1966 Farm Workers Rally and March

The strike behind the march was met with arrests. After melon pickers walked out in Starr County on June 1, 1966, Texas Rangers and local police arrested pickets again and again. The union, and later the courts, said the arrests were unwarranted and the bonds excessive; some laws used were later declared unconstitutional. The march to Austin began July 4, and in August the marchers met Governor John Connally in New Braunfels. The workers asked $1.25 an hour and did not win it. Two union members were beaten in June 1967, and Hurricane Beulah ended the strike.

What the plaque says

1966 Farm Workers Rally and March On June 1, 1966,700 Starr County Melon Farm workers went on strike in protest of wages beneath the national minimum wage and harsh working conditions. Eugene Nelson of the National Farm Workers Association came to south Texas, organized the affiliated Independent Workers Association, and led the strike against La Castia Farms and other area growers. Two local men who called for reform years prior, Margil Sanchez and Lucio Galvan, joined Nelson in his efforts. Received no satisfaction from the growers and amid violence from local authorities, farm workers began a 380-mile march to the state capitol in Austin to urge officials there to create a statewide minimum wage. The group began on July 5, 1966, in Rio Grande City, stopping to rest at homes along the way and gaining support from each community encountered. The marchers received supplies and financial support from the Texas AFL-CIO. The marchers reached Robstown on July 29, 1966, where supporters held a rally at the Knights of Columbus Hall and a mass at St. Anthony's Catholic Church, and provided food and lodging. The next morning, they marched into Corpus Christi along Hwy 44 (Agnes Street), spurred on by hundreds of local supporters. Mass was held at the Corpus Christi Cathedral and a rally at the Peoples Street T-Head to benefit the strike and march was attended by more than 800 people, with over $1,000 raised. From Corpus Christi. They marched on to Austin, meeting obstacles but gaining support along the way. The march culminated in Austin with a rally on Labor Day 1966 with more than 10,000 people in attendance. Among the significant effects of the march and rallies was the eventual passage of the 1971 state minimum hourly wage law, though it did not apply to farm workers that augmented the number of Mexican American elected officials and further mobilized the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in Texas. (2017)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — steps away
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 1.0 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• Texas State Aquarium — 1.2 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 1.3 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Gutzon Borglum and the Corpus Christi Bayfront — steps away
• 1941 Corpus Christi Seawall — steps away
• Site of Old Salt Mill — steps away
• The Ranchero — 0.2 mi