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All of us in the Farm Worker Movement respond with profound sorrow over the passing of Mary Travers. But we are also filled with joy and gratitude for the lifetime of dedication and service Mary devoted to so many people struggling for their rights in our country over five decades. Mary, Noel “Paul” Stookey and Peter Yarrow consistently lent their voices to the farm workers since the 1960s.
Most recently, in March 1998, 30 years after the first benefit concert the Trio performed for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in 1968, Peter, Paul & Mary toured Central Coast strawberry fields, visited with farm workers at a run-down farm labor camp and performed at a make-shift concert for hundreds of farm worker kids in Watsonville and at a formal benefit for the UFW’s organizing efforts before thousands of supporters in Santa Cruz.
Mary and her colleagues used their careers to demonstrate that music can do more than entertain; it can also be a powerful nonviolent tool, inspiring people to social activism and meaningful societal change.
We ask all those who share our vision of a more just and peaceful world to join the Farm Worker Movement and the Chavez family in keeping Mary, her family and colleagues are in our thoughts and prayers.
–Arturo S. Rodriguez, President, United Farm Workers of America