Remembering Cesar

In this collection of firsthand accounts by those who knew Cesar Chavez best, a portrait of an uncommonly complex man, both driven and focused, yet humble, empathic and exceedingly principled, emerges. The reader gains an understanding of the yoke Chavez chose to place upon his own shoulders, as well as the ideals he employed to accomplish for the migrant farmworkers what many predicted would be impossible. The more than 45 contributors range from the famous--Edward James Olmos, Henry Cisneros, Martin Sheen, Coretta Scott King, Jerry Brown and others--to members of the Chavez family, to UFW staff, to the farmworkers themselves. Illustrated by the compelling black and white photographs of George Elfie Ballis, who began photographing the farmworker movement in the 1950s.

Ann McGregor retired in 1988 as Executive Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Farm Workers' Fund. On staff with the Union for seventeen years, she was named a national representative of the UFW in 1986.

George Elfie Ballis has been doing still photography and movies on the edges of social change with farmworkers, civil rights organizers, working people and environmentalists for almost half a century.

Cindy Wathen is a native Central Californian. An Acquisitions Coordinator for Osborne/McGraw-Hill, she resides in Berkeley, California.