which i will get to in a second. Chavez also really wanted started to think about the movement in 1977 and became really somewhat doubtful whether the movement could be sustained forever righty of reasons, and i think this quote is helpful. No sooner than we will have it built than we are going to be faced with other forms of poverty, with mechanization and things coming up, its going to be a small percentage of workers working, very wellpaid, a large majority of people in the rural areas still poor, you know, former farmworkers, the rule four. We see thatuote caesar is moving away from organizing farmworkers he is more interested in creating a community. On dont know, send an there was this rehabilitation ,enter led by Chuck Dietrich and Seaver Cesar Chavez admired him. Jack wanted to create the same thing, and against the will and advice of many people in the executive board, see you can hear this in the tapes. One of the questions we have to deal with is how do we regard chaviss presence for building committees over organizing. Point caesarat one mentions in 1977 that we will have some kind of religion, either we invent one or keep what we have, but we cannot be without one. The cast of a on religious movement. Talk about catholicism as is motivating factor, that in fact i see a problem, a question. That commitment to catholicism when you are trying to build a movement that synannon. Likeness of i noticed that there was a reference to immigrants as chattel, and caesar saw illegals is the biggest problem. Finally, the departures. Because people did not agree , andcaesar in the movement the boycott, and in the executive board, these are the people and the moments that in which people were purged or let the union. A consequential year, and i think we need more research on that moment. We need to understand what with the motivations. I want to put three questions out there. What was achieved . What was lost . And why . Thank you. [applause] ok, we are going to take some questions. Thank you very much. Regarding anything the panel has said can now be asked. If you do have a question, ask at the microphones. I had to step outside. Of synanon wasue addressed. There were a couple of statements about the boycott being haphazard, but you can see from the numbers that you presented that we were very successful. It was just not going to the consumers. We were going to the consumers, hitting up unions, hitting up students, any labor organizations, religious organizations, so we were approaching the boycott from a lot of different angles. Very limited, so we did pick up volunteers along the when we in regards to got those contracts, it was an organization that had supported the Farmworkers Union from early on. They helped us with the dental , because prior to having a , theyl plan or anything would help us with our dental care and i care and all that before we established our own clinics. As we began to get contracts, one thing that caesar saw, like there were a lot of us who were movement minded, and what he did is that he saw how the organization had grown and their effectiveness in administrating your own organization, and caesar wanted us to be like that, wanted us to have that mindset in terms of being able to learn how to work and become very effective. Actually, it wasnt that he just wanted us, he wanted the leadership of the union of that , who did Board Members not want to participate in the way we play the game and all that, so caesar looked to the next year of people in management positions the next tier of people in management positions. So there were a group of us who went and did play the game, and we took it so far, and we learned a lot of things and much better inw, terms of learning how responsibility and administering the different aspects of our work in terms of what needed to be done to really establish a union, so it wasnt necessarily all bad. Thee was a point where organization took a left turn, and thats when we step back and figured that we learned all we could from them at that point. So i just wonder sure that. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, thank you so who came toauthors bakersfield and presented their work. I am very admired of their efforts, and i know that they generated great controversy. I want to share with you something that came up and ask you what you found in the records. I had the privilege of meeting. Esar chavez in new york state he actually came to my class, but he was invited to a class i was teaching. We were trying to organize support for the boycott in the late 1980s, and there was a second boycott, and at that time , a third boycott, sorry, so it that time caesar was exit and so i the country, had never met him because i had never been in california. I was not connected at all, but i was a student in new york, so i was part of a committee and we invited him and he came and did a wonderful presentation, then we had a vegetarian dinner, and that is one i have quality time with him, being the only spanish speaker in binghamton, new york. [laughter] methere was nobody else but that was mexican. I actually had him next to me. I had the privilege i shouldve brought a tape recorder, but we set down for ,bout an hour and shared dinner and i was then able to ask him a lot of questions. One of the interesting things is that i ask him what the seeker was to the success of the strike. After all this history that we all agreed was extremely difficult to overcome, what made the ufw triumph in 1970 against all odds, against a gigantic powers . Saidid three things, he volunteerism, and nonviolence. That is what he said to me. I am actually from mexico and i know a lot of the labor history of mexico, i was and thats going to be the question i was very interested to act him what kind of connection did you make to the robust Labor Movement of mexico given that your farmworkers were mexican and other at this and these other ethnicities . What did you do to reach out . What kind of solidarity did you procure from the mexican labor union . I did not get any answers. When wedocumentaries, talk about the internationalism of the ufw, it doesnt go into mexico, and he was not able to provide me with any information, so that is a question to the people in the archives. Doing know anything about that