Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a proclamation on Thursday morning naming the last Monday of March in the city as “Farm Workers Day,” following allegations of sexual abuse against renowned labor leader Cesar Chavez.

Bass’ decision comes a day after an investigation by The New York Times detailed allegations that Chavez raped and abused women and girls in the 1960s and 70s, including Dolores Huerta, 95, who co-founded a labor organization with Chavez that would later merge with United Farm Workers (UFW).

At a news conference on Thursday morning, Bass described the last 48 hours as “very painful.” She said she grew up admiring Chavez and the farm workers’ movement and was hurt when she found out about the allegations. 

“On behalf of the city of Los Angeles, I’m proud to introduce and sign a proclamation today to rename the last Monday of March as Farm Workers Day,” Bass said. “We are all here to honor the generations of farm workers and organizers who have fought for civil rights and advanced the labor movement for decades.”

Bass added that she has been a longtime friend of Huerta and her “heart broke for what she went through.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Huerta said she had kept a secret for the last 60 years because she “believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.” She added that following the Times’ investigation, she could “no longer stay silent.”

Reporters from the Times interviewed more than 60 people, including some of Chavez’s relatives and aides, as well as reviewed emails, union records and photographs that corroborated the allegations. Some people included in the reporting rejected the claims made against Chavez.

Bass said she had the “opportunity of a lifetime” to meet Chavez once. She said that as a child, her family participated in grape boycotts. 

Chavez was a prominent Mexican American civil rights leader and activist who used boycotts, fasts and nonviolent strikes to fight for better pay and conditions for farmworkers. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 by former President Bill Clinton. In 2021, when former President Joe Biden took office, he had a bronze bust of Chavez placed in the Oval Office.  

Several streets, schools and buildings across Southern California are named after Chavez. Bass said the city will have to evaluate these names moving forward. 

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