Thursday, March 19, 2026 – A Hero No More
A Street, a Holiday, a Legacy: Austin and Texas Grapple With César Chávez Fallout
The name César Chávez is woven into the geography of Austin — literally. The road stretching from MoPac through downtown to U.S. 183 has carried his name for more than three decades. By Wednesday, city officials and community leaders were moving to change that, as explosive new allegations upended one of the most celebrated legacies in American labor history.
The crisis erupted when the New York Times published an investigation detailing allegations that Chávez abused and molested multiple women over the course of decades — some of them minors — including longtime activist Dolores Huerta, a legend of the farmworker movement in her own right. Huerta, now 96, issued a statement on social media saying she had remained silent for decades out of concern for the farmworker movement she helped build with Chávez. She revealed she had two children from encounters with Chávez and arranged for them to be raised by other families…