To March for Others. Lauren Araiza
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tree stops and who cares.” Alinsky, the master strategist, was prophetic: a year later, the once productive relationship between the two organizations was over. Although SNCC’s departure did not spell the end of the NFWA, as Alinsky had foretold, it did reveal the limits of multiracial coalition building.1
SNCC and NFWA organizers had developed an alliance based on their mutual recognition that African Americans and Mexican Americans experienced similar, intertwined forms of economic exploitation and racial discrimination. They built on these shared experiences of inequality to craft an ideology and praxis that prioritized cross-racial solidarity and cooperation in the pursuit of social change. The organizers believed that by working together and supporting each other, both organizations could more effectively reduce the power of agribusiness, which maintained racial inequities in order to continue to exploit the most vulnerable workers. Accordingly, SNCC organizers believed that supporting the NFWA by participating in picket lines, boycotting a liquor company, or donating food and supplies fit into their broader goal of pursuing racial equality and economic justice for all. Although these coalition politics resulted in an alliance that achieved significant victories for the farmworkers, racial unity proved insufficient in sustaining it. As SNCC evolved, its thinking on racial identity, discrimination, and cross-racial solidarity changed dramatically, which led the organization to shift its priorities to emphasizing race over class rather than addressing the two in tandem. These changes not only caused significant changes within SNCC, but led to the dissolution of its relationship with the NFWA. Furthermore, as the union grew and developed, its ideals, goals, and strategies became incompatible with SNCC’s new direction.2
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Conflicts over race arose within SNCC as early as 1964 during the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, when hundreds of primarily northern white college students went to Mississippi to conduct voter registration among African Americans in rural areas. Disagreements over the purpose of the project, the impact of white volunteers on local black leadership, and interracial relationships caused deep divisions within SNCC. Continued violence directed against African Americans and SNCC volunteers compounded these tensions. Many in SNCC began to question the value of their work, the practicality of depending on white allies and, in some cases, the wisdom of working with whites at all. As a result, many black SNCC staff members began to consider dismissing white SNCC workers. Initially, however, distance shielded the San Francisco SNCC office—which included several whites—from these conflicts, allowing SNCC members in California to focus on issues of economic inequality, rather than being distracted by the debate over black separatism that began disrupting SNCC’s organizing in the South. Furthermore, by working with the NFWA, SNCC was able to continue to apply the organizing principles on which the organization was founded.3
Immediately following the victorious Delano to Sacramento march, SNCC organizers continued to work alongside the NFWA in its battles with Delano’s grape growers. Four days after the conclusion of the march, the union turned its attention to the DiGiorgio Corporation, the largest of the Delano grape growers that had been struck by the NFWA since September 1965. On April 7, 1966, the day after Schenley Industries recognized the NFWA as the bargaining representative of its grape pickers, DiGiorgio sent letters to Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown, Chavez, and other union leaders informing them that the corporation wanted the California State Mediation and Conciliation Service to conduct elections for union representation on its ranches. While Chavez was in favor of elections, he was adamantly opposed to the conditions that DiGiorgio demanded, including limiting the election to active workers, who were actually scab workers and not the pickers who had previously worked for DiGiorgio. Chavez and the NFWA also objected to DiGiorgio’s stipulation that strikes could not occur during contract negotiations or harvest season. In response to DiGiorgio’s attempts to hem in its workers’ rights to collective bargaining, the NFWA began picketing at DiGiorgio’s Sierra Vista Ranch on April 14. Using the experience gained during the Schenley strike, the NFWA chose to boycott S&W Fine Food and Treesweet Juices, DiGiorgio’s most popular brands, rather than attempt to boycott DiGiorgio grapes.4
The NFWA strike and boycott of DiGiorgio had an immediate effect and union officials began meeting with the corporation to negotiate the terms of an election for union representation of its workers. However, in an attempt to circumvent the NFWA, DiGiorgio began meeting with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters regarding union representation of the farmworkers. DiGiorgio welcomed the intervention of the Teamsters, an overwhelmingly white union that did not truly represent the farmworkers and had no qualms about agreeing to no-strike clauses in its contracts. The company agreed to an election for union representation on the condition that the Teamsters appear on the ballot and then attempted to rig it by restricting organizing on its ranches solely to the Teamsters. The NFWA urged workers to abstain from the fraudulent election and established picket lines around the Sierra Vista Ranch, shouting, “No voten viernes” (“Do not vote Friday”). On the day of the election, June 24, only 84 of 219 eligible workers voted; the few who did so voted for the Teamsters.5
SNCC staff members organized many of the protest activities against DiGiorgio. For example, Marshall Ganz and Dickie Flowers recruited African Americans from Bakersfield to join a vigil outside the home of the Rev. R. B. Moore, the African American minister of St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Delano and “the only Negro in the Delano Kiwanis Club.” Moore was to observe the DiGiorgio election and had spoken out against the NFWA by arguing that farmworkers did not suffer discrimination and that “Delano had the best race relations in America.” Ganz, along with organizer Eliseo Medina, also conducted house meetings to educate farmworkers on the issues of the election. Additionally, SNCC co-sponsored the NFWA Student Summer Project. Based on SNCC’s Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, the Student Summer Project brought together eighty students from activist groups such as the National Student Association, Students for a Democratic Society, and Young Christian Students to work for the NFWA from June through August 1966.6
Friends of SNCC chapters also continued to support the NFWA by organizing food caravans and hosting fundraisers. For example, the College of Marin Friends of SNCC held two screenings of the movie Salt of the Earth, about the Mexican American copper miners’ strike in New Mexico in the 1950s, with all proceeds going to the NFWA. In thanking the College of Marin Friends of SNCC, Chavez applauded the choice of the movie and stated, “We hope that you will continue to work beside us in the coming months.” Due in part to public pressure, including that from SNCC and other progressive groups, DiGiorgio agreed to conduct new elections for union representation of its workers supervised by the American Arbitration Association and with rules agreed on by the NFWA. In turn, the NFWA ceased picketing at DiGiorgio ranches and called off the boycott of DiGiorgio products. At the August 30 election at DiGiorgio’s Sierra Vista and Borrego Springs ranches, 530 field workers voted for the NFWA, 331 for the Teamsters, and 7 for no union representation.7
Despite the momentum generated by another SNCC-supported NFWA victory, the decision of the NFWA to officially merge with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (UFWOC) in August 1966 threatened this productive alliance. Chavez and AWOC leader Larry Itliong believed that the merger was necessary because it created a united front between the two farmworker unions and enabled both to receive financial and logistical support from the AFL-CIO. Moreover, after the long battles against Schenley and DiGiorgio, the NFWA was cash-strapped and had only one foreseeable option—to join AWOC and the AFL-CIO. However, months before the merger, farmworkers and activists worried that the AFL-CIO bureaucracy would kill the farmworkers’ movement. One NFWA staff member asked, “If the AFL is so damn great, why couldn’t they organize the workers?” Marshall Ganz, however, was more practical: “I think it’s inevitable. . . . The Association doesn’t stand a chance in competition with the big money unions. The AFL-CIO could kill us by throwing millions of dollars into an organizing campaign. It has nothing to do with how good an organization they are. We have to join them.” This did not sit well with SNCC and others on the left because it appeared that the independent NFWA was being co-opted “by one of the giant institutions involved in preserving the status-quo in America.” In an analysis of the merger, The Movement declared that despite misgivings about the AFL-CIO, SNCC should still support the UFWOC because of “the justice of the cause itself.”8