The Life of César E. Chávez: A Time Line

March 31 1927	César E. Chávez born in Yuma, Arizona
1938	Chávez family leaves Yuma to work in California as migrant farm workers
1942	Chávez is forced to leave school, after completing the eighth grade, in order to help support the family
1946-48	Chávez joins the Navy
1948	César E. Chávez marries Helen Fabela, moves to San Jose
1952	César E. Chávez meets Fred Ross and joins the Community Service Organization.
1958	César works in Oxnard for 18 months confronting the bracero issue
1960	Chávez becomes General Director of the CSO; Dolores Huerta his assistant.
1961	Chávez decides to resign from CSO
Sept. 30, 1962	César E. Chávez establishes NFWA (or FWA) in Fresno
	Union has first convention 211 members
Sept. 16 1965	Chávez's union votes to join Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), AFL-CIO led by Filipino workers in a grape strike.
October 1965	Grape boycott begins
March 1965	César E. Chávez begins a 340-mile Peregrinácion (pilgrimage) from Delano to Sacramento. Chávez and small group of strikers walk from Delano and are joined by thousands of supporters by the time they reach the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento. The march draws national attention to the suffering of farm workers. During the march and after a four-month boycott, Schenley Vineyards negotiates an agreement with NFWA--the first genuine union contract between a grower and farm workers' union in United States history.
April 1966	DiGiorgio grape boycott begins	
August, 1966	NFWA merges with AWOC and forms UFWOC	
March 10, 1968	César begins a fast for non-violence which lasts 25 days. U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy joins 8,000 farm workers and supporters at a mass where César breaks his fast, calling the weakened farm labor leader "one of the heroic figures of our time."
April 4, 1968	Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of his hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.  Dr. King was in Memphis supporting a strike by the city's sanitation workers. 
June 5, 1968 	Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California while on his way to thank César E. Chávez and the many farm worker volunteers who helped him win the California Democratic Primary. Chávez had already left the hotel but Dolores Huerta was standing next to Kennedy as he was shot.
May 18 1969	March from Coachella to Calexico.
1970	UFW Headquarters moved to La Paz from Delano
July 15, 1970	26 growers in Delano sign contracts with UFW ending a five year struggle.
July 30 1970	Lettuce strike begins, conflict with Teamsters begins as Teamsters sign sweetheart contracts with growers.
Dec. 10-24, 1970	César is jailed in Salinas, California for refusing to obey a court order to stop the boycott against Bud Antle lettuce. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visit César in jail.
1972	The UFW is chartered as an independent affiliate by the AFL-CIO; it becomes the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW).
May 11-June 4, 1972	César fasts for 25 days in Phoenix over a just-passed Arizona law banning the right of farm workers to strike or boycott
June 1973	Struggle with teamsters over grape contracts
July 30, 1973	Gallo boycott and strike
August 14, 1973	Nagi Daifullah killed, first martyr of UFW.
August 16, 1973	Juan de la Cruz shot to death
January 15, 1974	Chávez awarded the Martin Luther King Jr.  Nonviolent Peace Prize by Coretta Scott King.                                                            
June 5, 1975	César E. Chávez and the UFW get the Agricultural Labor Relations Act signed by California Governor Jerry Brown. The Alatorre-Zenovich-Dunlap-Berman Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 was designed to protect rights of farm workers to act together to help themselves, to engage in union organizational activity, and to select their own representatives to bargain with employers. 
May 1976	Proposition 14 drive gets 719,000 signatures and passes forcing California to fund of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB).
March 10, 1977	Teamsters withdraw from farm labor organizing. Pact signed with UFW.
June 25, 1978	César and Helen Chávez put in jail in Yuma for violating Arizona injunction against picketing.
Feb. 10, 1979	Rufino Contreras killed in Imperial Valley; moratorium called for 25 days on strike
March 1979	Resignation of Jerry Cohen, Marshal Ganz and Jim Drake.
1984	Grape boycott launched
1986	César E. Chávez kicks off the "Wrath of Grapes" campaign to draw public attention to the pesticide poisoning of grape workers and their children. 
July 16 - 	At age 61, César E. Chávez conducts his last--and longest--public 
August, 20 1988	fast for 36 days in Delano to call attention to farm workers and their children stricken by pesticides
Nov. 12, 1990	Mexican President Salinas de Gortari awards Chávez the Aguila Azteca, the highest Mexican civilian award. 
April 23, 1993	César E. Chávez dies peacefully in his sleep in San Luis, Arizona
May 1993	Veteran UFW organizer Arturo Rodriguez succeeds César E. Chávez as union president.
August 8, 1994	President Bill Clinton posthumously presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor to César E. Chávez. His widow, Helen, receives the medal during a White House ceremony.
August 18, 2000	César Chávez Day established when California Governor Gray Davis signs into law SB 984, authored by Senator Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles.