Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series by San Benito High School History Teacher and San Juan Bautista native Frank Perez, who writes about a former Hollister minister who became an agent of change in his work with the National Farm Workers’ Association.
Joining forces with Cesar Chavez and an arrest: 1965
In 1962 Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). Headquartered in Delano, the organization had a simple mission: organize farm workers in an effort to improve their lives, working conditions, and wages.
In the 1960s, a farmworker’s existence was one of toil, exploitation, and despair.
A farmworker arose early from bed, arriving in the fields often before sunrise. For hours, one stooped between rows of crops, the body exposed to freezing cold or blistering heat, muck, and the acrid air of lethal pesticides that saturated the workplace.
For growers, many workers were as disposable as the tools they wielded. Offering more pay, providing times of rest, quenching a worker’s thirst with potable water, or erecting lavatories added to overhead cost. Profit trumped humane treatment of employees.
Unscrupulous labor contractors colluded in the exploitation of workers. Contractors lured the desperate with employment, housing, and other amenities of farmworker life. Nothing offered was for free, as the contractor took his cut from the pittance paid to the worker.
Buttressing the greed of growers and contractors was law enforcement and a judicial system that reeked of indifference and contempt for farmworkers. Protecting, serving, and ruling in favor of the status quo perpetuated the life that many in California agribusiness had grown accustomed to. Disrupting that life would rot the very institutions that supported it.
For farmworkers, their cycle of despair, like a genetic defect, often passed from one generation to the next. Rarely was one born into a farmworker household that was immune to the world beyond the shanty threshold one stepped through as he headed to the fields.
With the founding of the NFWA, Chavez reentered the world he had left as a teenager. Traversing the San Joaquin Valley in search of members for his seminal organization, he crossed paths with those of the California Migrant Ministry (CMM). Initially wary of the Protestant ministers, Chavez, a devoted Roman Catholic, was won over by their diligence and commitment to improving farmworkers’ lives.
In the fall of 1965, the NFWA, whose membership was largely Mexican-American, joined forces with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, a contingent of mainly Filipino farmworkers, in its grape strike against Delano’s grape growers. The cards were stack against the striking workers, as the growers’ reach and influence extended from grocery store aisles to the halls of Sacramento. Needless to say, Chavez and his fledging union were in for a long battle.
Always the pragmatist, Chavez understood that victory required allies and so he reached out to the CMM and its director. Without hesitation, Chris Hartmire enlisted his organization in the fray.
Here “was an unprecedented opportunity to witness to their [members of the CMM] theology of Christ as being Lord of all life…an opportunity…to show the churches’ witness on behalf of ‘the least of these brethren.’” (1) Throughout the grape strike and ensuing boycott, Hartmire offered his staff and the CMM’s services to Chavez.
The CMM also garnered support among urban Protestants for the farmworkers’ cause, while deflecting the criticism by Protestants who supported grower interest. Through bulletins, the CMM encouraged their congregants to donate food, money, and gifts to striking farmworkers. The devotion to the farmworker cause did not come without its own difficulties and challenges for the CMM. Chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and failed relationships were part of the cost. For Hartmire and his staff, the price paid “had all been worth it.” (2)
For his part, Rev. Havens was now among the cadre of “worker priests” whose roles and responsibilities shifted with the ebb and flow of the strike. (3)
As Rev. Havens explained, he wore many hats during this time. For a period he was responsible, as were others, for paying the NFWA’s bills, often forging Chavez’s signature when the union leader was away. Rev. Havens’ forgeries became so ubiquitous that one day the bank refused to cash Chavez’s check. Chavez was livid, coming “into the office screaming, “Havens, what have you done to me?…They [bank employees] say it isn’t my signature.’ “ (4) The irony: Chavez later “changed his signature to more closely resemble” Rev. Havens’. (5)
As the grape strike progressed, Delano became inundated with volunteers, some of whom were whole heartedly committed to improving farmworkers’ lives, while others were there to escape the mundane routine of life.
Another of Rev. Havens’ responsibilities was to separate the wheat from the chaff. Drawing upon his Alinsky training, he identified self-motivated volunteers and assigned them various tasks but often with little direction. He was always amazed by what some of these individuals accomplished, including one woman from Ohio who single-handedly galvanized support from the farmworkers’ cause in her home state.
Rev. Havens also served as one of the Grape Strike’s original picket-captains, leading strikers to the vineyards where scabs listened to their early morning calls to abandon the work of harvesting grapes.
