Denim and Civil Rights
September: Viva la Causa, Viva la Huelga Month
In this issue, we explore how the Bradley Center visual archives are making an impact beyond the confines of academia by telling, through images by John Kouns and Emmon Clarke, how denim overalls became a powerful symbol of the Civil Right Movement. We also celebrate this month the 60th anniversary of the creation of the National Farm Workers Association in Fresno and the 57th anniversary of the famous grape strike in Delano that led to the formation of the UFW. Eliseo Medina shares his memories of attending that famous Sept. 16 meeting. And we remember Nurse Peggy McGivern two years after her death.
The Civil Rights Movement and Steiner-Lobman Polly Brand Work Clothes
By Keith Rice
Jack Hilman contacted the Tom and Ethel Bradley Center seeking information about purchasing an image of John Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Ralph Abernathy, and Andrew Young leading the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama taken by John Kouns. He is quite proud of his wife’s family’s connection to the Civil Rights Movement. Founded in 1891 in Pineapple, Alabama, and later based in Montgomery, the Steiner-Lobman Dry Goods company manufactured the Polly brand of work clothes sometimes worn by civil rights activists during marches and protests in the 1960s. Denim overalls, jeans, and jackets became a prominent symbol of the Civil Rights Movement.
Denim came to represent a different kind of rebelliousness. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) adopted denim as a uniform, breaking from the suits and skirts worn by members of other civil rights organizations. Adopting that look was only fitting since enslaved African Americans and their descendants, the sharecroppers who SNCC was trying to turn into a new base of political power through civic education wore denim overalls. Denim also suggested a commonality with contemporary blue-collar workers.
The 1963 March on Washington, which featured Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream Speech” brought thousands of Southern Black sharecroppers to the nation’s capital, who sported their denim work clothes to the event. Members of other civil rights organizations who would wear their “Sunday Best” to marches and protests eventually adopted wearing denim. In one of the accompanying images, Andrew Young (marching from Selma to Montgomery to the right of Rev. Abernathy) can be seen wearing a pair of overalls produced by Mrs. Hilman’s family. In the other image author James Baldwin can be seen standing with the Executive Director of SNCC James Forman in overalls.
Although the significance of denim to the civil rights movement has been overshadowed by its place in the fashion world it is important to remember it was not a style adopted as a fashion statement but a symbol of economic oppression forced on sharecroppers trying to eke out a living under Jim Crow. Truly proud of his family’s connection to the legacy of civil rights Mr. Hilman ordered several prints of the image as gifts for his wife’s family members. This is just one example of how the Bradley Center archives extend beyond academic use by authors, documentarians, and curators but also help maintain and broaden family connections and their legacies within the communities the Bradley Center serves.
Denim-overalls were also common among African American farmworkers in California, as shown in the Arvin union election images by Emmon Clarke.
¡Viva la Causa! ¡Viva la Huelga!
By José Luis Benavides
This month, we celebrate two important milestones of the Farmworker Movement. 60 years ago, on September 30, 1962, César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla, Helen Chávez, Julio and Fina Hernández, Richard Chávez, Tony and Rachel Orendáin, and others founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). About 150 worker delegates and their families attended the first convention at the Edison Social Hall at 1405 California Street in Fresno. Jesús Martínez, a farmworkers from Sanger, became the first president. Chávez was elected general director, Tony Orendáin was elected secretary-treasurer, and Gilbert Padilla was elected as one of the six board members. The famous black eagle flag was unveiled. Delegates adopted the eagle flag as the association’s symbol and “¡Viva la Causa!” as their motto.
This month, we also celebrate the 57th anniversary of the beginning of the famous grape strike. Larry Itliong, leader of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), led the Filipino farmworkers on a grape strike that started on September 8, 1965, and a week later, on September 16, César Chávez’s National Farm Workers Association decided to join the strike. In the following video, Eliseo Medina tells the story of learning about the Filipino strike and attending the Sept. 16 meeting. Medina, then a 19-year-old farmworker from Delano, recalls the excitement of that meeting as he listened first to Gilbert Padilla and then to César Chávez, whose speech convinced him to join the strike—¡Viva la Huelga! This video clip is part of an oral history interview conducted on May 17, 2022, by Kent Kirkton and José Luis Benavides. Sound and video: Brandon Lien. Thumbnail photo of young Eliseo Medina by Emmon Clarke © Tom and Ethel Bradley Center.
“You are here to discuss a matter which is of extreme importance to yourselves, your families, and your community. So, let’s get to the subject at hand. A hundred and fifty years ago, in the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, a padre proclaimed the struggle for liberty. He was killed, but ten years later Mexico won its independence. We Mexicans here in the United States, as well as all other farm workers, are engaged in another struggle for the freedom and dignity which poverty denies us. But it must not be a violent struggle, even if violence is used against us. Violence can only hurt us and our cause. The law is for us as well as the ranchers. The strike was begun by the Filipinos, but it is not exclusively for them. Tonight, we must decide if we are to join our fellow workers.” —César Chávez, a segment of his speech on Sept. 16, 1965, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Delano.
In Memoriam: Margaret “Peggy” McGivern Pérez (1933-2021)
By Guillermo Márquez
Nurse Peggy McGivern devoted a part of her life to helping the farmworkers in their struggle for dignity. Born on May 5, 1933, in Marengo, Iowa, McGivern received her RN in 1954 from Iowa City Mercy Hospital School of Nursing, and in 1958, she earned a B.S. from the University of Iowa.
Not much is known about her early career, but in October 1965, McGivern volunteered her services as a nurse, helping address the historical neglect under which farmworkers toiled. She quickly became an important part of the UFW and less than a year later, she helped plan the construction of the Roger Terronez Memorial Clinic in Delano, where she was on-call 24 hours per day.
Her commitment to addressing the needs of the farmworkers and their families continued well into the 1970s. She served as Head Nurse and personally attended to César Chávez during the March and Pilgrimage to Sacramento in March 1966. She even applied her abilities to organizing when she directed the UFW’s grape boycott in Buffalo, New York, where her life changed forever. While in Buffalo, she met and married César J. Pérez and later had one son—César J. Pérez II.
Peggy McGivern died peacefully at the age of 88 on August 24, 2021, at Sea Cliff Healthcare Center in Huntington Beach, CA, and was buried in her hometown of Marengo, Iowa.
