The Flickr Organizing Image Generatr

A two-sided 8 ½ x 11 flyer issued by the Grape Strike Support Committee calls for a rally on the Washington Monument grounds and a march to Arlington Cemetery September 7, 1969 on the fourth anniversary of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee strike against California grape growers.

National Liturgical Conference -Washington Lay Association coordinated the event.

The actual march was changed to L’Enfant Plaza because of the ban on political demonstrations at Arlington Cemetery. The demonstration was also honoring Robert F. Kennedy who before his death had been a prominent supporter of the union and the strike.

More than 500 would gather at the Sylvan Theater on the Monument grounds to hear speeches by U.S. Rep. James O’Hara (D-MI), J.C. Turner, president of the D.C. Central Labor Council and chair of the local strike support committee, among others.

Turner called on the Nixon administration to stop buying grapes for troops abroad. The Defense Department had recently increased the number of table grapes it was purchasing.

Rev. Richard McSorley of Georgetown led the service at L’Enfant Plaza.

The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) union would reach a three-year contract with major grape growers in 1970 after years of struggle and a nationwide grape boycott. They also expanded into the lettuce fields and into the Florida fruit groves and vegetable fields and became the United Farmworkers Union.

The union was forged out of unity between Filipino-American and Mexican-American farm workers in the great 1965-1970 strike against the grape growers in Delano, California, the UFWOC won the public to the cause of agricultural labor through a nation-wide consumer boycott of table grapes and exposure of pesticide use.

The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee was chartered in 1966 by the AFL-CIO in the afterglow of the historic farm worker "Pilgrimage to Sacramento" led by Cesar Chavez. Other principals include Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong.

For a PDF of this two-sided 8 ½ x 11 flyer, see washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/1969-0...

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsjtqzjEB

Original held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

A flyer issued by the Grape Strike Support Committee calls for a rally on the Washington Monument grounds and a march to Arlington Cemetery September 7, 1969 on the fourth anniversary of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee strike against California grape growers.

The actual march was changed to L’Enfant Plaza because of the ban on political demonstrations at Arlington Cemetery. The demonstration was also honoring Robert F. Kennedy who before his death had been a prominent supporter of the union and the strike.

More than 500 would gather at the Sylvan Theater on the Monument grounds to hear speeches by U.S. Rep. James O’Hara (D-MI), J.C. Turner, president of the D.C. Central Labor Council and chair of the local strike support committee, among others.

Turner called on the Nixon administration to stop buying grapes for troops abroad. The Defense Department had recently increased the number of table grapes it was purchasing.

Rev. Richard McSorley of Georgetown led the service at L’Enfant Plaza.

The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) union would reach a three-year contract with major grape growers in 1970 after years of struggle and a nationwide grape boycott. They also expanded into the lettuce fields and into the Florida fruit groves and vegetable fields and became the United Farmworkers Union.

The union was forged out of unity between Filipino-American and Mexican-American farm workers in the great 1965-1970 strike against the grape growers in Delano, California, the UFWOC won the public to the cause of agricultural labor through a nation-wide consumer boycott of table grapes and exposure of pesticide use.

The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee was chartered in 1966 by the AFL-CIO in the afterglow of the historic farm worker "Pilgrimage to Sacramento" led by Cesar Chavez. Other principals include Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong.

For a PDF of this one-page, 8 ½ x 14 flyer, see washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/1969-0...

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsjtqzjEB

Original held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Chicago nurses demand an end to VA staffing cuts
RNs from Chicago VAs and Cook County facilities protest massive reduction in force plan

National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) announced on Friday March 28th that Chicago-based registered nurses from the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, VA Hines Health Care, and Captain James A. Lovell Federal Healthcare Center will join Cook County nurses for a rally at Jesse Brown on Friday, March 28 to demand an end to staffing cuts. The VA secretary has confirmed what was first reported in a leaked memo, that the administration is looking to cut between 72,000 to 80,000 workers from the VA.

Eleanor Nelson, Secretary and Treasurer of the United Federal Workers of America, teaches a class in union organization at the federal workers school November 30, 1937.. Techniques of organizing and methods of vitalizing committee work are discussed at this class, as well as the history of government unions.

The United Federal Workers, CIO opened a school in Washington, D.C. November 30, 1937 with courses ranging from economics to dance.

The Committee for Industrial Organization (later Congress for Industrial Organization) affiliate said the school was designed to “give expression to the needs and interests of all people in the District of Columbia.”

The photo shows students in a public relations class studying mats in a preliminary newspaper study. Instructor Jessica Buck is third from the left.

The UFW, later renamed the United Public Workers, had about 82,000 member in 1950 when it was expelled along a number of other unions from the CIO for alleged communist-influence.

The union quickly broke up into different unaffiliated groups in New York, Hawaii and elsewhere.

The campaign against the United Federal Workers began in 1939 when Congress passed the Hatch Act prohibiting federal workers from engaging in political activity and prohibiting the federal government from employing anyone who advocated the overthrow of the United States government.

The UFW challenged the constitutionality of the law, but lost in 1947 when the Supreme Court upheld it, ruling that federal workers had fewer constitutional protections because working for the government was a “privilege.”

Later Supreme Court decisions modified this doctrine and substantially loosened federal restrictions on free speech, but have not eliminated them.

The UFW came back into the news in 1993 when President Bill Clinton nominated Lani Guinier for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Clinton eventually withdrew Guinier’s nomination after Republicans red-baited her over her father Ewart’s leadership position in the United Public Workers during the 1940s.

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskYLoozH

The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the Library of Congress Harris & Ewing collection, Call Number: LC-H22- D-2782 [P&P]