Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

Farm workers are society's canaries. Farm workers - and their children - demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

As long as we have a poor country bordering California, it's going to be very difficult to win strikes.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

Since the Church is to be servant to the poor, it is our fault if that wealth is not channeled to help the poor in our world.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

If you want to remember me, organize!

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

Though many of the poor have come to see the affluent middle class as its enemy, that class actually stands between the poor and the real powers in this society - the administrative octopus with its head in Washington, the conglomerates, the military complex.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

There is no law for farm labor organizing, save the law of the jungle.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

Without a union, the people are always cheated, and they are so innocent.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

When poor people get involved in a long conflict, such as a strike or a civil rights drive, and the pressure increases each day, there is a deep need for spiritual advice. Without it, we see families crumble, leadership weaken, and hard workers grow tired.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

What we do know absolutely is that human lives are worth more than grapes and that innocent-looking grapes on the table may disguise poisonous residues hidden deep inside where washing cannot reach.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

The burdens of generations of poverty and powerlessness lie heavy in the fields of America. If we fail, there are those who will see violence as the shortcut to change.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

We farm workers are closest to food production. We were the first to recognize the serious health hazards of agriculture pesticides to both consumers and ourselves.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of men we are.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

There are vivid memories from my childhood - what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose, if I wanted to be fair, I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice.

Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez

We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation.