Civil Rights

by Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald

Editor’s Note: This column is re-printed from one published on April 1, 2007.

On August 18 of 2000 state legislation was signed to establish Cesar Chavez Day in California. For many farm workers it was finally an opportunity to honor a man who organized them, led the largest grape industry boycott and formed the United Farm Workers requiring growers to bargain with farm workers who vote for unionization. For many it’s a day to show respect to a man who demanded respect for those, who like him, toiled in the fields day after day.

For me however, it is one out of 365 days, in which I remember a woman, who like Cesar, had motivation sufficient to act. She had “ganas.” A woman who thought of others. A woman who fought for the rights of others in the fields in injustice. A woman who led a strike with her co-workers, marched in on the boss and demanded that cold water, toilet paper and paper towels be provided at all times or they would walk. A woman who got what she wanted because Don Pedro knew that although he could get others to do the work they would not be as dedicated, hard-working, and honest as a woman named Adela Cardona Muñoz Escamilla, lovingly called Doña Adela by my four brothers and three sisters.

The other day I got a chance to spend a few minutes with a group of about twenty young Davis residents that most people in this community do not know exist.  In a few months, some of them will become close friends of my daughter.

by Robb Davis

I attended the “Breaking the Silence of Racism” event at Community Chambers on Saturday – an uncomfortable event in which we told and listened to painful stories with our neighbors in Davis and Yolo County. As I listened to the vignettes (each speaker was limited to about 3 minutes to share their stories), I began to consider not just the content of each but how each struck me in terms of how “real” they sounded to me.  In other words, I began to examine how I was hearing the stories.

When I heard the story of a white man my age (a man I know and respect), about how his biracial grandchildren were verbally abused by students in the Davis school system, my throat clenched and my heart raced.  As the man nearly broke down, I felt I might do the same.  As a grandfather of two (very young) biracial grandchildren I could feel his hurt, anger and confusion and I accepted both the validity of his story and the pain that went with it.

There is little doubt that one of the most controversial topics that I have covered on the Vanguard in its six and a half years of existence is the topic of racism.

This past summer an incident, when a noose was hung from the goalposts of the football stadium at Davis High, triggered a lengthy community debate over what should be done and how much attention we should pay to such an incident.

COMMENTARY – Even a free society has to draw lines.  We allow freedom of speech to dictate most rules of elections, and rightly so.  However, we also assume that once the voters go into the polling place, they need to be given the time and space to make their own freely-formed decision.

That’s why we have rules that prohibit campaigning within 100 feet of a polling place.  Our assumption is that persuasion has to end at some point, and we do not want voters having to put up with competing campaign claims as they are trying to make the most important decision they have to make for our democracy – at least until the next election.

Lecia Brooks from the Southern Poverty Law Center came to Davis on Monday to speak about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, as well as to talk about contemporary issues of race in our society.

The Southern Poverty Law Center came into being in the early 1970s by two white natives of Montgomery, Alabama, Morris Dees and Joe Levin.

Keynote Speaker Relates Poor People’s Campaign to Occupy Movement

Mayor Joe Krovoza used his comments, opening the 2012 MLK Day Celebration in the City of Davis, to condemn the pepper-spraying incident that occurred last November.

“Intolerance does continue, the reasons for us to gather continue as well,” the mayor said to a capacity crowd at the Varsity Theater on Monday. “War still distracts us from creating social justice, at home it still drains our resources.  There are many ways in which we will continue to fight intolerance and [fight for] social justice creation in Davis.”

Martin Luther King Day is a holy day of sorts for those who are believers and fighters for social justice.  For me, for whatever reason, it is also a time for personal reflection.  My life in most respects has drastically changed in the last six years, in ways I never would have anticipated.

The path that I am on is not the path that I had chosen.  That is fine, I would not change anything for the world.

Last year at MLK Day in Davis, I expressed concerns about the way that MLK Day had functioned.  While there was a great audience for the event, I was increasingly concerned that the diversity that had been notable at previous years’ events had dissipated.

Sitting Judge Nominates His Own Wife For a Civic Award –

by Joe Krovoza –