The Delano Strike and Grape Boycott

Filipino workers organized through the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee began the Delano grape strike in September 1965. Chavez and the NFWA voted to join, bringing their largely Mexican American membership into a shared struggle.

The movement combined picketing, a march to Sacramento, nonviolent discipline, and a national consumer boycott. Workers and organizers carried the campaign across North America, turning an agricultural labor dispute into a moral and economic question for shoppers and eventually winning union contracts.