strike, was there an effort to precure solidarity with the mexican Labor Movement, was there any manifestation of that, was there any solitary expressed both ways . I will be happy to comment. Understand that back in the 1960s the geographics of the workforce were completely different than today. The members of the workers that were in the field, i then it was not a mexican workforce. It was a workforce from here in the United States. We have the dust bowl, a lot of folks continue to migrate, and there was a lot of about 40 , the way i have seen the stats, were still farmers working during that particular time. Particulart percentage of latinos born in the nuns states and now working in the fields, or their parents and a come over and they were working in the field. That was caesars situation and his family. He was born in arizona. They became migrant workers. Still a significant africanamerican workforce back then. There was still a large percentage of other workers that were brought in from different areas. So during that particular time there wasnt that major flow of folks that we saw. All that begin to change and we saw significant change. Of 1986immigration laws were so critical and so important to that workforce that migrated during that time. There is a huge relationship between the united farm workers and the working we , because of the , ange in the workforce today largely indigenous workforce that comes here and speaks many different languages, a large number coming from the state of. Hio as a result, we have now created different kinds of relationships and so forth. Our latest initiative and endeavor is all about international. Withe working now jointly because of the changes that are taking place in the Agricultural Industry over the last 50 years. Today, it is a global industry. Only 50 or less of the products we consume today are produced here in the United States. Everything else comes from abroad, whether mexico are other countries around the world, and so as a result, we are stepping back and trying to look at how farmereal with the worker issue by doing what we have done successfully throughout the years. We have to change the model. We have to change the work we have to do. We have operations now in mexico. We are involved in other parts of the country in mexico. We have a group of folks in the corolla. Nicaragua. We are working with different places there in other parts of the world, beginning to explore all that. Over the course of the last five decades, there has been a huge shift because of the change in the workforce and what has transpired, the change in the agricultural and his so it has taken as a whole new direction that we continue to work with. I will take a shot at that as well. I have never seen any figure that would suggest that 40 of the workers, youre talking about the great strike, were anglo. Work first0 of the working in agricultural of that time. Interested in hearing from the people who work in the fields by then. There was a predominant mexicanamerican, latino, puerto rican workforce. There were certainly some white workers. There were connections to the mexican labor unions back then. Some others went to mexico with cesar chavez. Were some strong ties at some point with the mexican labor union, but illegal immigration and the unions position on that, and that was a big issue that complicated certainly the relationship between united farm workers in the mexican union. The ufw took a strong position against illegal immigrants, to the point where in 1974 there was some thing called the Illegal Campaign in which cesar chavez said their top priority as a union was to go out and find people who were here illegally and report them to the ins if the ins was not doing its job. The theory being that there was as growersin as long have the ability to import workers from mexico, which was certainly a rationale, although there was a lot of controversy even at the top with that campaign, and it did not last long been dead because of concerns with allies in the Labor Movement. It is all well documented. It is not something people like to talk about. There are some uncomfortable things that need to be talked about as well. That cause a rupture with the whichmovement in mexico, openly condemned the ufw for having its own patrol on the border. The boulder border was porous. It was a very complicated situation. There was also a difference at that point in time between being mexican and being mexicanamerican, at this particular moment in time that we dont think about in the same way because there is more of a community of interests right now over immigration and other things, but at that point it was a very big distinction, and many of the workers were mexicanamerican. They were not mexican. I read a lot about this in the book and it is taken directly from tapes from the meetings the tapes and quotes from the meetings. Who went up tole salinas and back and forth. A whole Different Group of workers than you had in the grapes. Caesar had very complicated feelings about immigrants partly because of what we have talked about the some degree, which was the importance that he placed on sacrifice and educating workers about the importance of not just wanting to make more money. Money,nts come to make and people who come and are sending money back to their families, and so he recognized that that was an additional hurdle that he was going to have to overcome in terms of teaching them the value of that kind of sacrifice. It is a complicated history. 