Cesar Chavez Day observed in city, county of Los Angeles

Cesar Chavez Day will be observed in the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County Monday, with the Board of Supervisors encouraging the public to actively engage "in service to our communities in honor of his memory."

Chavez, an advocate of nonviolence, is best remembered for spearheading a grape boycott in 1965 that went nationwide in 1968 and lasted until 1978, resulting in higher wages for farm workers and focusing national attention on their plight.

Chavez co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 with Dolores Huerta. The union merged in 1965 with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form United Farm Workers.

City and county offices and libraries will be closed Monday but schools will be open. They will be closed Friday for the state's observance of Cesar Chavez Day, which comes on the anniversary of his birth. The city and county customarily observe Cesar Chavez Day on the Friday or Monday before the anniversary of his birth to create a three-day weekend.

The Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 last Tuesday to approve Supervisor Hilda L. Solis's motion proclaiming Monday as Cesar Chavez Day.

Chavez and the UFW played an instrumental role in the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, which made California the first state to give farm workers the right to seek union representation and bargain collectively within an established legal framework.

Born March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez dropped out of school after the eighth grade to help support his family by joining them in the fields as a migrant farm worker, witnessing the many adversities those workers faced daily.

Chavez died in 1993 at age 66.