Lauren Araiza. To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers.

Abstract

Lauren Araiza's book is a welcome addition to a growing body of scholarship on black-brown organizational relationships during the long civil rights era. Several scholars, including Brian D. Behnken, William S. Clayson, Jorge Mariscal, Gordon Keith Mantler, and others have explored these at times contentious and at other times cooperative associations. To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers adds greatly to our understanding of that period by examining the affiliation between the United Farm Workers (UFW) and five leading African American civil rights organizations: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Urban League (NUL), and the Black Panther Party (BPP). Araiza demonstrates convincingly that the UFW created alliances or coalitions of varying length and strength with each of these organizations. Araiza identifies five key variables (race, class, region, ideology, and individual leadership) that helped determine the depth of the UFW's coalitions with each of these black civil rights organizations. She essentially argues that the more areas of agreement between the UFW and the black civil rights organization within those five variables, the closer the alliance or coalition.