1990 with his in , so there to mexico is a history there. Thing, you can be thisous to cesar chavez on issue of immigration, say he was a man of his time and place, and he was a union man, so he had to tell the line to some extent. In the tapes, actually there ares at yale, really interesting debates within the inner circle. I was on the wrong side of that, he would be the first to tell you. He was against organizing undocumented workers, so was caesar, but there were enough people who are also saying that we should because of our relationship with mexico. Say, thathing i will is a generous thing to say, he is a man of his time and place, he was in union man, but i think one of the difficult things as a historian is that we ultimately pass judgment, and i would say that great leaders also transcend their time and place, and on this particular issue, caesar did not. You can say, well, who else amongst the people who were thinking about this and who were active did take that great step . There was another leader who we need tos organize. We need to embrace our mexican brothers as equals. Duringe were examples that time, young people at the colleges organizing community and groups. They said that we need to embrace that approach. It eventually came true. There also was a big debate captured on tape after elections were started about which does what the Union Position should be about the documented workers. Should they be allowed to vote. Should they attempt to get a regulation saying undocumented workers could not vote. Brother took his brother on on that issue and said if there are workers, we should organize them. Arehey arent undocumented, it doesnt matter. In many cases in 1975 and 1976, some of the strongest support for ufw came from undocumented workers. Let me clarify one you thing. Never taken a position against undocumented workers. We have always worked against people who break strikes regardless of who they are, just like any other particular organization. I happen to be with his organization and was part of the selections back in the 1970s, and we embraced everyone. This union has always taken a position that regardless of what your legal status is, it is your , receivent to benefits medical plans, Pension Plans, and there is many an undocumented worker today that is receiving those benefits in mexico or any other place in the world where they reside. I would like to Say Something. I am marcos i was in the strike back in 1965 in california. , live here in bakersfield going back and forth. Strike, i did a not know what a union was. I did not know what a boycott was. I did not know anything. All i know that i want to bring some food for my family at the end of the day, and when i go out there, there was a group of people picketing, you know, the strike had already started, and what they were saying, they were saying things that was true, the way they treat us. And i know that, but i did not know what to do, ok . So what i am saying is that at that time i joined the farm Workers Association, not a the farmu know, but Workers Association began to help me to understand, you know, what those people doing, not only in the desk because we are migrant farmworkers, because you know the difference between a local worker and a migrant farm worker. The migrant from worker goes from one to the other following the season. The farmworkers children dont know how to read and write. Cesar chavez. People wrote about it and all that. He was a man who built hope in people like me and many others when we did not what to do know what to do with ourselves. He helped us to grow up and recognize who we are. Between the strike, between that time, people helped us and gave us a name. We didnt know anything about the cities. We didnt speak english very much. They invited me to howard university. I learned english. Thisi am trying to say is a people that helped us to build the union, this is the abilityho gave us the to talk to people, to know people come in for people to know what is a farmworker. A lot of people like fruit in the city. You like it too, huh . They didnt know under the conditions, they were in terrible conditions. Thanks to cesar chavez, we went to the universities, the churches, the organizations. I hear these people talking chavez wasg not god. He was a man like you and me. He would make mistakes. But his intention is to be able to walk, to be able to teach our people how to have a better life, right . Are you married . You have kids . You want your kids to learn how to read and write. You want your kids to be better than you. In order for them to be better than you, you have to sacrifice and do something and that is what cesar chavez did. Much. People gave up so thank you so much for your comments. One second. The careful about what you are saying. Just two seconds. I follow bad. I live in chicago now and i came over because tomorrow, we are going to the university. I am 74 years old. Ok . Because a lot of our people are spending their time and you know what . I came to say to them goodbye because maybe i wont come back again. And i come here and i keep hearing these rumors that the filipinos forgot. I dont know where you guys got that. Started a strike. We found it it. We have 40 acres of land. We need to move a long. Some other people have questions. Understand theto filipinos are getting too old. All the workers come all the strikers get together. Some of you need grapes, help us understand. Please affect, would you let the other people speak. [applause] i want to say one thing. Agree with everything you said with one exception. He said despite what you people wrote. I wrote everything you said and despite the fact that people have tried to say and written letters recently to the university to say i am dishonest and out to destroy cesar chavez, that is not true and i challenge anyone who reads my book to say that. That i have say enormous respect for cesar chavez and what he did and i wrote that in the book. Iwant that to be clear that am honoring your history and the history of the people here today and that is why i wrote what i did. I agree with you 100 . [applause] i will be brief. I want to say that not everybody agrees about what the history is, frankly. One of the people that was two people gilbert and esther. They said they wanted the history told. I think those words are important. I am obligated as a historian. If you are a historian, you are obligated to be true to the archives and the archives are telling us a more complex history. Me. Can malign it has been done, we have seen the letter. That we are just reflecting what is in the archive and its a complex history. Your turn. Ok. Wait. Sorry, he has been waiting. Thank you. My friends know me as bobby. Fresno. Ut of a town in my parents were founding members of the union. My mother was the president of the ranch committee, the first union contracts. It is really about them. Farmworkers like myself picking cotton, everything you can conceive of working in this state. I just want to clarify some of this. On the 68th boycott i was in the navy