Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html

archive link: https://archive.ph/tqOV3

Ana Murguia remembers the day the man she had regarded as a hero called her house and summoned her to see him. She walked along a dirt trail, entered the rundown building, passed his secretary and stepped into his office.

He locked the door, as he always did when he called her, and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told her afterward. “They’d get jealous.”

The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Ms. Murguia said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times over the next four years.

(snip)

The two women have not shared their stories publicly before, and an investigation by The New York Times has uncovered extensive evidence to support their accusations and those raised by several other women against Mr. Chavez, the United Farm Workers co-founder who died in 1993 at the age of 66.

Also from the article:

The abuse allegations appear to be part of a larger pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Chavez, much of which has never been publicly revealed. The Times investigation found that Mr. Chavez also used many of the women who worked and volunteered in his movement for his own sexual gratification. His most prominent female ally in the movement, Dolores Huerta, said in an interview that he sexually assaulted her, a disclosure she has never before made publicly.

[dsc]

1. Gift link

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UFA.hnPg.rGV8MxUGDMPu&smid=url-share

[demmiblue]

2. Dolores Huerta:

The Times spoke at length with Ms. Huerta, the renowned Latina activist who helped run the farmworkers’ union with Mr. Chavez and coined the social-justice rallying cry, “Sí, se puede,” loosely translated as “Yes, we can.”

She said she has held on to a dark secret for nearly 60 years.

One night during the winter of 1966 in Delano, Calif., she said, Mr. Chavez drove her out to a secluded grape field, parked and raped her inside the vehicle. Ms. Huerta, who was 36 at the time, said she chose not to report the assault to the police because of their hostility toward the movement, and she feared that no one within the union would believe her. She also described an earlier encounter in August 1960, when she said she felt pressured to have sex with him in a hotel room during a work trip in San Juan Capistrano in Southern California.

Ms. Huerta later began a long-term domestic partnership with Mr. Chavez’s brother Richard, with whom she had four children. He died in 2011.

Ms. Huerta turns 96 on April 10. Her memories of the details of the assault that night in Delano are at times hazy. But she speaks of the attack in a startlingly matter-of-fact manner.

She described being stunned by Mr. Chavez’s aggression, and then numb to it. She framed her silence at the time not as an absence of pain, but as a kind of strategic necessity, particularly as a woman fighting for respect in the male-dominated world of 1960s union organizing. Now, her accusation shatters what was a widely celebrated — and seemingly egalitarian — bond between two of the most influential Hispanic activists in U.S. history.

[EdmondDantes_]

3. Way too many of us men need to do better

It's really not that hard to keep our hands to ourselves and not assault people.

[LeftInTX]

4. This should have come out earlier.

It sounds like many knew, but it just wasn't public.

I wonder if Dolores thought she was the only one?

[Jose Garcia]

5. Huerta was sconcerned that reporting it then would hurt the movement

Better late than never, I guess.

[LeftInTX]

7. But I kinda think she thought "it was just her"

Women who are assaulted often think that way.

[David__77]

12. It probably will.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I'm crying.

My dad looked up to him, with hope. But his time has obviously come and gone. Time to pay for his crimes.

[Solly Mack]

8. ...

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. I guess that's one scandal Hoover's FBI missed in their unlawful surveillance

Good for the UFW movement, bad for the victims.

[Prairie Gates]

16. Oh, I assume Hoover DID know and we start from there

[yardwork]

17. Sadly, the FBI probably knew and didn't care.

[hunter]

20. If he hadn't been compromised they might have had him killed.

Sadly, that seems to be the way our anti-labor government rolls.

We're free to say anything we like in the U.S.A. so long as it is inconsequential.

[leftstreet]

10. DURec

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Adding the statement that Dolores Huerta just issued:

https://medium.com/@dolores_huerta/march-18-2026-e74c20430555

Today, civil rights leader Dolores Huerta issued the following statement:

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times’ multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.

As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.

I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.

I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way. I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights.

I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.

I am telling my story because the New York Times has indicated that I was not the only one — there were others. Women are coming forward, sharing that they were sexually abused and assaulted by Cesar when they were girls and teenagers.

The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.

The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.

I will continue my commitments to workers, as well as my commitment to women’s rights, to make sure we have a voice and that our communities are treated with dignity and given the equity that they have so long been denied.

I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.”

If you are a survivor or if you have been impacted by any type of sexual violence, please visit the Dolores Huerta Foundation website, where you will find a list of resources for support. https://doloreshuerta.org/sexual_assault_resources/

[mountain grammy]

13. We have a building in Denver with his name on it..

just awful. what in the world do we do to stop this? We really need to elect more women.

[pinkstarburst]

18. We have things in Austin named for him, too

And I hope they strip his name from every one.

[mountain grammy]

21. Yes, me too!

[Maru Kitteh]

14. Living or dead, red or blue IDGAF

Whoever they are, wherever they are found, they need to be called out and removed from society.

[yardwork]

15. This is sad and infuriating.

[Celerity]

19. Cesar Chavez, a fucking child rapist POS