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It was 1965 and throngs of Filipinos and Mexican workers walked out from their jobs in the grape fields of Delano, Calif., protesting unfair wages and unjust treatment and demanding the right to unionize. The strike sparked a yearslong battle that would ripple throughout the state.
Growers tried to crush all organizing efforts, zeroing in on the United Farm Workers and its charismatic leader, Cesar Chavez, whom they tried to paint as a communist. Workers were at first reluctant to follow Chavez’s call to action, afraid of what the repercussions could bring.
The fight even spilled into church pews, where workers and growers prayed together but clergy largely stayed silent.
Into this chasm stepped the Rev. Wayne “Chris” Hartmire Jr.
He was the director of the California Migrant Ministry, a longstanding program that assisted farmworkers. They were among the first religious organizations to publicly back what would become the UFW, arguing its work was the epitome of Jesus’ call to help those who needed it. Hartmire invited clergyman across the country to witness the Delano strike firsthand.
“Believe me, you being here it’s just a whole lot more powerful than you realize,” Hartmire recalled in an interview telling anyone who took up his invitation."Your presence here is more supportive of the work that the church actually deserves. Somehow, Jesus comes through, regardless of where our institutions are, and workers feel like, ‘This is a good thing we’re doing.’”
Whether in the Central Valley fields, Sacramento’s homeless scene or his retirement community, Hartmire rallied behind people to fight for basic human rights and preserve their dignity.
“They were the starting point in getting church people from all over the country involved with us. They were the instrument for interpreting us to people,” Chavez said of Hartmire’s involvement with the California Migrant Ministry in an 1977 interview with Sojourners Magazine. “Chris and his gang went up and down the...