What, you ask, brings this guy Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) to the party? Simply check out this telegram from MLK to CC:

You stand today as a living example of the Ghandian [sic] tradition […] My colleagues and I commend you for your bravery, salute your indefatigable work against poverty and injustice, and pray for your health and your continuing service as one of the outstanding men of America. (Source)

Now check out what CC said about MLK:

Dr. King was a powerful figure of destiny, of courage, of sacrifice, and of vision. Few people in the long history of this nation can rival his accomplishment, his reason, or his selfless dedication to the cause of peace and social justice. (Source)

So, who was Cesar Chavez that he praised and was praised by MLK so enthusiastically?

We Just Happen to Have the Answer

Chavez was a Mexican-American union leader and labor activist who "dedicated his life to improving the treatment, pay and working conditions for farm workers" (source). He knew a thing or two about farms: Chavez had grown up working the California fields, and it quickly became clear to him that treatment of farm workers, most of them people of color, was…suboptimal.

So he decided to work on that.

After getting some labor experience under his belt, in 1962, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association. (It later became the United Farm Workers, which still exists.) During his time with the UFW, Chavez led strikes and boycotts to win higher wages for workers and to protest the harmful effects of pesticides. He also fasted on numerous occasions to bring attention to the cause.

We, of course, prefer eating strikes to hunger strikes. No idea why they haven't caught on.

Champs of the Annual Hot Dog Not-Eating Contest

So here's a guy who protested by not eating food on behalf of people who grow food, which makes either the most or the least sense ever.

But wait—where'd Cesar Chavez get the idea that any of that would actually work? Why, our Main Man Mohandas, of course. As a young lad, Chavez had seen newsreels about Gandhi's success against the British Empire. He subsequently learned as much about Gandhi as he could, and then, for whatever reason, thought, hey—I'd like to do that. We mean, who doesn't respond that way when they read about a guy who starved himself until he was shot to death. Right?

If all that weren't a convincing enough similarity between Cesar Chavez and MLK, which it is, he and Ralph Abernathy once marched together, and Jesse Jackson and then-SCLC president Joseph Lowery participated in one of his fasts (source).

So there.

But We're Not Done with Him Yet, or Vice Versa

Chavez didn't just share MLK's principles and methods; oh, no. He was also a custodian of King's legacy. Chavez's take on Dr. K remains relevant to us today precisely because he wants us to keep King relevant. Chavez knew his MLK, and he warns us not to treat Dr. King like some kind of cuddly, lovey-dovey, feel-good mascot for justice. That view of King, he says, is actually the very one used by the powers that be to erase much of what King stood for:

The enemies of justice [want] you to think of Dr. King as only a civil rights leader, but he had a much broader [agenda]. He was a tireless crusader for the rights of the poor, for an end to the war in Vietnam long before it was popular to take that stand, and for the rights of workers everywhere. (Source)

What was Dr. K doing when he gave "I've Been to the Mountaintop"? Oh, right: fighting for the rights of workers.

As Chavez points out, and as we suggest in our Key Figures profile of Dr. K, now that we're over the civil rights hump, it's easy to praise MLK as a civil rights leader. Things are far from perfect, it's true, but big laws have been passed, and we mostly agree that discrimination is a Very Bad Thing.

That's not to say that Dr. King had all the answers. Not even a mega-fan like Cesar Chavez would say that. What Chavez would say, and what he does say, is that, if we really respect Dr. King, we have to engage with everything he said, not the just the convenient parts.

And be wary of those who don't.