[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 56 (Friday, March 30, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E702]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CESAR CHAVEZ'S BIRTHDAY

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. AL GREEN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 29, 2007

  Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, this Saturday, millions of 
Americans will honor a great American hero--Cesar Chavez--on what would 
have been his 80th birthday.
  Cesar Chavez was a civil rights and human rights leader who learned 
about the importance of justice early in his life. He would often say: 
``The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our 
being but it is also the most true to our nature.''
  After graduating from the eighth grade, a young Cesar Chavez went to 
work in the fields as a migrant farm worker to support his family. In 
1962, Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers 
Association, later to become the United Farm Workers. Chavez had the 
foresight to train his union workers and then to send many of them into 
the cities where they were to use the boycott and picket as their 
weapon.
  Chavez was able to successfully organize farm workers because of his 
tireless leadership and nonviolent tactics that helped pass laws which 
would permit farm workers to organize into unions and allow collective 
bargaining agreements. He also helped make people aware of the 
struggles of farm workers for fair wages and safer working conditions. 
His movement was the beginning of La Causa (``The Cause''), a cause 
that was supported by organized labor, religious groups, minorities, 
and students.
  Cesar Chavez, the founder and president of the United Farm Workers of 
America, AFL-CIO, died peacefully in his sleep on April 23, 1993. On 
August 8, 1994, Cesar Chavez was posthumously awarded the Medal of 
Freedom, our country's highest civilian honor, by President Clinton. In 
the words of President Clinton: ``He was for his own people a Moses 
figure . . . who, with faith and discipline, soft spoken humility and 
amazing inner strength, led a very courageous life.''
  Cesar Chavez left our world better than he found it, and his legacy 
inspires not just the 43 million Latinos in this country, but every 
person on this earth who believes in non-violence as a means to achieve 
social change. He truly was, in the words of Senator Robert Kennedy, 
``one of the heroic figures of our time.''

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