Countless hours of sleep were lost in the early days of the strike and, because of this, Rev. Havens admitted that his memory of these events is sometimes blurry, but there are handfuls of incidents that “remain stenciled in” his memory. (6)
For example, he recalled a time when Mr. Chavez led a picket line in front of a home belonging to a local labor contractor. Truck driver goons soon arrived at the scene, hurling insults at the picketers. A local policeman watched the scene unfold and drove off after receiving a wad of cash from the truckers. The void left by law enforcement was soon filled with additional heavy-handed goons. Rev. Havens wanted to combat their violence with his own, but he talked himself out of it. The incident ended when hundreds of local farmworkers began encircling the truckers— who, outnumbered, fled.
At some point, Rev. Havens’ mother surprised her son in Delano. As former missionary in Africa, Sue Havens was accustomed to the challenges and obstacles in bringing about social change. Understanding that one’s involvement didn’t have to be monumental, Sue, who was too frail to picket, began stuffing envelopes in the union’s office.
The one event Rev. Havens recalls most vividly from this early period of the strike is his arrest.
On the evening of Oct. 16, 1965, Chavez gathered his handful of picket-captains and warned them that the Kern County Sheriff’s Department was eager to wield its power and support for the growers. Arrests, Chavez explained, were possible and probably imminent. Rev. Havens and others were told to be extra cautious the next morning as they picketed their assigned farms.
Another topic of conversation that night included a recent piece appearing in the NFWA’s self-published newspaper, El Malcriado: The Voice of the Farm Worker. The piece, long credited to the author Jack London, was entitled, Definition of a Strikebreaker.
London remains as one of our country’s most prolific writers, producing scores of titles in both fiction and non-fiction. Some of his most notable works include, Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, and White Fang.
Born in San Francisco in 1876 and reared in Oakland, London’s life-experiences shaped both his writings and politics. As a boy, London went to work in factory, canning pickles for 10 cents an hour. Factory life and drudgery became so much of who he was that London often referred to himself during these years as a “work beast.” Poverty and hopelessness permeated the working-class neighborhoods of London’s youth.
Drawn to the socialists who debated their ideology on Oakland’s street corners, London was a member of the Socialist Party for much of his adult life. After his death in 1916, his affiliation with the party resulted in his writings often being used to further the its cause and message.
According to Dan Wichlan, a noted “lifelong independent [Jack] London scholar” who has spent over 20 years researching and collecting London’s non-fiction, Definition of a Strikebreaker was first published under the title, Definition of a Scab, in 1923, appearing in the San Jose Union Journal, a weekly whose target audience was the Bay Area’s various union organizations. (7)
Wichlan added that with “99 percent confidence” that London is not the author of the piece, while explaining it was attributed to London in order for the Union Journal to gain credibility among labor leaders and the rank and file. Because London spoke for the working man, invoking his name or attaching it to a document burnished a labor organization’s reputation. (8)
Many individuals and organizations did this. In 1965, the NFWA, perhaps influenced by the likes of Eugene Nelson, a member of the International Workers of the World, or other union activists who arrived in Delano as volunteers, decided to publish the piece in its newspaper. And for the first time, Definition of a Scab, was printed in both Spanish and English as Definition of a Strikebreaker. (9)
The NFWA’s picket-captains debated long into the evening the effectiveness of reading this piece aloud to the scabs the next morning. Some, including Rev. Havens, were torn between its message, which condoned violence. As a disciple of Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Chavez had made non-violence an integral part his union’s strategy. Under no uncertain terms, would Chavez tolerate staff who violated this cardinal rule. Not one to disobey Chavez, Rev. Havens concluded that if he had the opportunity to read Definition of a Strikebreaker he would omit the lines that spoke of mayhem and murder.
On Sunday, Oct. 17, 1965, Rev. Havens arrived with his team of picketers assembled on a road adjacent to the Midstate Ranch in Delano. Days before the Kern County Sheriff had warned Chavez that those on the picket line would no longer be allowed to shout at scabs from their picket lines. The NFWA countered this was the only way that the union could make those who crossed the picket line aware of the strike.
The sheriff argued that scabs arrived in the fields fully aware of the strike, therefore shouting was unnecessary and disturbed the peace. Picketers argued that many scabs were not locals, but rather individuals from hundreds of miles away who needed an education “in elementary terms [of] what a strike is, what this particular strike is all about, and what a scab means.” (10)
Among Rev. Havens’ team was George Gonzales, a NFWA volunteer, whose voiced pierced the early morning air as he stated to those in the fields— “ ‘In case you people don’t know what you’re doing, I’m going to read to you something that will explain…just what it means to be a scab, and what most people think of a scab.’ “ (11)
He then opened a copy of El Malcriado, preparing to read Definition of a Strikebreaker. Just then, a sheriff’s officer approached Gonzales, warning him against such a provocative act.
