SNCC, the BPP pursued social justice and economic and political power through a daring combination of community service and armed self-defense. The prominence and effectiveness of all five of these organizations demonstrates the diversity of activists, ideologies, and protest strategies within the black freedom struggle.5
These five organizations were not only instrumental in shaping the direction of and providing leadership for the black freedom struggle, they all also actively supported the UFW. Comparing and contrasting these organizations’ relationships to the UFW thus conveys the range of attitudes and approaches toward multiracial coalition building within the movement. Some scholars argue that organizations do not truly represent group interests and that “some of the most dynamic struggles take place outside—indeed, sometimes in spite of—established organizations and institutions.” While I acknowledge the importance of this sort of “infrapolitics,” I maintain that organizations are useful tools in the study of coalition building. As scholar Laura Pulido has argued, “Organizations and groups are the essential building blocks of movements, as they provide the space where like-minded individuals coalesce and can accomplish a great deal more collectively than alone.” Once individuals come together in an organization, they can then form coalitions with others.6
The UFW is an ideal vehicle for examining the black freedom struggle’s positions on multiracial coalitions. Cultivating non-farmworker allies was a key component of UFW strategy because union leaders realized that farmworkers were not powerful enough on their own to be victorious against the forces of agribusiness. Distinct from family farms, agribusiness refers to massive, industrialized farms run by corporations. Chavez explained that in the case of agribusiness, “The power of the growers was backed by the power of the police, the courts, state and federal laws, and the financial power of the big corporations, the banks, and the utilities.” In the face of this web of power, farmworkers confronted nearly insurmountable odds in their struggle; previous attempts to unionize farmworkers had been crushed—often violently—by the forces of agribusiness. Outside supporters were thus necessary to aid the economically and politically powerless farmworkers.7
Allies were particularly useful during boycotts, which the UFW employed to put economic pressure on growers. Chavez explained, “Alone, the farm workers have no economic power; but with the help of the public they can develop the economic power to counter that of the growers.” In order for the boycotts to have negative economic consequences for the growers, as many people as possible needed to participate. The UFW appealed to a wide spectrum of potential supporters, including other labor unions, religious orders, students, activists of the New Left, housewives, politicians, and celebrities. Pursuing such a wide array of supporters both set the union apart from Chicano movement organizations and drew criticism from its more nationalistic elements. Corky Gonzales, founder of the Denver-based organization Crusade for Justice and an early leader of the Chicano movement, said of Chavez, “In order to have autonomy he had to have financial support. We work differently. We feel that no matter how long it takes, we have to develop our own leadership. We don’t want those alliances.” The UFW’s reliance on coalitions with other groups to execute its political goals, and the eagerness with which its leaders pursued these alliances, makes the organization a fitting lens through which to study multiracial coalition building.8
Analyzing the relationships between the UFW and the black freedom struggle organizations allows for the examination of multiracial coalition building in both regional and national contexts. The UFW’s base in California provides a window into the dynamics of interracial activism in the West, which was remarkable in its level of racial and ethnic diversity. Recent scholarship has revealed that activists in the West frequently engaged in multiracial coalition building as a practical strategy in the pursuit of social change. In contrast, when scholars of the movements in the South and Northeast address cross-racial cooperation, they focus on the relationships between black and white activists. However, some of the union’s boycotts, particularly against California grapes in the late 1960s, were national. The spread of UFW boycotts nationwide, particularly to areas with small or nonexistent Mexican American populations, facilitates the analysis of multiracial coalition building on a larger scale and provides a counterpoint to the uniqueness of the West.9
Finally, the UFW is an apt lens through which to view the black freedom struggle’s approaches to multiracial coalitions because the union enjoyed the support of such widely divergent organizations. While each of the five organizations examined here had the ultimate goal of African American equality, they differed widely in their ideologies, priorities, strategies, leadership, and constituencies. Nevertheless, each supported the UFW. Although Chicano and African American activists frequently cooperated during the 1960s and 1970s, the UFW was distinctive among Mexican American organizations in its sustained relationships with a wide variety of civil rights organizations. For example, the Brown Berets had cooperative relationships with similarly radical organizations such as the BPP, but not with more mainstream groups like the NAACP and the NUL. Likewise, the alliances between the militant Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres and the likeminded Nation of Islam, US, and the BPP outlasted its relationship with SCLC, which dissolved after the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968.10
This analysis of the relationship between the black freedom struggle and the UFW is a study of social movement politics, in that it focuses on how and why coalitions formed and the reasons they did or did not work. Coalition building is a complicated undertaking and involves several factors, the interplay of which determines the viability of an alliance. The coalitions formed between the black freedom struggle and the UFW were shaped by key facets of personal and group identity: race, class, and region. Aspects of an organization—particularly ideology, praxis, historical context, and leadership—were also instrumental in the development and outcome of coalitions.
Race was of primary importance in these interrelationships. To successfully overcome racial divides, individuals had to overlook such differences in favor of interracial solidarity. The strongest coalitions considered here rested on a shared sentiment among the participants that African Americans and Mexican Americans were commonly oppressed peoples of color. In many ways, the discrimination against Mexican Americans in the West took the same forms as that directed against African Americans in the Jim Crow South. Both groups were segregated in schools, housing, and public accommodations. “White” and “Colored” signs in the South were replaced in the West by signs proclaiming, “No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.” Both African Americans and Mexican Americans also experienced racial discrimination in the workplace; African American factory workers and Mexican American farmworkers were each prevented from becoming a foreman or manager, positions reserved for whites. The recognition of this shared experience was a key step in building a coalition by establishing mutual understanding.
Racial solidarity between African Americans and Mexican Americans was facilitated by the evolution of Mexican Americans’ racial identity. From the 1930s until the 1960s, many middle class Mexican American activist organizations, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the American GI Forum, invested in crafting a white identity, viewing whiteness as essential for access to opportunity in the United States. Although not necessarily a rejection of African Americans, many black activists took it that way, especially when LULAC used the claim to whiteness as a legal strategy in court cases challenging discrimination against Mexican Americans. The strategy was largely ineffective, as defendants could argue that since Mexican Americans were white, they were not being discriminated against, and defendants were thus not compelled to end discriminatory practices. The ineffectiveness of the whiteness strategy, coupled with the domestic and international movements of the 1960s, led some Mexican Americans to develop a Chicano identity that rejected whiteness in favor of a “brown” identity. Chicanismo included racial pride, cultural expression, active resistance to discrimination, and unity with peoples of color around the world, including African Americans. This transition was likely easiest for working-class Mexican Americans who, due to their experiences with discrimination and segregation, generally did not consider themselves white and therefore found commonality with African Americans.11
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