The Abridged version:
The Sacramento City Council is leading an effort to rename Cesar Chavez Plaza, following a New York Times investigation detailing accusations of abuse by the deceased civil rights leader.
Local leaders condemned the alleged abuse and began making moves to rename city facilities with Chavez’s name on them.
UC Davis is renaming a youth leadership conference, which has had Chavez’s name on it since 2001.
Sacramento leaders are pushing to rename Cesar Chavez Plaza in Downtown Sacramento, following a flood of sexual abuse allegations involving the civil rights leader.
The New York Times published an investigation on Wednesday morning detailing accusations that the civil rights icon abused girls during his time at the helm of the Farm Workers Movement in the 1970s. Dolores Huerta — who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Chavez — said he sexually abused her, according to a statement.
“I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here,” she wrote, noting she had kept it secret for 60 years.
Mayor Kevin McCarty said Wednesday morning that he is appointing members of the Sacramento City Council to a subcommittee “to guide the renaming of our downtown plaza park.”
The committee will include councilmembers Eric Guerra, Karina Talamantes and Phil Pluckebaum, according to a written statement provided by the mayor’s office.
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“I’m personally saddened and disturbed by the allegations against Cesar Chavez,” McCarty said in a statement. “We take these allegations seriously and will ensure the naming of our city facilities aligns with our values.”
Talamantes said the news was “devastating.”
“Cesar Chavez is someone that I, along with many people in the Latino community and the labor movement community, have idolized for my entire life,” Talamantes told Abridged.
She said that leaders in Sacramento’s Latino community are meeting on Wednesday evening to begin discussions on how to rename the downtown plaza that bears Chavez’s name. The group will begin weighing how to change the name of the park and the future of the bronze statue at its center, Talamantes said.
Talamantes urged that “we need to be more united than ever,” in light of current federal policies targeting Latinos and immigrants.
“This is one person today, but the farm movement is about more than one person,” she said.
Guerra, who grew up as a farmworker in a migrant family, called the findings in the news investigation “horrific and tragic.” He called for a “community-led” process to rename the downtown plaza.
“There were survivors in this, we need to make sure they’re recognized,” Guerra said. “We can’t forget that it’s about the the farmworkers, it’s about the campesinos. We don’t want that to be washed over because of some individual.”
Statues, schools and banners bear Chavez’s name across Sacramento
Chavez’s name is prominent across the Sacramento region.
The deceased civil rights leader has a bronze statue in Cesar Chavez Plaza at 10th and I streets in Sacramento. Banners currently line the plaza in preparation for Cesar Chavez Day (March 31), which has been a state holiday in California since 2000.
Sign at Cesar Chavez Plaza in Downtown Sacramento on March 18, 2026. (Shelley Ho)
Yesterday, the UFW announced that it was canceling celebrations for its founder in light of the allegations.
Elementary schools in South Sacramento’s Meadowview neighborhood and in Davis are named after him, as well as a high school in Woodland.
Sacramento City Unified School District confirmed that it’s considering changing the name of one of it’s school’s following the allegations. The district said it “intends to start conversations with our school community about how best to move forward,” in a statement.
UC Davis renames youth leadership conference
At UC Davis, tens of thousands of junior high, high school and community college students have attended a youth conference named after Chavez since 2001.
The university stated on Wednesday morning that it would be changing the name of the conference to the “Avanza Rising Scholars Conference.”
“We are aware of troubling reports concerning alleged behavior by César Chávez during his life as a labor leader and activist,” said spokesperson Andy Fell in a written statement. “In light of this, UC Davis is removing Chávez’s name from the conference, which will now be known as the Avanza Rising Scholars Conference.”
Banners with Cesar Chavez’s image can be found on lamps throughout Cesar Chavez Plaza in Sacramento. (Shelley Ho)
Felicia Alvarez is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability. She’s called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health care and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.