These revelations about Cesar Chavez are heartbreaking and disturbing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

They say never meet your heroes. They should add don't learn too much about them.

[SSJVegeta]

1. Dolores Huerta did all the real work anyways.

These accomplishments are at least as much hers as they were his. I am happy to replace Cesar Chavez Day with Dolores Huerta Day.

Still so terrible to hear these women's stories.

[ret5hd]

6. I wholeheartedly agree with your idea...

i have “met” (very briefly) ms. huerta…very very impressed.

[SSJVegeta]

9. Jealous!

(Also edited my comment to correct the misspelling of her name)

[obamanut2012]

13. She and Larry Itilong did the heavy lifting

Same, replace with DH's Day, or Farm Workers Day.

[SSJVegeta]

16. Ultimately the farmworkers did it.

Last edited Wed Mar 18, 2026, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

This is theirs. Not any one person. But yes. Huertas is enormously under-credited for her role as a civil rights leader. Along with most oft he other leaders.

[leftstreet]

2. They don't have to be

A piece of shit is a piece of shit. He was the patriarchy's choice to be the face of a movement. A movement apparently powered by strong women. Women willing to do anything for the solidarity of labor. They are the heroes

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Prior to the revelations he was a secular saint of the left.

Kind of like Bobby Kennedy who he broke bread with to end a hunger strike.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. He had a cult of personality going when he was leading the movement.

There was plenty of controversy about him both within and outside of the movement in those days.

[obamanut2012]

14. The revelations started well before he died

Not all of this is new.

[kimbutgar]

3. Yesterday when I first heard it I thought it was a Reich wing hit job

But hearing Ms Huerta verifying it is so sad and heartbreaking.

[Solly Mack]

7. Better yet, make no heroes.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway said the older you get it's harder to have heroes, but it is kind of necessary.

[Solly Mack]

12. You can admire people without turning them into something other than human.

Humans are imperfect and some of them do horrible things.

Some of those who do horrible things also do some good things.

Heroes can become inextricably linked to a cause in the minds of people - the danger being the cause can suffer when the truth about the hero comes out. Leaves the cause vulnerable to attack.

And those who point to the person as a hero are left feeling let down and betrayed.

Let the cause motivate you, not the person.

[milestogo]

10. What revelations?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. That he raped and assaulted women in the movement, including children.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221105629

[Buckeyeblue]

11. It seems that dead Cesar Chavez is being held more accountable than our living president

[UTUSN]

17. "don't learn too much about them" - been doing that via The University of YouTube"

over the past few years, and have learned more history and biography than everything in my academic stereotypes. But knowledge is power, and it's better to meet and be disabused about "heroes" and to learn much about them. Better to bear the reality.