To March for Others. Lauren Araiza
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The Portland branch of the NAACP attempted to issue a resolution in support of the NFWA two days after the beginning of the march, but the NAACP national headquarters prevented this. Because the resolution included a pledge to urge NAACP members to boycott Schenley, the branch president requested approval from NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins. Wilkins did not respond until three weeks later, after the march had concluded and three days after Schenley signed the agreement to recognize the NFWA. In his belated response, Wilkins recommended that the Portland NAACP send a letter to Schenley “commending Schenley for having recognized the union.”50
Wilkins refused to allow NAACP branches to support the NFWA because he enjoyed a close relationship with Schenley Industries. Early in 1965, Schenley’s founder donated $50,000 to the NAACP, the largest single gift to the organization up to that time. One of Wilkins’s advisors recalled, “Wilkins was stunned and almost lost his voice in expressing his appreciation.” Schenley also attempted to curry favor with the black community by giving scholarships to African American students and donating large amounts of money to black-owned banks and businesses. When the NFWA ended its boycott of Schenley products in April 1966, Wilkins issued a press release—drafted by the corporation—congratulating Schenley for resolving the strike:
It is not surprising that the first company in its industry to promote a Negro to an important executive position is also the first company to recognize the legitimate grievances of transient California farm laborers, most of whom are members of minority groups. We commend Schenley Industries, Inc., for signing the union agreement that opens the door to further advancement for the California grape pickers. Schenley’s cooperation in California is an omen of hope and progress for migrant farm workers for whose welfare the NAACP has campaigned on the east as well as the west coast of the nation.
At no point did Wilkins congratulate Chavez and the NFWA.51
Schenley Industries also used its connections in the black community in an attempt to hinder any potential support for the NFWA from SCLC. Two days before the NFWA began the Delano to Sacramento march, Jackie Robinson, who was the brother-in-law of Schenley vice-president Charles T. Williams and who had been hired to do public relations for Schenley, sent a telegram to Martin Luther King, Jr., asking him to meet with Williams regarding the boycott. Robinson wrote, “I think there are some facts you would like to know which shows both sides of the situation.” It is unclear whether the NFWA or its allies had reached out to King to support the farmworkers’ cause, but Schenley was concerned enough about the potential consequences of his endorsement that the company dispatched Robinson. It is unknown whether King ever met with Williams, but King did not issue a statement in support of the march and did not urge SCLC members to boycott Schenley products, despite his own use of the boycott as an instrument of social change.52
Schenley’s ability to influence the national leadership of the NAACP, and perhaps SCLC, was indicative of the importance of corporate ties and donations to middle-class civil rights organizations. The national leadership of the NAACP felt that it was more important to support Schenley Industries than to mobilize on behalf of its exploited workers because of the economic contributions the company could make to the black community. In contrast, SNCC activists were deeply concerned about the plight of workers and were disinterested in cultivating corporate support. Not only did they organize among the rural poor, but many SNCC staff members were themselves of working-class backgrounds. Those SNCC staff members from middle-class backgrounds had rejected middle-class values by dropping out of school and leaving lucrative career paths to work for the organization full time. According to political scientist Emily Stoper, “Other black-advancement groups had tried to secure for their clientele the privileges and amenities of the white middle class; SNCC rejected the middle-class life-style as empty and immoral.” Consequently, when the black middle class engaged in civil rights activism, they gravitated to the NAACP and SCLC. In contrast, SNCC chose to work on behalf of the powerless poor, who they saw as marginalized by American society and most in need of organizing. SNCC staff members and volunteers embodied their rejection of the middle class by abandoning the suits, ties, dresses, and cardigans that were the uniform of the sit-ins in favor of overalls and jeans, which they felt united them with the people they attempted to organize. SNCC field secretaries were also able to personally relate to impoverished people because they earned less than ten dollars per week and supplemented their meager earnings by living communally or in the homes of local residents.53
The spartan lifestyle of SNCC field secretaries epitomized what Chavez thought of as proper for NFWA organizers. In fact, Chavez believed that such sacrifices contributed to the morality of the cause. He explained, “It’s beautiful to give up material things that take up your time, for the sake of time to help your fellow human beings.” NFWA organizers were therefore paid five dollars per week, with food and housing provided by the union. However, like in SNCC, organizers’ meager pay was augmented by contributions from supporters and the farmworkers themselves. Chavez recalled that when he asked Dolores Huerta to leave her job to become a full-time organizer for the fledging union, she asked him how they would eat and he replied that he did not know: “And I didn’t know. But as we later found out, somebody in the Cause would never starve. The people would never let you.” The NFWA and SNCC were therefore further united in their mutual commitment to selfsacrifice for the greater good.54
SNCC’s rejection of middle-class values such as lucrative employment and material comforts was more than a mere act of youthful rebellion. Historian Howard Zinn argued, “They are not playing; it is no casual act of defiance, no irresponsible whim of adolescence, when young people of sixteen or twenty or twenty-five turn away from school, job, family, all the tokens of success in modern America, to take up new lives, hungry and hunted, in the hinterland of the Deep South.” By rejecting middle-class values, SNCC was free to openly confront economic inequality. This differentiated SNCC from the NAACP and SCLC, whose leaders were from the middle and upper classes and who sought middle-class gains for African Americans. Although SNCC initially joined the NAACP and SCLC in fighting for the integration of restaurants, schools, and public spaces, its members quickly realized that these achievements were of little value for a constituency that was trapped by their lack of economic and political power.55
SNCC’s emphasis on economic oppression enabled the organization to pursue equality for all poor people, not just African Americans. Once the barrier of class was eliminated, it was easier for SNCC to then bridge the racial divide because it could recognize the commonalities between poor people of all races and apply its principles and organizational praxis to a freedom struggle that did not involve African Americans in the Deep South. This resulted in the productive and successful coalition that formed between SNCC and the NFWA, which contributed to the farmworkers’ victory over Schenley Industries. As Hardy Frye explained, “To work with the farm workers was like an extension of what we had already been doing.” This coalition was also due to the understanding of Chavez and others in the NFWA that while the Mexican American farmworkers were discriminated against based on their race, all agricultural workers were economically oppressed. The union therefore championed multiracial equality, enabling it to find common cause with the civil rights movement. The shared commitment to fighting both racial and class inequality was the basis of the alliance between the two organizations, but it was strengthened by their similar organizing strategies and nonviolent resistance.56
CHAPTER 2
To Wage Our Own War of Liberation
Following the NFWA victory over Schenley Industries, journalist John Gregory Dunne asked veteran organizer Saul Alinsky what he would have done differently had he been in charge of the strike in Delano’s grape fields. Alinsky, head of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), was the virtual godfather to the NFWA. In 1947 he hired Fred Ross to organize Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, which led to Ross’s discovery and cultivation of Cesar Chavez as a farmworker organizer. Furthermore, Alinsky’s model of community organizing served as the blueprint for the organizing philosophy of SNCC’s Mike Miller, who initiated the alliance between the civil rights organization and the union. Alinsky recognized the importance of the SNCC/ NFWA alliance, but with significant reservations. He told Dunne, “The farm workers aren’t going to win this by themselves. When the SNCC kids