SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Throughout the weekend, America will commemorate the late civil rights icon César Chávez. 

Sunday would have been Chávez’s 97th birthday. Former President Barack Obama recognized César Chávez Day as a federal commemorative holiday in honor of the labor leader and civil rights activist.

Chávez, along with Dolores Huerta, founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, later merging with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers. The union fought hard for a labor force that worked long hours in unsafe conditions.

It was Chávez’s ability to organize and lead that helped the UFW become one of the biggest and most powerful labor unions in history. 

As the union’s leader, Chávez accomplished a lot of firsts for farmworkers. In 1966, he established the National Farm Workers Service Center, which built affordable housing for vulnerable Filipino-American farmworkers.

He also helped establish the first health insurance plan and a credit union for farm workers, among many other supports for laborers.

Very few people got the opportunity to experience Chávez’s ability to organize first-hand as much as Marc Grossman. He was Chávez’s longtime speechwriter and personal aide.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that César had this passion for empowerment. He wanted to give people who looked like him opportunities no one would have given César Chávez when he was a young migrant worker,” Grossman said.

Grossman, who is still the spokesperson for the Cesar Chavez Foundation and UFW, says working with Chávez for the farmworkers’ movement taught him way more than any of his time in college studying history.

“The most important lessons I learned in my life, I learned from working with Cesar in the movement. Lessons about commitment and self-sacrifice and being a part of something bigger than you are,” Grossman noted.

Grossman highlighted one of Chávez’s greatest abilities was to inspire people to reach places that many thought were unattainable. So much so that Grossman says the civil rights icon had a hard time keeping a secretary for long because he would convince them to go pursue their dreams.

“There was a woman who wanted to be a teacher’s assistant so she could leave the fields, escape farm labor. César convinced her to be a teacher. She became a school administrator.” Grossman said. “There was a young paralegal who César convinced to become an attorney. He’s now a superior court judge in Kern County, where everything began.”

Chávez’s grandson, Andres Chávez, is the executive director for CCF. Even though he didn’t get to meet his grandfather, he spends a lot of him teaching California kids and people around the country about the labor leader’s legacy.

“My Tata César had more defeats than he had victories, but it was how he responded to that that defined his legacy,” Andres said.

Andres says there are many ways for people to celebrate his grandfather that go beyond what is usually associated with the work done by labor organizations.

“That’s a beautiful thing that my tata taught us. It’s that service can happen in so many ways,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be just being an activist. It can be so many different ways, and the final thing is that ‘sí, se puede attitude. That’s something that I think resonates with a lot of folks.”

“Sí, se puede,” or “yes, we can,” became the rallying cry for the farmworkers’ movement and were the three words those who knew him said Chávez lived by. It’s that call to service that is meant to be commemorated this Sunday.

“He realized that his work had far transcended farm labor,” said Grossman. “He realized it had inspired multiple generations of people across the nation — to be active, socially and politically, and to dream dreams — that they could be something no one thought they could be.”