Posted on 02/11/2010 10:19:18 AM PST by Badabing Badablonde
The Dallas City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to rename a short stretch of a downtown street for civil rights hero and farm labor champion César Chávez, capping two years of struggle often rooted in raw feelings over race, culture and a changing city.
< snip >
At City Hall and around Dallas, the process to rename a street for Chávez engendered hard feelings among proponents and opponents alike.
But the mood in the City Council chambers was buoyant Wednesday, with Hispanic leaders joining with black, Asian and other minority groups in a standing ovation when the vote was taken.
Several people spoke publicly in favor of renaming the street, and no one spoke against it.
"When this started, it was a divided issue, an issue which many people wanted to support and some did not ... for the reason that many people did not know who César Chávez was," council member Steve Salazar said. "Sitting here today and watching the speakers do a really excellent job of representing their different communities, I can only say this is the right decision for us to make today."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
So another street where out-of-towners can go to score their drugs.
Ya, streets with names such as Cesar Chavez or Martin Luther King tend to be in the most depressed parts of town.
What is the over-under on how many years before there are calls for a Chavez national holiday? California already has a state holiday. The dirty little secret is Chavez was a vehement opponent of illegals and guest workers because he had enough common sense letting these people in would undermine his efforts to organize the farm workers.
Then after that, Harvey Milk.
Gay activists claim Lincoln was a homo because he shared a bed with a man, quite common practice at that time as beds were luxury items. So we can say you already have your holiday. Hee, hee
In an area of St Paul Minnesota known as Little Mexico, Concord Boulevard was renamed Cesar Chavez street. I’ve done a fair amount of work on the “projects” there and it is like being in a foreign country. The signs on businesses are all in Spanish.
This was a victory for reason. Originally they were going to name a very long street populated by many businesses Ceasar Chavez. It was also named for an early Dallasite (Ross Ave). The expense for sign and address changes would have been huge. In spite of the caterwauling from liberals and the la Raza types, reason prevailed. For a change.
This makes sense. Why use parking-boots when you can just follow the example of Cesar Chavez’s followers and slash the tires?
Yeah, but you can get some good tacos from the trucks parked along the road.
I miss the good old days when Council whackiness was mostly confined to the insane rantings of Al Lipscomb and Diane Ragsdale.
Just kidding.
I don’t really know - was Cesar Chavez a good guy?? What is his history?
Note: The following text is a quote:
www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-cesar-chavez-day
Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Proclamations
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release March 31, 2010
Presidential Proclamation - Cesar Chavez Day
A PROCLAMATION
The rights and benefits working Americans enjoy today were not easily gained; they had to be won. It took generations of courageous men and women, fighting to secure decent working conditions, organizing to demand fair pay, and sometimes risking their lives. Some, like Cesar Estrada Chavez, made it the cause of their lives. Today, on what would have been his 83rd birthday, we celebrate Cesar’s legacy and the progress achieved by all who stood alongside him.
Raised by a family of migrant farm workers, Cesar Chavez spent his youth moving across the American Southwest, working in fields and vineyards, and experiencing firsthand the hardships he would later crusade to abolish. At the time, farm workers were deeply impoverished and frequently exploited, exposed to very hazardous working conditions, and often denied clean drinking water, toilets, and other basic necessities. The union Cesar later founded with Dolores Huerta, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), still addresses these issues today.
After serving in the United States Navy, Cesar Chavez became a community organizer and began his lifelong campaign for civil rights and social justice. Applying the principles of nonviolence, he empowered countless laborers, building a movement that grew into the UFW. He led workers in marches, strikes, and boycotts, focusing our Nation’s attention on their plight and using the power of picket lines to win union contracts.
“The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being, but it is also the most true to our nature,” Cesar Chavez once said. Since our Nation’s earliest days of independence, we have struggled to perfect the ideals of equal justice and opportunity enshrined in our founding documents. As Cesar suggests, justice may be true to our nature, but as history teaches us, it will not prevail unless we defend its cause.
Few Americans have led this charge so tirelessly, and for so many, as Cesar Chavez. To this day, his rallying cry — “Sí, se puede,” or “Yes, we can,” — inspires hope and a spirit of possibility in people around the world. His movement strengthened our country, and his vision lives on in the organizers and social entrepreneurs who still empower their neighbors to improve their communities.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2010, as Cesar Chavez Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate service, community, and education programs to honor Cesar Chavez’s enduring legacy.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.
BARACK OBAMA
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