Perhaps this is because, as a society, we do not do a good job of creating a narrative about important leaders, which we pass on to our children and those who come after them. All that remains, at best, is their name — not the history of their struggle or the depth of their impact on society.

One such narrative we should keep alive is the legacy of César Chávez, whose birthday we commemorate Saturday. Chávez was born in 1927 and died in 1993. He was one of the nation’s pre-eminent farm labor organizers, and one of country’s outstanding Mexican-American leaders.

He dedicated his life to improving the wages and working conditions of one of the country’s poorest and most exploited groups of workers, a large share of whom are in Texas.

Chávez lead the historic nonviolent movement for farmworker rights. He also motivated thousands of people who never worked in agriculture to commit themselves to social, economic and environmental justice and civil rights. And he helped grow leadership in the Hispanic community to throw off centuries of discrimination.

Chávez’s impact is reflected in the holiday designated for him in 11 states and in the parks, cultural centers, libraries, schools and streets that carry his name in cities across Texas and the United States. In Texas, his birthday is an optional state holiday.

Chávez knew the hard life of farm laborers firsthand. He had to leave school after eighth grade to work in the fields as a migrant to help support his family.

After serving in the Navy, he coordinated voter registration drives and campaigns against racial and economic discrimination, and, in 1962, he helped found the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America.

Chávez led the first successful farmworkers union in U.S. history and won the first industrywide labor contracts in American agriculture. The union helped achieve dignity, respect, fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, humane working conditions and other protections for hundreds of thousands of farm laborers.

Chávez believed in the peaceful tactics of Mohandas Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: fasts, boycotts and strikes. People felt the justice of his cause. When he died, more than 50,000 people from all walks of life marched in his funeral procession under the hot Delano, Calif., sun.

Chávez’s influence on Texans extended far beyond the thousands of Texas farm laborers who worked as migrants in California. His efforts to open the doors of colleges and universities to the Hispanic community reached deep into Texas and, in turn, opened to doors to economic and political opportunity.

We do not measure Chávez’s life in material terms, but rather as that of a person who stood, and worked, for equality, justice and dignity for all Americans, and who inspired many others to do the same.

Chávez’s birthday should not be just a day on which we honor his name, but a day on which we tell his narrative and on which we recommit ourselves to the struggle to make our community and our country a better place for our children and grandchildren.

James C. Harrington is director of Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit foundation that promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice throughout Texas. He worked with César Chávez in Texas for 18 years.