Reuther Library at Wayne State University
Chavez and Reuther remained close friends until Reuther’s untimely death in 1970. After Reuther’s firsthand experience in Delano, the UAW offered financial support and experienced staff to help organize and negotiate contracts. While attending the 1965 AFL-CIO convention in San Francisco, Reuther visited Chavez and AWOC leader Larry Itliong on the picket line in the little farming town of Delano with the local strikers. He too had battled injustice and fought for dignity and better working conditions for the industrial laborer. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers Union (UAW). The 1965 grape strike and boycott-known as the Great Delano Grape Strike-catapulted Chavez into the national spotlight and attracted the attention of Walter P. Reuther Library commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike by recounting its near fifty-year relationship with the United Farm Workers to document and preserve its legacy. By 1965, after signing up about 1200 members, Chavez was asked to join a grape strike in Delano led by the predominant Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). In 1962, Cesar Chavez, a former migrant worker and community activist, began the long struggle for farm workers’ rights by organizing the National Farm Workers Association in Delano, California-the forerunner of the UFW.
Social movements that disrupt the status quo and go on to change the lives of participants most often coalesce around a powerful leader.
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