Civil rights leader Cesar Chavez faces charges of: sexual misconduct From his United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta. Chavez died in 1993 at the age of 66.
An investigation by The New York Times found that Chavez sexually assaulted Huerta and multiple other women.
Huerta recounts an incident that occurred on a winter night in Delano, California, in 1966. She said he took her to a remote field and raped her in the car.
She decided not to report the attack to authorities because of hostility toward the farmworker union movement, and she also felt no one within the union took her claims seriously.
Huerta further recalled an incident six years ago when he forced her to have sex in a hotel room during a business trip to San Juan Capistrano. Southern California.
She mentioned that she felt unable to say no to Chavez “because he was someone I admired, my boss and the leader of a movement to which I had devoted many years of my life.”
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Cesar Chavez accused of rape: 5 things you need to know about the shocking accusation
- Huerta’s account of the events marked the first time she has shared her story publicly, and she said her decision to speak out was influenced by other accusers of Chavez.
- She mentioned that two sexual encounters resulted in pregnancies that she kept hidden, eventually giving birth to the children and arranging for them to be raised by others.
- Additionally, Huerta claimed that Chavez emotionally abused her. At a board meeting, he suggested she had embezzled funds from the organization. When she defended herself, Chavez called her a “stupid bitch.”
- The civil rights icon said she struggled to reconcile Chávez’s dual roles as an abuser on the one hand and a civil rights leader on the other.
- An investigation by The Times revealed that Chavez also sexually assaulted young girls Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas in the 1970s. Two women, now 66, said the experiences left them traumatized and led to the development of mental health problems.
United Farm Workers union releases statement
Following the explosive allegations, the United Farm Workers union announced they would not attend an event on his birthday on March 31, calling the allegations “disturbing.”
“The UFW is aware of deeply disturbing allegations that the union’s co-founder, Cesar Chavez, has acted in a manner that is incompatible with our organization’s values,” the union said in a statement, according to USA Today. “Some of the reports are family matters and are not our story to tell nor our place to comment. Even more disturbing are the allegations involving the abuse of young women or minors.”
