United Farm Workers of America
Memorial Service for Stephen Rivers
August 21, 2010—Los Angeles
Cesar Chavez distinguished between men and women who are of service and those who are servants. Many decent people perform small acts of charity or benevolence. But a relative few dedicate their lives totally to the service of others, especially the neediest. Stephen Rivers was truly a servant.
Like so many of our generation, the genesis of Stephen’s social and political activism was helping organize the United Farm Workers’ grape, lettuce and Gallo wine boycotts during the early- and mid-1970s in his native New England. He served as a full-time union staff person for four years, first in Massachusetts and then in Connecticut, working his way up to become regional boycott coordinator.
Stephen was transferred to the UFW’s national headquarters at La Paz in Keene, California in 1975, where he worked with Cesar and continued serving in farm worker organizing and political campaigns. He became affectionately known by the nickname, Esteban Rios.
Stephen went on to embrace many other progressive causes and, of course, enjoyed a distinguished career as a highly successful publicist and media consultant. He had many “big” ideas and relationships. But he always kept Cesar and the farm workers close to his heart and part of his activism.
Stephen helped spread word about the union’s 1980s grape boycott and assisted Jane Fonda in her support of the UFW, including her commissioning of the famed Octavio Ocampo painting of Cesar.
Stephen provided big ideas and helped make important connections with people, but he also performed the more daily tasks of organizing- sending out email alerts, editing the details of copy, making phone calls, and reminding people of their commitment… And reminding them… And reminding them.
Most important for me, Stephen provided invaluable media advice and wise counsel to the UFW during critical campaigns over the years. He unceasingly promoted our work, helped attract new allies and mentored union staff. When Cesar passed away in 1993, Stephen dropped what he was doing to help coordinate international news coverage of the funeral services in Delano, California.
He played crucial behind-the-scenes roles in helping convince two California governors to do the right thing by farm workers. He helped with enactment in 2002 of the state’s historic law providing for binding mediation when growers refuse to negotiate union contracts; the first state regulation in the nation issued in 2005, aimed at preventing farm workers from dying or becoming ill from exposure to extreme heat; and relief for farm workers hit hard by a crippling citrus freeze.
Daniel Zingale relates how when he was in the governor’s office, Stephen would call and implore Daniel to go in and make one last appeal to the governor on the farm workers’ behalf. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But Stephen was not shy about pushing his friends to do the right thing.
Stephen was aiding the farm workers, working with the UFW, until the final weeks of his life.
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As with all of us in the ‘70s, from Cesar on down, Stephen was “paid” five dollars a week plus room and board. After leaving his full time duties with the UFW, Stephen donated most of the valuable services he provided the farm workers over the years.
It can easily be said that he gave the farm workers far more than he ever received. But I don’t think Stephen saw it that way.
He learned lessons they don’t teach you in college—about the meaning of commitment and sacrifice…
About what it means to give yourself to a cause that’s bigger than you are…
About what it means to be a man.
He carried those lessons with him throughout the rest of his life.
We loved and respected Stephen not just because he was so good at what he did—and he did it for us repeatedly when we most needed his help, but because he was also a thoroughly decent, kind and generous man. He met Cesar’s definition of a servant as one who fulfills God’s Commandments by loving and serving his neighbors—even to the point of sacrifice.
During his last days, Stephen asked to see a number of us in the movement with whom he had worked closely and, in the process, became friends.
We’re all here again today as are others in the UFW who were touched by his work.
We all are grateful for the warmth and welcome to all of us shown by Stephen’s mother Ellen, sisters Christine and Patricia (and Tracey), brother in law, nephew Richie and niece Rhianon, and his godson Justin.
I want to personally thank Stephen’s family for allowing us to be around in those final days. My wife Sonia and son Artie treasured those moments of laughter, reminiscing all the crazy campaigns we were engaged in and on the last day watching him lie in peace.
All of us who were privileged to share Stephen’s final days were deeply moved by Stephen’s courage and humor, and by the mutual affection we shared. And in true Stephen form, he was thinking big AND obsessed with some of the smallest details.
Cesar once said, “true wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire.”
In that sense, Stephen Rivers was a very wealthy man.
Que Viva Stephen Rivers! Que Viva Esteban Rios!
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