And you always had a sense of injustice happening all around you. Stockton, california, i was raised as another Agricultural Community just like bakersfield is so you had a lot of the same dynamics going on there. A lot of people of color did warm work and so it was always like trying to denigrate the people who did farm work and making them feel like they were lesser individuals and that kind of dynamic sort of permeated the whole community. Started in 1942 i believe when we went into the car and they brought in many people from mexico to fulfill the needs of farm labor, and what happened is after the war ended, they kept bringing more and more people in and the local workers and Domestic Workers just dropped to 50 cents an hour and they would bring in others and not hire the local workers. I grew up in stockton, california. I grew up organizing farmers. I formed an association of local Workers Association as part of the aflcio, but i left that organization because i felt that they were not doing the kind of organizing that was really going to be successful and then and thats when i started the united farm workers. I moved to delaino when i started the united farm Workers Association. We organized from 1965 to 1968 for three years and we had thousands of workers that came out on strike. Striking work vicars from delano began a 100mile pilgrimage northward. That strike went on for five years. The strike started in 1965 and it didnt end until 1970. We dont win the strike because it kept arresting us and kept bringing in more and more strike breakers so what we did is started a National Boycott of california table grapes and when the employers, saw that they cant sell their greybruce and they werent making a profit anymore and thats when they decided that they would sign contracts with the union. Basically what you learned and what you teach is that people have power, that you dont have to be rich or speak the english language or dont even have to be a u. S. Citizen, that you do have power and you can make changes. One of the big provisions we got for farm workers was the right to have toilets in the field and people dont realize that the drops that are picked in the fields go into the box and they go to the supermarket and they dont go through the car wash, right, so the way that those fruits and vegetables are put into that box as it goes to the supermarket, its horrifying to think that farm workers didnt even have toilets in the field or cold Drinking Water or soap and handwashing facilities and yet all of that produce is going directly to the supermarket, so we were able we got that into our contracts with 1966. We finally got it as a state law, again, in 1975. Did not become a national law until 1985 and so now we do have a national law that says employers have to have toilets in the field for their workers, separate, one more men and one for women and supposed to keep them clean and when you think of all of the great things that came out of Farmer Movement in terms of legislation and in terms of leadership, i think that its probably very few regrets but theres a lot of gains and a lot of wins. From day one when we started the Community Service organization and the united farm workers, weve always been engaged in helping people immigrate to the united states. It 1986 we were able to pass legislation where we got legalization for 1. 4 million farm workers and our partner in the senate was ted kennedy who helped us get that long, along with peter rodina from new jersey, so immigrant rights have always been at top and were still continuing that struggle right now because we have the immigrants rights legislation thats going through the congress. I dont believe that the Guest Worker Program should be implemented at all when you have high unemployment, for instance, in kern county, 30 unemployment right now. We have a lot of people who dont have work and yet employers continue to bring in people from other countries to do the work, and they keep saying, you know, ordinary people wont do this work. Well, thats not true. Thats not true at all. I mean, we look at the grapes of wrath you know when that was going on, people who came in here from other places. Many people here in kern county many individuals in office and hold different positions in government. They were once farm workers. It isnt that people wont do farm would. Its that the employers dont want to pay enough money for them to do farm work and dont want to give them the kind of Health Benefits that they need. Farm workers see their work as something that they do. They consider themselves professionals and they should be treated with dignity, and if youre not going to treat people with dignity and thats why they bring in people from other countries who dont know the labor laws and who are afraid to speak up because they are afraid they will be deported or sent out or that their contracts will be, you know, cut off if they speak out and fight for their rights and so we should develop a local farm labor force like we had before. I get medal of freedom, but it actually represents the work of thousands of people that have worked, you know, to make a better life, for the farm workers and the Farm Workers Movement and five farm workers that are killed and i get the medal of freedom but it comes on the backs of many other people that have fought for the rights of farm workers and women, you know, in the world. Although we were able to make a lot of gains in northern california, we know theres pockets of california especially when they bring new immigrants and dont know their rights where farm workers are being mistreated and where employers are not following the laws in terms of providing them with the clean toilets or the Drinking Water or respirators or safety conditions, right, and that they are entitled to and the basic rights we got for farm workers, farm workers throughout the country still dont have the basic rights, and thats a tragedy. On the next washington journal dr. Ron waldman of the group save the children looks at how nonprofit groups are helping to fight the Ebola Outbreak in west africa. Rob barnett of bloomberg discusses the recent decline in gas, oil and energy. Plus your calls and Facebook Comments and tweets. Thats all on washington journal at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. This weekend on the cspan networks, saturday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, a town hall meeting on the medias coverage of events in ferguson, missouri, as harris Stow State University in st. Louis and sunday night on q a historian Richard Norton smith on his biography of nelson rockefeller. Saturday night at 10 00 on book tvs afterwards, author and xhep tator Jake Halperin on the collection industry and the 2014 southern festival of books and saturday night at 8 00 on American History tv on cspan 3, the life and legacy of booker t. Washington and sunday afternoon at 4 00 on real america from 1964 exercise delawar, a joint operation between u. S. And iran when the two countries were allies. Find our Television Schedule at cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs that youre watching. Call us at 2026263400 and email us at comment comments cspan. Org or send us a tweet at cspancomments. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Cspan campaign 2014 is bringing more than 100 debates for the control of congress. Watch our coverage and join the conversation. Follow us on twitter and like us on facebook. American history tv continues with remarks from bill jennings, a former member of the black Panther Party on multiracial coalitions during the civil rights coalition. Well hear about why black activists worked with cesar chavez and the United Farm Workers Union during the 1960s and 70s, American Center hosted the symposium to Mark National heritage month. Its about half an hour. Good afternoon, and welcome back. This is our next panel in the afternoon session of this symposium organizing across the boundaries, strategies and coalitions and the struggle for the civil rights and social justice. Before we get started, i just wanted to explain a little bit about the genesis of this panel or whole symposium and how it came about. Like a lot of great ideas that come about the library, came across this book just doing a search in the catalog, and this is many months ago. We were kind of thinking about what do we want to do for this Public Program series, and theres so many books that come out on the Civil Rights Movement every year. We thought, well, lets focus on some that are kind of different and interesting that kind of change how we think about the movement, kind of upend our understanding of it, and so when we came across this one by lorne ariza we got excited, not just because it had such great cover art. We loved she was looking at these two differ
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