in vietnam and i was in charge of the ship i was at one nixon was sending the grapes because they cannot send them here. I was telling all of my sailors not to eat those grapes. And mother used to send me a little magazine, the farmworker newspaper at the time. I would pass it out. We worked under the first contracts. And 1970, there were strikes and it wasnt that we were against it. We were against undocumented workers, just people dont understand the difference between undocumented and a scab. Was privileged and i was a striker and a boycott or when those buses came and were really ,pset that city folks militants, radicals, that didnt understand. They probably never worked in the field but they got educated in the universities. The differencend between ace gavin and someone that came. I tell you this between a sky scab. Our wetlands would stop those workers and say where are you going . I was privileged to be there. They were saying i am going north. There that if they said they were going north, we would put them in the bus and give them a ride from bakersfield. Made two buses were so , 4000 citrusstrike workers all undocumented, 90 of those in those buses that came from arizona to educate the city folks in l. A. To say you dont understand the difference. Said all wethere, i want to do is speak to these people. I can mention names. Some became mayors, union leaders. As soon as the workers got they took out guns against the farmworkers. They took out guns. Supposedly, they were revolutionary. I said here you are. You speak well about. About revolution but you are taking out guns. These are the workers that are defending their jobs and you guys say they are against undocumented. Went insidegot off, this building, and sat all of these people down and educated them and said 98 of us are undocumented. Caesar is not against undocumented, they are against scabs. They pass leaflets saying we were attacking caesar. It is the board that decides those things. I have beenen in strikes everywhere. The immigration would come in and instead of going and picking up the scabs, they would go to our line and pick up our people. And they would be deported. Report the point im trying to make is you have to go out in the fields to really understand what happens. Member,was a founding she also died two years ago on labor day. In her honor and all of those farmworkers, because my daughter was born in the union and became and prosecuted attorneys here and everywhere else. Those are the people we did it for so for them to accuse us of being against our own people is crazy. You dont understand how it works out there. Thank you. [applause] i wanted to tell you this event ends at 5 30. I think we have time for one more question. This gentleman is the next. Johnny. Well, i drove up from the east bay early to come to this to meetcause i wanted the authors. I heard the controversy of everything going on with this event. Has anything to say, for those of you dont know me, my name is johnny. Ave [laughter] [applause] i am a living legacy and i have been fighting to get the story of my father out for decades and bee been waiting for him to honored as a dude caesar. He who asked caesar to join the great strike in 1965. My question is how do you start a great strike how do you found a union if you are asked to join . My father asked caesar to join him because he knew he cannot do it without his support. This is one of the reasons i am here. I have been waiting for many years and fighting for many years to get my father the recognition he deserves from the shabbos family. Chavez family. We may fight, but were still family. I am fighting to get my father recognized and i am hoping this ,ear that the 50th anniversary my father is recognized not just in the filipino events, but in all events and celebrate the union of brothers fighting in the fields. Much verythere much. [applause] do you want to Say Something quickly . I went to thank everybody for being here today. Vezm the president of the cha foundation. I know this can have a big impact on how people can view history. There was one quote about jerry talking about i believe we need to pay people. It is a reasonable position to take. Author said this was caesars position and the story i heard growing up. Because of the work we have done, you will never have a shortage of opportunities. He said you dont know how it was growing up working in the fields knowing we want to do more but knowing we had no future. He said i believe that poor people can make a difference in the community. I believe poor people can make observations to society. We have not been given the opportunity or the preparation to do so. His intent was that farmworkers should run the union. When it came to that issue, they were talking about training negotiators. To we higher negotiators that are prepared and can read and write . They would do a great job. And that onvest working people to train them . Of course theyre going to make some mistakes along the way but they would learn because they would be given the opportunity to go out and do that work. He believed by doing that, in the short term, there may be some of bonds that over the course of history, you change the lives of an entire community. On allts also incumbent of us to talk about the Bigger Picture and then society can decide if the decisions we made were right or wrong. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. Thank everybody for coming. An announcement about tomorrow. If you want to continue the discussion and really celebrate thatthose women and men have the courage to walk out on strike in 1965 and do what nobody else ever thought could be done, please come and join us at the 40 acres. A. M. Ll be starting at 9 00 tomorrow morning and will continue until about 5 00 in the afternoon. There will be all kinds of things to see, people to talk to, and to get history from those people who lived it and made it happen. We invite all of you to join us. Thursday food, free water theres free food, free water. We will surely have a great time. We will be singing a lot of songs and getting a chance to spend time with one another. Thank you. Acres, you finish at 40 we hope you will go to the play shadowsand out of tomorrow night on campus at 7 00. Please attend that as well as. Thank you