Marching Through History with César Chávez
April 27, 2009 • By Anna Young, Managing Editor
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Photographer dedicated her life to social justice, civil rights
» Part one of a two-part series on photojournalist Cathy Murphy’s work with United Farm Workers
HARRISONBURG, Va. — How many of us can say we have lived next door to a revolutionary? How many of us were there during one of the most monumental civil rights movements, documenting the struggles and triumphs of a workers’ revolution, as well as the personal life of their legendary leader?
Cathy Murphy was a photojournalism student who lived next door to César Chávez during the United Farm Workers strikes and the Thousand Mile March in the mid-1970s in California.
“One of my goals in life was to make some kind of social justice through my photography,” Murphy said.
Chávez, a Mexican American farm worker and civil rights activist, dedicated his life to helping disenfranchised and mistreated migrant workers and fighting against child labor in the fields of California until his death in 1993.
“César Chávez was a fabulous organizer, he was a grassroots organizer,” Murphy said. “He spent years doing that in a struggle to get the farm workers union going, getting people involved, telling people that by joining together, they would have power to make changes for social justice.”
The mountain community of “La Paz,” the United Farm Workers headquarters in Keene, Calif., boasted little more than several small houses scattered along a dirt road and an old hospital habituated by UFW volunteers. It was here that Murphy cultivated her relationship with the Chávez family, as her and her young son were neighbors with Chávez. Although Murphy rarely interrupted Chávez while he was at home, she got to know his wife, Helen, and his son, Paul, his daughter, Anna, and Anna’s husband, Richard.
“I became close with the family and César trusted me and he invited me to go with him to family functions and photograph his family,” Murphy said.
Just as the grapes were ripening in the fields in the summer of 1975, Chávez led the Thousand Mile March, a procession full of rallies and protests that began at the U.S.-Mexico border and ended at the UFW headquarters.
“César was walking the highways and going into communities all along the way, telling workers in the field they finally had their right to organize and to vote for union representation,” Murphy said.
Murphy first photographed Chávez while she was a student at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., working for a local newspaper. “César was hard to see as he was short and surrounded by security guards with two large German shepherds in front of him,” Murphy once wrote. “I moved quickly into the line, in front of César and behind the dogs, and took my first photograph of César while walking backwards on the highway. César looked me in the eye but said nothing.”
Because the photographer for UFW quit, Chávez asked if he could see the photographs Murphy had taken for the Santa Barbara News and Review.
From that point on, Murphy worked as a photographer for the United Farm Workers. She spent 58 days walking 20 miles of highway a day through rural California, documenting the Thousand Mile March. After the march, Murphy spent more than two years in the fields with migrant workers of all ages, including young children, photographing their living and working conditions.
The photographs of the farm workers, the Thousand Mile March and the professional and personal sides of Chávez have made their way to JMU and are now featured in the Prism Gallery in the lower level of Festival through Friday.
Murphy’s “March Through History with César Chávez” photo-documentary exhibit contains more than 40 monotone photos taken between 1975 and 1976.
The exhibit “shows many sides of Chávez that many people may not be familiar with,” said Melanie Brimhall, the director of education for the Madison Art Collection. “It particularly shows the personal side of him: walking with children, with his dogs, doing yoga, the fact that he followed Gandhi so closely… it shows the painful moments where he was in thought agonizing over whether or not to cause a strike knowing that people had already been shot and killed for striking. When he would call a strike he knew he was sending these people into harm’s way and that must have weighed heavily on him and you can see that in these photographs.”
In addition to portraying the more personal moments of Chávez’s life, the collection also contains portraits of child laborers and migrant workers.
“It’s one thing to read about the United Farm Workers and that movement in textbooks but it’s another thing to come and look at these photographs,” Brimhall said. “To see Lupita, the child who was working in the fields, in her socks and holding a pesticide bucket while she was gathering onions, and to see the man who fell from a lemon tree and couldn’t get medical care and lost a limb; the stories and the pictures you see, the pain in their faces, add the personal side of that whole movement.”
Although there are more than 100 photographs in the entire collection, the Prism Gallery can hold only around 40 frames. Murphy had to prioritize which photos were most important for telling the story of Chávez, the movement and the farm workers.
“There were a few that needed to be in there,” said Murphy, speaking of the photo of Chávez doing yoga. “It shows his commitment to nonviolence: He became vegetarian, he quit smoking and drinking and he practiced yoga.”
Murphy came to JMU for the unveiling of the Prism Gallery exhibit on March 31, Chávez’s birthday. She spent a week in Harrisonburg, where she made a number of appearances, including at two radio stations: WMRA and the local Hispanic station, La Gran D.
Although she was slated to give only three presentations as a JMU visiting scholar, Murphy gave 11 lectures around JMU and Harrisonburg. “When she got here everyone kept clamoring for her to speak with them,” Brimhall said. “She carried on back-to-back sessions just so she could talk to everyone who wanted to hear her.”
Murphy’s photo-documentary was brought to JMU because it fulfills the need for education and diversity, for which the gallery was created, according to Brimhall. “We were looking for exhibits on diverse cultures and a broad view of humanity for the Prism Gallery,” she said. “It touched on so many different groups and programs on campus and within our community.” The gallery also reaches out to Harrisonburg’s Hispanic residents “to encourage them to come on campus and to see our university,” Brimhall said.
The exhibit was also brought to JMU because Chávez was recently added to the third grade curriculum as part of Virginia public schools’ Standards of Learning requirements, and the gallery hosts more than 4,000 kindergarten through 12-grade students a year, according to Kathryn Stevens, Madison Art Collection Director.
Brimhall added the exhibit also appeals to JMU’s education majors, photography and photojournalism students, as well as teachers and professors. “Because he’s Californian, a lot of people in Virginia just haven’t heard of César Chávez,” Stevens said. “And of course a lot of our teachers are younger so they don’t even remember the ’70s and the protests.”
Said Murphy: “It’s a traveling exhibit, and the more places it is… The more people who find out about Chávez, the better, particularly in this area. I think there are a lot of students who have never heard of César Chávez before.”
Contact Anna Young at breezepress@gmail.com
View the slideshow here.
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