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The Cesar Chavez statue stands at Cesar E. Chavez Plaza in downtown Sacramento on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, the day allegations of rape and sexual assault by long dead labor leader emerged.<\/p>\n
JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS<\/p>\n
jvillegas@sacbee.com<\/p>\n
Three days before he died of cancer in 1999<\/a>, Sacramento mayor Joe Serna Jr. blessed a memorial\u2019s design. A 7-foot-tall bronze monument of Cesar Chavez would sit in the downtown park, Serna declared, bearing the labor leader\u2019s name \u2014 a central location for celebrations, protests and marches.<\/p>\n Chavez inspired Serna. The former mayor plucked grapes, tomatoes, peaches and lettuce from Lodi fields before he embraced politics. Serna pushed in 1997 to rename the downtown park after Chavez<\/a>.<\/p>\n A United Farm Workers union representative hung Chavez\u2019s picture above Serna\u2019s bed days before he died, according to The Sacramento Bee\u2019s archives and city meeting minutes from the time, and the former mayor also devoted $80,000 for the sculpture in a square adjacent to City Hall.<\/p>\n Sexual abuse allegations levied against Chavez have reshaped how California remembers after being reported by the The New York Times<\/a> earlier this month. Civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, who worked alongside Chavez, said she was raped and bore two of his children.<\/p>\n Now, California\u2019s capital city must determine what\u2019s next for Cesar E. Chavez Plaza and its sculpture commemorating the labor leader. Lisa Reinertson, the artist behind the monument, said Sacramento must weigh carefully its next steps while preserving the history of farmworkers memorialized in her work.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what will be decided about the sculpture,\u201d she wrote in an email. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to see the history of this important movement be erased in a rush, knee-jerk reaction. We need to be thoughtful and sensitive to how people who are close to the Latino community in Sacramento feel about what is best.\u201d<\/p>\n The focus on renaming public spaces misses farmworkers\u2019 continued fight for better lives, according to Fabrizio Sasso, the executive director of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, who said talk of stripping Chavez\u2019s name is symbolic and does not help farmworkers dying in fields or facing threats from employers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt kind of confounds me how everyone is missing the point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty appointed a subcommittee to determine how the plaza should be renamed. Sacramento City Manager Maraskeshia Smith directed city workers to wrap Chavez\u2019s monument in black plastic,<\/a> and on Friday ordered the removal of banners bearing his name that once hung on light posts around the plaza.<\/p>\n The Chavez sculpture in the park depicts a farmworker movement that is bigger than one man, according to Reinertson.<\/p>\n One side of the sculpture depicts a woman wielding a UFW flag and leading a procession of young and old. The opposite side features another UFW flag serving as a backdrop to Huerta holding a sign reading \u201cHuelga,\u201d or strike, Reinertson said.<\/p>\n Reinertson would prefer altering the sculpture if offered a choice. The memorial could be changed to remove Chavez\u2019s image and keep the pieces commemorating the UFW movement, she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted the sculpture to be a permanent reminder of the struggles and the successes of the United Farm Workers,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cLike previous sculptures I created about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in which I incorporated narrative images of the history of the non-violent activism for justice in low relief onto the figure, I knew that the importance of the person was not as a lone hero, but as a leader of an entire movement of people fighting for justice, for decent wages and decent living conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n The city of Sacramento commissioned the piece through a formal agreement, wrote city spokesperson Julie Hall. Any potential changes must follow this arrangement, she wrote.<\/p>\n Sacramento\u2019s arts, culture and creative economy commission will also be involved to determine what\u2019s next with the sculpture, a $96,000 commission paid for with public and private money.<\/p>\n \u201cEach community should decide what change might bring the most healing when evaluating the names of holidays, events, monuments, streets or schools,\u201d said Antonio De Lorea-Burst, a UFW spokesperson.<\/p>\n Reinertson was 11 years old when she watched her parents march from Delano to Sacramento alongside thousands who arrived at the state Capitol.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was no governor there, no political representatives to listen to the people who had spent weeks walking 300 miles to Sacramento, and had serious demands for justice,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Years later, she knew exactly how a sculpture should look. The bas-relief images portrayed a march ignored by Sacramento\u2019s leadership in the 1960s, she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sculpture was never about creating a lone hero,\u201d she wrote, \u201cbut was always about the whole movement, the whole community.\u201d<\/p>\n Recognizing farmworkers in holidays and public spaces is a positive step, Sasso said, but it is more important to help farmworkers through legislation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need real advocacy for all workers in the public,\u201d he said, \u201cand not dwell on the terrible actions of one person and have it apply to an entire segment of workers.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n Lisa Reinertson, of Davis, applies wax in 2001 to the bronze sculpture that she created for the Cesar E. Chavez Plaza in downtown Sacramento. The statue depicts the Delano to Sacramento march in 1966, which Reinertson attended as a child. HECTOR AMEZCUA Sacramento Bee file <\/p>\n
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Black plastic covers the statue depicting Cesar Chavez in Cesar E. Chavez Plaza in Sacramento on March 20, days after accusations of rape and sexual assault by the civil rights leader surfaced. JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com <\/p>\n
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