My phone buzzed all day Wednesday with friends trading thoughts about what felt like the second death of Cesar Chavez. The first was real and public: he died on April 23, 1993, at 66. More than 50,000 people turned out for his funeral in Delano, California, and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1994.
I was in elementary school in suburban Chicago then, far from the fields he organized. That was my first introduction to Chavez and the farmworker movement that fought for better wages and safer working conditions. As the daughter of janitors and a factory worker, I knew intuitively what union rights and a living wage could mean for a family.
This second, quieter death followed a New York Times investigation that reported allegations that Chavez sexually abused and raped women. NPR has not independently confirmed the specific allegations described in that piece. The reporting included accounts from Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, and also from Dolores Huerta, the civil rights leader who co-led the United Farm Workers alongside Chavez and helped build his national profile.
Before joining Morning Edition, I covered sexual violence for ProPublica. That work taught me that reporting on these stories is often less about catching a perpetrator in the act than about listening for a very long time to people who have been harmed. I traveled to places such as Alaska and Utah and spent time with people assaulted recently and with survivors who waited decades to speak. The common thread was that perpetrators were frequently family members, bosses, clergy, or others who held power.
I learned there is no set timeline for naming what someone you trusted did to you. For many survivors, part of justice is public recognition of the harm they endured and respect for the hard work it takes to continue living without being defined by it. Many who speak also hope their stories will help protect others.
This week those survivor voices clarified the harm that can come from people we elevate. I was glad to see Murguia and Rojas named alongside Huerta. For some of us, the image of a hero has been shattered; for others, our admiration is complicated. But we have also gained two new people whose courage matters. Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, together with Dolores Huerta, reminded me that it is never too late to speak up and that, for some survivors, speaking up is the only way forward.