San Jose council approves new effort to honor labor legend Cesar Chavez

By John Woolfork

San Jose, where the late Cesar E. Chavez launched the civil rights efforts that made him a legend, approved a memorial walkway Tuesday linking city landmarks dedicated to his memory and teachings.

Commemorative signs will highlight seven locations along the five-mile route from the Plaza de Cesar Chavez downtown to the East Side's Mexican Heritage Plaza.

"Everything he accomplished all started here in San Jose," said Rudy Chavez-Medina, Chavez's nephew and president of the Chavez Family Vision. He called the walkway "a fitting tribute to Cesar's legacy" and his "message of nonviolence, volunteerism and public action."

The City Council unanimously approved the walkway, with Vice Mayor Judy Chirco absent because of illness.

Mayor Chuck Reed said that as a boy growing up in Kansas and working on farms, he came to admire Chavez. After a 2007 bus trip to the National Chavez Center in Keene, east of Bakersfield, Reed created a committee to explore ways for San Jose to further acknowledge Chavez's local legacy.

"I thought there was more we could do here in San Jose, because Cesar Chavez is one of our hometown heroes," Reed said.

The committee, together with outreach efforts by council members Nora Campos and Sam Liccardo, developed the commemorative walk idea. Stops along the route include the Cesar E. Chavez Arch of Dignity, Equality and Justice at San Jose State University; the Mexican Heritage Plaza, built on the site of the first grocery store grape boycott; and Chavez's former home on Scharff Avenue.

In keeping with Chavez's humble character — he never earned more than $6,000 a year or owned a house — the walkway will be marked with simple, olive-colored signs bearing his image.

"It's the way Cesar would want it," Chavez-Medina said.

Reed said the cost — and how cash-strapped San Jose will pay for it — will be decided later. The money probably will come from city redevelopment funds, though fundraising through Chavez Family Visions, a nonprofit organization made up of Latino leaders and Chavez family members, is expected to cover some of it.

Reed, Chavez-Medina and council members will unveil the street sign Saturday morning at the annual Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Walk, which begins at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.

San Jose was Chavez's home for 14 years during the time he started his family and began his transformation from farm laborer to civil rights leader. He and his wife settled in 1948 in the East San Jose barrio known as Sal Si Puedes — "get out if you can" — and raised eight children together.

In 1962, Chavez moved his family to Delano, an agricultural hamlet north of Bakersfield, where he founded the United Farm Workers of America and organized the grape boycotts and strikes for which he is renowned.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Chavez devoted his efforts to peaceful tactics such as fasts, boycotts and strikes. He died in 1993 in Arizona, and his March 31 birthday is now a holiday in California and seven other states.