{"id":226494,"date":"2026-03-19T05:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T05:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/226494\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T05:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T05:39:28","slug":"sacramento-grapples-with-cesar-chavez-name-after-rape-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/226494\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento grapples with Cesar Chavez name after rape claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Abridged version:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Local leaders condemned the alleged abuse and began making moves to rename city facilities with Chavez\u2019s name on them.<\/p>\n

UC Davis is renaming a youth leadership conference, which has had Chavez\u2019s name on it since 2001.<\/p>\n

Sacramento leaders are pushing to rename Cesar Chavez Plaza in Downtown Sacramento, following a flood of sexual abuse allegations involving the civil rights leader.<\/p>\n

The New York Times published an investigation<\/a> 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 \u2014 who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Chavez \u2014 said he sexually abused her<\/a>, according to a statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here,\u201d she wrote, noting she had kept it secret for 60 years.<\/p>\n

Mayor Kevin McCarty said Wednesday morning that he is appointing members of the Sacramento City Council to a subcommittee \u201cto guide the renaming of our downtown plaza park.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee will include councilmembers Eric Guerra, Karina Talamantes and Phil Pluckebaum, according to a written statement provided by the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m personally saddened and disturbed by the allegations against Cesar Chavez,\u201d McCarty said in a statement. \u201cWe take these allegations seriously and will ensure the naming of our city facilities aligns with our values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talamantes said the news was \u201cdevastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCesar Chavez is someone that I, along with many people in the Latino community and the labor movement community, have idolized for my entire life,\u201d Talamantes told Abridged.<\/p>\n

She said that leaders in Sacramento\u2019s Latino community are meeting on Wednesday evening to begin discussions on how to rename the downtown plaza that bears Chavez\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Talamantes urged that \u201cwe need to be more united than ever,\u201d in light of current federal policies targeting Latinos and immigrants. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one person today, but the farm movement is about more than one person,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Guerra, who grew up as a farmworker in a migrant family, called the findings in the news investigation \u201chorrific and tragic.\u201d He called for a \u201ccommunity-led\u201d process to rename the downtown plaza. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were survivors in this, we need to make sure they\u2019re recognized,\u201d Guerra said. \u201cWe can\u2019t forget that it\u2019s about the the farmworkers, it\u2019s about the campesinos. We don\u2019t want that to be washed over because of some individual.\u201d <\/p>\n

Statues, schools and banners bear Chavez\u2019s name across Sacramento<\/p>\n

Chavez\u2019s name is prominent across the Sacramento region.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"sign\"Sign at Cesar Chavez Plaza in Downtown Sacramento on March 18, 2026. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the UFW announced that it was canceling celebrations for its founder in light of the allegations.<\/p>\n

Elementary schools in South Sacramento\u2019s Meadowview neighborhood and in Davis are named after him, as well as a high school in Woodland. <\/p>\n

Sacramento City Unified School District confirmed that it\u2019s considering changing the name of one of it\u2019s school\u2019s following the allegations. The district said it \u201cintends to start conversations with our school community about how best to move forward,\u201d in a statement. <\/p>\n

UC Davis renames youth leadership conference<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The university stated on Wednesday morning that it would be changing the name of the conference to the \u201cAvanza Rising Scholars Conference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are aware of troubling reports concerning alleged behavior by C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez\u00a0during his life as a labor leader and activist,\u201d said spokesperson Andy Fell in a written statement. \u201cIn light of this, UC Davis is removing Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s name from the conference, which will now be known as the Avanza Rising Scholars Conference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"banner\"Banners with Cesar Chavez\u2019s image can be found on lamps throughout Cesar Chavez Plaza in Sacramento. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n

Felicia\u00a0Alvarez\u00a0is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health\u00a0care\u00a0and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: The Sacramento City Council is leading an effort to rename Cesar Chavez Plaza, following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5592,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-226494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-feature","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}