Should streets named after Chavez be renamed?

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years
An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.

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.
Recently, more than 50 years later, Ms. Murguia learned that a street near her home in the Central California city of Bakersfield was in the process of being renamed. City officials want to name it in honor of her abuser.

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.

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

Osodecentx said:

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Should streets named after Chavez be renamed?

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years
An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.

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.
Recently, more than 50 years later, Ms. Murguia learned that a street near her home in the Central California city of Bakersfield was in the process of being renamed. City officials want to name it in honor of her abuser.

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.

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

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If I am reading this right, these incidents happened in the early 1970s. So this is 50 years later and 33 years after his death. This is also before text messages and video recordings so wonder what evidence would there be. Maybe phone records or other people admitting he did so in interviews. One other tension point is in the Mexican culture, the age of consent was much younger in Mexico where it was 12 prior to 2012 although age of consent in California was 18 in the 1970s.

BaylorFTW said:

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Osodecentx said:

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Should streets named after Chavez be renamed?

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years
An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.

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.
Recently, more than 50 years later, Ms. Murguia learned that a street near her home in the Central California city of Bakersfield was in the process of being renamed. City officials want to name it in honor of her abuser.

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.

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

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If I am reading this right, these incidents happened in the early 1970s. So this is 50 years later and 33 years after his death. This is also before text messages and video recordings so wonder what evidence would there be. Maybe phone records or other people admitting he did so in interviews. One other tension point is in the Mexican culture, the age of consent was much younger in Mexico where it was 12 prior to 2012 although age of consent in California was 18 in the 1970s.

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Victim testimony from many girls

BaylorFTW said:

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Osodecentx said:

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Should streets named after Chavez be renamed?

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years
An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement.

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.
Recently, more than 50 years later, Ms. Murguia learned that a street near her home in the Central California city of Bakersfield was in the process of being renamed. City officials want to name it in honor of her abuser.

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.

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

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If I am reading this right, these incidents happened in the early 1970s. So this is 50 years later and 33 years after his death. This is also before text messages and video recordings so wonder what evidence would there be. Maybe phone records or other people admitting he did so in interviews. One other tension point is in the Mexican culture, the age of consent was much younger in Mexico where it was 12 prior to 2012 although age of consent in California was 18 in the 1970s.

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Scores of victims.


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.
Many of the women stayed silent for decades, both out of shame and for fear of tarnishing the image of a man who has become the face of the Latino civil rights movement, his image on school murals and his birthday a state holiday in California.
The findings are based on interviews with more than 60 people, including his top aides at the time, his relatives and former members of the U.F.W., which he co-founded with Ms. Huerta and Gilbert Padilla. The Times reviewed hundreds of pages of union records, confidential emails and photographs, as well as hours of audio recordings from U.F.W. board meetings.

What will Cesar Chavez Middle School in Waco ISD do now?

Personally I hope they keep the name as I hate the cancel culture. I'd also love to see a kid turn in a report on the schools namesake that includes the new allegations.

