Rep. Joseph Kennedy joins UFW President Arturo Rodriguez and strawberry workers in Watsonville’s strawberry fields.
11:15 a.m. Friday in Watsonville
REP. JOSEPH KENNEDY VISITS STRAWBERRY WORKERS IN WATSONVILLE, RECALLING STAND WITH CHAVEZ BY FATHER, RFK, 31 YEARS BEFORE IN DELANO
Thirty-one years ago, in the second year of the Delano Grape Strike, Senator Robert F. Kennedy became the first national political figure to lend unqualified support to Cesar Chavez’s farm workers’ cause. In March 1966, he visited the picketline at a struck Delano vineyard and attended a rally with striking grape workers.
On Friday, U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, eldest son of the late New York senator, will join Chavez’s successor and son-in-law–United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez–at a strawberry field to witness the back-breaking labor, visit a nearby farm labor camp where pickers live and declare his support for the strawberry workers’ organizing efforts at a rally with harvesters.
Reporters are invited to accompany Kennedy and Rodriguez during the tour, and to join them afterwards at the rally and a press availability. The schedule for Friday, April 4, 1997 is as follows:
11:15 a.m –Meet Rep. Kennedy and UFW President Rodriguez at the union’s Watsonville headquarters, 18 West Lake Street (behind Main St.) in downtown Watsonville. Leave for strawberry field and farm labor camp. (The complete tour schedule will only be available at that time.)
12:45 p.m.–Outdoor rally with strawberry workers followed by press availability with Kennedy and Rodriguez at UFW’s Watsonville headquarters, 18 West Lake Street (behind Main St.) in downtown Watsonville..
B-roll of Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez from their historic March 1966 meeting in Delano will be available in both Beta and VHS formats.
Rep. Kennedy’s visit to the heart of strawberry-growing country comes as the 1997 harvest season is getting underway–and nine days before thousands of people are expected to march in Watsonville as part of the joint organizing drive by the UFW and the AFL-CIO.