Nelson attempted to enlighten the officer with an explanation of the piece’s history, but he was unmoved. The officer added, “ ‘You hear me—the first man who reads that—that piece of trash—is going to be arrested.’ “ (12) Truly shaken, Gonzales put down the copy of the newspaper.
The commotion drew Rev. Havens’ attention. And when he discovered that law enforcement had overstepped its jurisdiction by infringing upon the basic rights of the picketers, Rev. Havens took the copy of the newspaper, informed a deputy of his intentions, and began reading the piece.
According to Nelson, whose detailed account is the only one on record of this historic event, the workers were mesmerized by Havens’ reading and appeared to grasp the piece’s lessons with each word Havens uttered. For Nelson, the piece moved beyond the realm defined by acres of farmland, summoning up “the giant spirit of Jack London, that valiant champion of the working man…” (13)
As Rev. Havens spoke, he omitted London’s references of violence—a deliberate move by the minister who explained that encouraging one to drown or hang a scab violated the union’s commitment to non-violence. According to Rev. Havens, “Jack London was great as long as he spoke of ideas, but not when he hinted at justifying violence…” (14)
After the reading, Rev. Havens was arrested and placed in a patrol car. The arresting officer asked Rev. Havens and others if the author of the piece was among them, for the deputy was prepared to handcuff London, too. Rev. Havens had to explain that London had been dead for quite some time, and if he wanted to arrest London the officer would have to wait, since the ire stoke by London’s words created enemy’s for the author in both life and death.
Rev. Havens was then hauled to the local jail where he spent the night. His arrest mark the first of many endured by the NFWA and its supporters. He had hoped that his denomination, the Disciples of Christ, would lend him support and provide his bail, but it was not forthcoming. This weighed heavily on Rev. Havens’ heart for years.
With its small account, the NFWA provided bail and later secured an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer to represent Rev. Havens. On the day of his hearing at the county courthouse in Bakersfield, Rev. Havens arrived decked out in a suit and tie and wearing a fedora. His lawyer was flabbergasted by the accessory—apparently sporting a fedora invited allegations of criminal activity in certain parts of the country.
The hearing didn’t last long, for the judge heard the allegations against the minister and soon dismissed them. Though a free man, Rev. Havens had one more obligation before returning to his family.
The editor of El Malcriado wanted Rev. Havens to pose for a picture for which he obliged. Still dressed in his suit and tie, Rev. Havens climbed aboard a truck bed, was handed a copy of El Malcriado, and was told to read. Captured in black and white, this picture became iconic in the NFWA. In addition, it has become the accepted historical narrative, most recently written about by Miriam Pawel on page 132 of her much acclaimed book, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography.
When asked nearly 50 years later about this staged photo, Rev. Havens stated that he’s always been “offended” by it for he “didn’t’ like being pictured in a suit and tie…that’s not how we [ministers in the CMM] went to work.” (15)
Definition of a Strikebreaker appeared in El Malcriado several times and was read and quoted countless times by NFWA staff and volunteers, and on at least one occasion, Chavez used the piece in challenging one’s loyalty to the union. (16)
Despite its various titles and its unknown authorship, Definition of a Strikebreaker, its reading by Rev. Havens, and his arrest are cemented in the annals of NFWA history, while Jack London has remained the spirit of inspiration for the downtrodden farmworkers who refused to backdown from the tyranny of capitalism that exploited their lives—an act of rebellion that the “work beast” himself would have championed.
To read Part 1 in this series, click here.
To read Part 2, click here.
To read Part 3, click here.
Notes
1. Ronald A. Wells. “Cesar Chavez’s Protestant Allies: The California Migrant Ministry and the Farm Workers.” Journal of Presbyterian History (Spring/Summer 2009): 12.
2. Ibid, 15.
3. Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers (New York: Verso, 2011), 161.
4. Reverend David W. Havens. Section 1: Memories of the Grape Strike. Jensen Beach, Florida.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Dan Wichlan, e-mail message to author, April 4, 2014.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Eugene Nelson, Huelga: The First Hundred Days of the Great Delano Grape Strike (Delano, California: Farm Worker Press, 1966), 80.
11. Ibid, 80.
12. Ibid, 81.
13. Ibid, 81.
14. Rev. Havens, Section 1: Memories of the Grape Strike.
15. Reverend David W. Havens, phone interview by author, Hollister, CA, March 23, 2014.
16. Bardacke, 616.