ADRIAN — The name of labor leader César Chávez is being removed from Gulf Street in Adrian following allegations of sexual abuse during his career. But rather than allow farmworkers’ fight for better working conditions to go unrecognized, community leaders are proposing that the street be rededicated to honor the movement as a whole.
Chávez, who died in 1993, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association along with Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla. That organization later merged with another group to become the United Farm Workers of America.
Adrian residents were heavily involved in boycotts organized by United Farm Workers in the 1960s and 1970s, and Chávez visited Adrian on a number of occasions. Gulf Street on the east side of Adrian was dedicated as the honorary César Chavez Drive in October 2023.
However, recent allegations that Chávez sexually abused women and girls have led many municipalities to cease honoring him, and at the April 6 city commission meeting, community leaders urged Adrian to do the same.
Lizbeth Pérez-Cásarez, board chair of the Hispanics of Lenawee Alliance (HOLA), encouraged the city to replace the signs honoring Chávez with ones honoring the United Farm Workers.
“We believe that the focus of our public honors must shift from a single individual to the collective movement,” Pérez-Cásarez said. “The documentation of abuse and grooming associated with Chávez is a direct violation of the dignity we seek to uphold. We cannot, in good conscience, allow a symbol of our community to be tied to that history.”
However, Pérez-Cásarez said, it is important that a memorial to the movement remain on Gulf Street, which she noted is the gateway to Adrian’s Sunnyside neighborhood. Honoring the farmworkers’ movement instead, she said, would be “returning the honor to the actual people of the East Side who lived the movement and did the work.”
Also present at the meeting were Ben Negron, the founder of HOLA, and Ashley Cavazos-Franck from the Adrian chapter of Latino Leaders for Equity, Advocacy & Development (LLEAD). Cavazos-Franck said that although LLEAD has not had a meeting since the news about Chávez came out in mid-March, the leaders who have met agree with HOLA’s position.
HOLA plans to hold a public forum to gather community input about the change.
City commissioner Bob Behnke proposed that the commission authorize removing Chávez’s name from Gulf Street signs as soon as city workers have the opportunity to do so, and to vote on a new dedication after the public input process has taken place.
The commission agreed, voting 6-0 to remove Chávez’s name from the signs.
Behnke also said it would be appropriate to not simply swap one sign for another, but to celebrate the rededication with a new unveiling.
Cavazos-Franck proposed that the old signs be donated to the Lenawee County Historical Museum.
