Marcos Muñoz is considered a legend in the farmworker movement. He was a picket captain for the United Farm Workers.
Marcos Muñoz never had a formal education, learning to read just a few words in Spanish, and he struggled in English. But make no mistake, Muñoz was a smart man in many ways, who learned from his life experiences starting at a young age. “He had an incredible way of communicating with people. I used to joke and say that he could make a rock talk,” said his widow, Andrea O’Malley Muñoz in an interview.
The life lesson that impacted Muñoz came when he was 13 years old. He had worked for months for a Texas rancher and slept in a barn. When Muñoz was to be paid, he suddenly found himself in handcuffs and whisked away by the U.S. Border Patrol. The rancher never paid him. It was a lesson Muñoz never forgot and forged a determination to fight for social justice for farmworkers.
The 13-year-old continued working the fields across the southwest and eventually ended up in Bakersfield in the 60’s. He became a top organizer for the then-fledgling United Farm Workers Union under Cesar Chávez. Muñoz was sent to Boston to organize support for the 1965 Great Grape Boycott. His widow recalls Muñoz being invited to give a talk to students at Harvard University.
“He said, ‘What’s this, Harvard?’ And we told him it was the best university in the country. And he got nervous, oh my God!,” recalled O’Malley Muñoz. Two years after arriving in Boston, grape sales were down 90% across New England said O’Malley Muñoz.
It was in Boston in 1968 that Muñoz met his future wife. Andrea O’Malley. She was an avid protester against the Vietnam War but was no hippie of the era. For six years, she was known as Sister M John Michael and belonged to the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph. Growing disenchanted, O’Malley left the convent feeling the Catholic Church was not doing enough to support social justice in the country. This was during the 60s, a time of great social upheaval, and the fight for civil rights was exploding. Yet farmworkers were, and remain excluded from the federal protections of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which forbids employers from firing a worker for joining, organizing, or supporting a labor union. She and Muñoz would spend hours on picket lines outside major grocery store chains, urging consumers not to buy grapes and supporting collective bargaining rights for farmworkers.
Muñoz was relocated to New York where he was assigned as east coast coordinator for the UFW. In 1972 he was sent to Chicago to be Midwest coordinator of a renewed grape boycott.
The Windy City would be the place where the pair settled down. “I didn’t want to go to rural California and he didn’t want to go back to Boston. He said, ‘Too many colleges, I’ll never get a job,’” said O’Malley Muñoz. The couple had one child, a daughter named Maria who now works for the Cook County Public Defender’s Office.
Though Muñoz left the UFW in 1975, the labor-organizing drive inside him did not subside. He got a job as a steelworker at Danly Machine Corporation. There, he helped organize a Latino caucus as part of the Steel Workers Union. Living in a predominantly Latino working-class neighborhood known as Little Village, Muñoz became involved in local issues and politics. He became a mentor to a young wannabe politician named Jesús “Chuy” García who was then running for a seat on the Chicago city council. García went on to be elected to Congress as Representative of the 4th District of Illinois and still holds that office.
Muñoz died on May 15, 2021, after a bout with cancer, he had just turned 80 years old. His work as a labor organizer has not gone unnoticed, Several years ago, Antonio Zavala, a reporter for La Raza newspaper in Chicago uncovered the history of Joseph E Gary, a judge whose name is engraved at the entrance of an elementary school named after him. Turns out Gary was the judge who presided over the infamous trial of eight men for their alleged role in the Haymarket Riot in 1886. Someone threw a homemade bomb which killed a policeman. The judge sentenced seven of the defendants to death, despite a lack of connection to the bomber. Zavala noted that the accused men were immigrants, just like the majority of families whose children currently attend Joseph E. Gary Elementary School. Coincidentally, the school is located in Little Village, just a block or two from the house of Marcos Muñoz and his family. In an Opinion piece, Zavala called for renaming the school to a more appropriate name for the neighborhood.
The idea caught on, and the local city councilman, or alderman as they are called in Chicago suggested the school be renamed as Marcos Muñoz Elementary School said his widow. A committee was established and has done its due diligence, gathering community support from families living within the school’s boundaries. Other supporters include Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Representative Jesús García, and the President of the Chicago Board of Education. But it’s not yet a done deal. There’s a process to follow and it will take time to complete to jump through the bureaucratic hoops. The final decision will be made by the Chicago Board of Education, and O’Malley Muñoz expects it will take months to complete.
Muñoz died during the Covid era, yet his funeral at St. Agnes Church drew old friends from his organizing days with the United Farm Workers Union. Paul Chavez, son of the late Cesar Chavez, delivered the eulogy. Arturo Rodriguez, ex-president of the UFW was also in attendance as were local Chicago dignitaries and community activists. His life’s work as a labor organizer and community activist for social justice resonated with people, including those who did not personally know Muñoz, but heard him speak.
“He was real, he was the real thing right in front of your eyes,” said O’Malley Muñoz.
To hear the oral history of Marcos Muñoz, go here: Marcos Muñoz « Farmworker Movement Documentation Project
