The history of organizing is brought to life through music and other art forms in Abel Sanchez and Andrés Alegria’s A Song for Cesar, a documentary about the United Farm Workers (UFW) union co-organized by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, and—literally—a cast of thousands.
The filmmakers’ cinematic saga unfolds with artistically assembled black-and-white and color archival footage, news clips, photos, studio recording scenes, and original interviews conducted over a fifteen-year period. There are iconic images of Chavez during the 1966 march to Sacramento and in a meeting with Senator Bobby Kennedy, but we also learn new information about his life—for instance, that the union leader was a lifelong jazz aficionado who wore a zoot suit during his youthful pachuco days.
But this documentary is about much more than a mere man: It’s a celebration of an entire movement, and the rabble rousers, rank-and-file workers, and artists who turned their California-based campaigns into a lofty national cause. Strikers, picketers, and marchers tell their side of the story and how, being bound to Chavez’s code of nonviolence, they were often restrained from fighting back and defending themselves.
A Song for Cesar is also a treat for music fans. As vocalist Rick Stevens of the R&B funk-based band Tower of Power says, “It was the sixties—not only sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, it was high political times . . . making things right for the workers.”
The music inspired the movement and vice versa. “This is what we’re doing for those we love, who aren’t being treated so well,” explains blues musician Taj Mahal, who performs his labor ballad “Big Boss Man” onscreen. In vintage footage, we see Taj Mahal play a hand piano at an outdoor funeral for a slain striker.
Another reappearing presence in A Song for Cesar is folk musician Joan Baez. “I’m always happiest when I combine activism with singing,” she says. At one point, Baez performs Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee,” and later, after a sixty-year-old farmworker is shot on a picket line, we hear her sing the song Baez composed for him, “Juan De La Cruz.”
A Song for Cesar also features other musical icons, such as Mexican-born Carlos Santana, who migrated to San Francisco, famously rocked Woodstock, executive produced the 2017 documentary Dolores, and rhapsodizes on screen about the heady heyday of the UFW, the peace movement, and the Black Panthers. Viewers will also glimpse other legendary musicians in the archival imagery, including Graham Nash, Harry Belafonte, John Sebastian, and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia.
The eighty-five-minute film depicts other art forms that were a part of the UFW’s fight for dignity, higher wages, and better working conditions as well. The Royal Chicano Air Force, a Sacramento-based art collective, produced visual art as part of the movement. Literally drawing upon artistic inspirations ranging from the Aztecs to Diego Rivera, the collective plied its craft to create posters and murals for the UFW.
If you love great films about great causes and the artists they inspired, and who in turn inspired them, you won’t want to miss the beautiful A Song for Cesar.
A Song for Cesar is being theatrically released beginning March 11.