Iconic Chicano labor activist Delores Huerta will commemorate civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with a noontime speech Wednesday in Everett.
Her talk will follow a half-day of celebrations, including a march through downtown Everett that is expected to draw upwards of 800 people.
“The day’s events are really a conclusion of Martin Luther King’s message,” said Kate Reardon, spokeswoman for Everett city government.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is Monday, Jan. 15, a federal holiday.
Huerta’s keynote speech will begin at 12 p.m. at the Edward D. Hansen Conference Center, 2000 Hewitt Ave. in Everett. Reardon said the speech was scheduled at noon on a workday to encourage people to spend their lunch hour listening.
Huerta, the outspoken co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, helped organize fieldworkers with Cesar Chavez in the early 1960s.
She later helped strike the first collective bargaining agreement for farm workers in U.S. history by leading the union’s negotiations with Schenley Wine Company.
A critic of President Bush’s guest worker program, Huerta, 76, continues her advocacy today, speaking on issues affecting women and migrant workers.
Rosalinda Guillen, who used to organize farm workers in northern Washington, said portraits of Huerta and Chavez hang in her office.
“They are our heroes,” she said.
Guillen now directs Community to Community, a Bellingham nonprofit organization that mentors children of migrant farm workers.
She said Huerta’s work to secure better wages and working conditions for farm workers dovetails with King’s vision for equality.
“Those leaders knew each other and took notes and they understood that it was an American struggle,” she said. “It was the most defining point in agriculture since the emancipation of African Slaves.”
Indeed, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, met Huerta when she and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, traveled to Salinas, Calif. in 1970 to show support for a jailed Chavez.
A committee of representatives from the city of Everett, Snohomish County, the YMCA of Snohomish County and other organizations, selected Huerta to shed light on a piece of the civil rights movement that is often overlooked.
Christina Castorena, associate dean of diversity at Everett Community College, said the Chicano worker movement on the West Coast is an important aspect of the civil rights movement.
Like King, she said Chavez and Huerta were “champions for people who often didn’t have a voice.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
Call Rick Huling at 425-304-3202 for more information.
Following the free event Williams will sign his latest book “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America – And What We Can Do about It.”
For ticket information call 425-771-4030 or go to www.ci.lynnwood.wa.us/MLK.
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