Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles 45 years ago today, June 5. He died in a local hospital 26 hours later. We remember RFK as the first national political figure to wholeheartedly embrace the farm workers’ cause and offer unqualified support for our union movement.
Cesar Chavez first met Robert Kennedy in L.A. in 1960, when Cesar was staff director of the Community Service Organization Latino civil rights group and RFK was running his brother’s presidential campaign. They next met in March 1966, when United Auto Workers western director Paul Schrade persuaded RFK to go to Delano the first time for hearings on the Delano grape strike by a U.S. Senate subcommittee. After the Kern County sheriff described arresting peaceful grape strikers because grower agents threatened them on the picket line, Senator Kennedy suggested "that the sheriff and the district attorney read the Constitution of the United States." RFK went from the hearing to meet with grape strikers at the Filipino Hall and on a vineyard picket line. Senator Kennedy was with Cesar again in Delano, also accompanied by Paul Schrade, on March 10, 1968, when Cesar ended his 25-day fast to rededicate the movement to nonviolence. RFK said he was there "out of respect for one of the heroic figures of our time."
Cesar and the farm workers tirelessly campaigned for RFK that spring during the California Democratic presidential primary. On June 5, 1968, minutes after claiming victory in that election, Senator Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel. Paul Schrade was also shot and seriously wounded.
Robert Kennedy championed Cesar Chavez and the farm workers when no other national political figure would. The farm workers and our entire country lost so much when he was assassinated 45 years ago. We remember him often, but especially today.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers of America