Cesar Chavez: The Civil Rights Movement

During the 1960's, one of the most important events in history was taking place: the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr, the leader of this movement, is famous for his success in maintaining nonviolent measures to resist the harsh treatment him and fellow African Americans were receiving at the time. In an article located in a religious magazine written by Cesar Chavez, a labor union organizer as well as a civil rights leader, Chavez reminds his audience of Martin Luther King's handling of the civil rights movement and how it should be applied to the farmers movement that was currently taking place at the time. To achieve his goal, Chavez uses strategies such as a contrast organizational pattern, fear tactics using strong diction, and logical appeals in an effort to persuade his audience that nonviolent protest is much more effect than using violence.
Throughout the entire article Chavez discusses the effectiveness as well as the benefits of nonviolent resistance in contrast to the consequences and negative effects of violent resistance. An example of this can be found in the third paragraph, where Chavez starts it off with saying "nonviolence is more powerful than violence. Nonviolence supports you if you have a just and moral cause. Nonviolence provides the opportunity to stay on the offensive..."(12-15). In this paragraph Chaves provides a plentiful amount of evidence to support and promote nonviolent resistance. Moreover, directly after this paragraph he states that "violence will be escalated and there will be many injuries and perhaps death on both sides, or... total demoralization of the workers"(18-21) Here it is clearly visible that Chavez is condemning the use of violence in protesting. However, he immediately follows up on this statement by claiming that "nonviolence has exactly the opposite effect. If... we respond with nonviolence, we attract people's support"(22-24) By initializing the pros of peaceful protesting then briefly covering the troubling consequences that would potentially occur with acts of violence and then instantly changing direction again with the positivity and desired gain that is achieved with nonviolence, Chavez provides a strong point in his case. Chavez also includes historical evidence to further prove his point in the article. …show more content…
Towards the middle of the article he includes a brief discourse mentioning Ghandi, an immensely successful nonviolent protestor who was located in India. In paragraph nine, Chavez explains how "the boycott, as Ghandi taught, is the most nearly perfect instrument of nonviolent change"(61-62). Here he is describing how and why Ghandi was so successful and mentions it to advocate for his claim on the importance of maintaining nonviolent acts even in the situtation they are being forced to deal with. Later in the article Chaves brings up another point in history where he explains that the poor, or "the workers," are the ones who die when it comes to "violent revolution"(79). By bringing up these historical points he is reminding his audience that the likelihood of them achieving their goal is drastically decreased if they decide to resort to violence, which also aids him in gaining support. In paragraphs ten and eleven, Chavez's use of diction could potentially be used to invoke fear into his readers. He claims that "at the expense of violence, victory would come at the expense of injury and perhaps death"(66-68). In these lines Chavez uses words such as "injury" and "death" as a warning to those individuals who seek violence, which leads his