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Labor leader and activist. A migrant farm worker who became a nationally respected voice for social justice, Chávez spent his life combating the poverty and discrimination suffered by Mexicans and Mexican Americans, particularly agricultural laborers. In 1962 he began organizing farm workers into a union that three years later joined with a Filipino union in a strike against California grape growers for better wages and more humane working conditions. (The two groups later merged as the United Farm Workers.) Table grape producers held out for five years while Chávez focused national attention on the plight of farm workers. A national consumer boycott helped bring the strike to a successful conclusion in 1970.  -Diversity Resources

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