Cesar Chavez, 1966.
Labor leader and civil rights advocate Cesar Chavez is well-known for his activism in California, Texas, Arizona, Florida and elsewhere. As co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association (along with Dolores Huerta) in 1962, he is most often associated with strikes and boycotts that lead to higher wages, improved conditions and collective bargaining rights for farm workers.
Chavez' birthday, March 31, is a state holiday in California, Colorado, and Texas, and his legacy of activism is well documented in archives and museums throughout the U.S. Today, in honor of Chavez' birthday, we look at three archives that celebrate California's history of activism, protest and reform.
The Farmworker Movement Documentation Project
This extensive digital archive of the history surrounding Chavez and the Farmworker Movement is presented by the UC San Diego Library and includes photos, music, videos, oral histories and an amazing digital collection of farmworker buttons:
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
This primary source collection, published by our perennial partner in digitization Adam Matthew Digital, gathers videos, photos, posters, and ephemera from a number of institutions and includes materials from the University of California, Berkeley's Social Protest Collection.
Images from Adam Matthew Digital's Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest collection.
The Center for the Study of Political Graphics
Recently featured on KCET's Artbound, The Center for the Study of Political Graphics collects and preserves thousands of political posters. We provide digitization services to the CSPG and over the years we've seen some amazing posters come through our offices. We're proud to support their work.
Images from the collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics
