On 8 September, 1965, labor organizers Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta, among others, held a conference to demand that farm workers be allowed the right to choose if they wished to be represented by a Union. An estimated crowd of more than twelve hundred supporters and members of Chavez’s organization repeatedly chanted, “Huelga!” the Spanish word for strike, in favor of supporting the Delano grape field workers. Thus began a strike by workers and an organized boycott of California grape products that would gain notoriety around the world. In 1967 workers would vote to seek representation on their behalf by the United Farm Workers. In 1994, Chavez would be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