The Horrible Truth Comes Out About Cesar Chavez

On the menu today: Credit the New York Times for doing the legwork to deliver a bombshell. Cesar Chavez, arguably the highest-profile icon of the American labor movement in the second half of the 20th century, emblem of the U.S. Latino community, and one of the most influential American leftists of all time, was a horrific serial sexual abuser of women and teenage girls. The man died in 1993, and in the ensuing decades, he's been hailed and celebrated as a hero of the downtrodden. But now we know he was a particularly heinous type of oppressor. Read on.
Cesar Chavez, Monster
There are more than 100 places in the United States named after labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez streets; libraries; elementary, middle, and high schools; buildings on college campuses; and campuses themselves. Berkeley, Colton, Denver, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Modesto, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, and Seattle have parks or plazas named after Chavez. His birthday is a state holiday in California.
Chavez's home and grave are parts of a national monument. The U.S. National Park Service writes that Chavez is "widely recognized as the most important Latino leader in the United States during the twentieth century."
Everything named after Chavez is going to have to be renamed, Californians had better make plans to start going back to work on March 31, and it's anyone's guess as to what will happen to the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument.
Because it turns out that Cesar Chavez was a serial rapist and sexually pursued and molested girls as young as twelve, and groomed them from the ages of eight or nine.
Chavez was, up until the New York Times' bombshell expos Wednesday, about as revered a figure as you would find in America's Latino communities:
Ms. Ana Murguia and another woman, Debra Rojas, say that Mr. Chavez sexually abused them for years when they were girls, from around 1972 to 1977. He was in his 40s and had become a powerful, charismatic figure who captured global attention as a champion of farmworker rights.
Ms. Rojas said she was 12 when Mr. Chavez first touched her inappropriately, groping her breasts in the same office where he'd meet with Ms. Murguia. When Ms. Rojas was 15, he arranged to have her stay at a motel during a weekslong march through California, she said, and had sexual intercourse with her rape, under state law, because she was not old enough to consent. (Ms. Murguia said Mr. Chavez molested her but never had intercourse with her.)
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.
Then, shortly after the Times article came out, civil rights leader Dolores Huerta issued a 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. . . .
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.
The Cesar Chavez Foundation had more than $40 million in revenue in 2024, and more than $260 million in assets. The foundation issued a statement stating, "We are deeply shocked and saddened by what we are hearing." You must wonder how much longer they will still be called "the Cesar Chavez Foundation."
If you went to school in the 1980s or later, there's a good chance that there was a picture of Cesar Chavez in one of the later chapters of your history textbook. The U.S. Department of Labor has him in its "Hall of Honor." His jacket is in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He's had his own Hollywood biopic. If there's such a thing as secular sainthood, Chavez attained it in the years after his death.
The three most recent Democratic presidents all celebrated Chavez and his legacy loudly and proudly over the decades, often using terms that are cringe-inducing, considering what the world now knows.
Upon his death, President Bill Clinton declared, "We can be proud of his enormous accomplishments and the dignity and comfort he brought to the lives of so many of our country's least powerful and most dispossessed workers. He had a profound impact upon the people of the United States." Clinton later posthumously awarded Chavez the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor and said, "He was, for his own people, a Moses figure."
In 2012, President Barack Obama traveled to Keene, Calif., to dedicate the national monument. Obama said, "More than higher wages or better working conditions, that was Cesar's gift to us a reminder that we are all God's children, that every life has value. . . . He believed that when a child anywhere in America can dream beyond her circumstances and work to realize that dream, it makes all our futures just a little bit brighter."
About two years later, President Obama proclaimed March 31, 2014, as Cesar Chavez Day, calling him "one of America's greatest champions for social justice. . . . Cesar Chavez devoted his life to correcting these injustices, to reminding us that every job has dignity, every life has value, and everyone no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from should have the chance to get ahead. . . . The values Cesar Chavez lived by guide us still. . . . Throughout his lifelong struggle, Cesar Chavez never forgot who he was fighting for."
Upon taking office, President Joe Biden chose to display a bust of Chavez in the Oval Office. Biden said, "When I became President, I proudly placed a bust of Cesar Chavez in the Oval to serve as a reminder of the values he embodied, the vision of freedom he fought for, and his commitment to justice and dignity that we must uphold each and every day."

Mark Krikorian liked to remind progressives that Chavez was a proponent of a secure border and restricting illegal immigration, because illegal immigrants competed with native-born and legally immigrated farm laborers and drove down wages. Chavez referred to Mexican illegal immigrants as "wets," and his United Farm Workers union engaged in violent vigilantism at times. Chavez reportedly made antisemitic comments and warned about Jewish conspiracies.

Believe it or not, kids, but there was a time when the headline "widely beloved powerful man turns out to be a sexual predator and a creep" was genuinely surprising. There is danger in putting someone up on a pedestal, and there is particular risk when a heroic mythology gets cultivated around a particular leader, or when the man and the cause become so intertwined that what's bad for the man is seen as dangerous for his entire movement.
Man, have we seen that phenomenon before. We can't be too honest about priests sexually abusing young people, because it would be bad for the image of the church. We can't be too honest about the sexual misconduct of the president, because it would be bad for the party. We can't be too honest about the out-of-court settlements of the sexual harassment lawsuits of the CEO, because it would be bad for the company and the stock price.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-horrible-truth-comes-out-about-cesar-chavez/

Gov. Greg Abbott orders end to Csar Chvez Day observance, pushes to scrap Texas holiday
Officials reconsider holidays, street names after abuse allegations tied to labor leader. In Dallas, a council member is questioning Csar Chvez Day and Labor Day observances.

Poor guy.

This is decades later? Seems pretty unfair being that he cannot defend himself

Did Stalin ever unperson any Old Bolshevik like Bukharin or Trotsky faster than the American center-left establishment is unpersonning Cesar Chavez this week? https://t.co/88XEwKTGLP

— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) March 20, 2026

We should quit naming streets after humans. Most humans are flawed and imperfect. We should start naming streets after animals. I am thinking Lassie Lane. Secretariat Street. Tweety Turnpike.

This is sad.

He did lots of great things. But now his evil side comes out.

Instead of canceling him (or others) we really need to find that middle ground where we can acknowledge both sides.

Like historians do. They often can highlight the genius of a person, like say a general, king, Caesar, etc. but also point out how they killed entire cities, followed a bad ideology, raped, plundered, etc.

cowboycwr said:

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This is sad.

He did lots of great things. But now his evil side comes out.

Instead of canceling him (or others) we really need to find that middle ground where we can acknowledge both sides.

Like historians do. They often can highlight the genius of a person, like say a general, king, Caesar, etc. but also point out how they killed entire cities, followed a bad ideology, raped, plundered, etc.

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History always changes......depending on who wrote the book and who was willing to publish it.


Curtis LeMay is a classic example. By any reasonable definition he was a horrible war criminal. However we won the war, so little was ever said about it. Now he is dead and 95% of Americans have no idea even who he was.

But I would suspect many Japanese still know his story.

KaiBear said:

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cowboycwr said:

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This is sad.

He did lots of great things. But now his evil side comes out.

Instead of canceling him (or others) we really need to find that middle ground where we can acknowledge both sides.

Like historians do. They often can highlight the genius of a person, like say a general, king, Caesar, etc. but also point out how they killed entire cities, followed a bad ideology, raped, plundered, etc.

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History always changes......depending on who wrote the book and who was willing to publish it.


Curtis LeMay is a classic example. By any reasonable definition he was a horrible war criminal. However we won the war, so little was ever said about it. Now he is dead and 95% of Americans have no idea even who he was.

But I would suspect many Japanese still know his story.

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True. I was thinking even further back as well. Like our founding fathers. Created our country but yes some of them were slave owners.

Or even further. Some of the ancient rulers were great military leaders, connected the world, built roads/trade routes that still exist today, spread language/other connections but were horrible murderers and rapists.

If we only celebrated people who never had any flaws…… the list would stop at one….. and would get to the argument of was he a person or God, and for non believers was he real……..

cowboycwr said:

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KaiBear said:

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cowboycwr said:

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This is sad.

He did lots of great things. But now his evil side comes out.

Instead of canceling him (or others) we really need to find that middle ground where we can acknowledge both sides.

Like historians do. They often can highlight the genius of a person, like say a general, king, Caesar, etc. but also point out how they killed entire cities, followed a bad ideology, raped, plundered, etc.

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History always changes......depending on who wrote the book and who was willing to publish it.


Curtis LeMay is a classic example. By any reasonable definition he was a horrible war criminal. However we won the war, so little was ever said about it. Now he is dead and 95% of Americans have no idea even who he was.

But I would suspect many Japanese still know his story.

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True. I was thinking even further back as well. Like our founding fathers. Created our country but yes some of them were slave owners.

Or even further. Some of the ancient rulers were great military leaders, connected the world, built roads/trade routes that still exist today, spread language/other connections but were horrible murderers and rapists.

If we only celebrated people who never had any flaws…… the list would stop at one….. and would get to the argument of was he a person or God, and for non believers was he real……..

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Greatest two men I will ever know are my Father and Father in law.

For totally different reasons.

But publishers can't make any money producing biographies about brave, family oriented, working people.

So their accomplishments will die with me.

Danielsjackson114 said:

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Poor guy.

This is decades later? Seems pretty unfair being that he cannot defend himself

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you were still in diapers little boy. FTFO, you moron

Danielsjackson114 said:

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you lefties praised him like a god. why are you mad at me?

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glad he's dead if pedo. Now for Trump Pedo to bow out. And don't any of you try to tell me Piggy has nothing to hide. ya don't go to the ends of the earth to cover up pedo by Donnie. Guilty as sin! With 100s of others. Every one of them should fry! Including Piggy if guilty.

We have always been at war with Cesar Chavez. https://t.co/37VCCIbUW0

— Blake Neff (@BlakeSNeff) March 21, 2026

Danielsjackson114 said:

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you lefties praised him like a god. why are you mad at me?

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DJDS

It's similar to TDS but much less common