Cesar's Last Fast (NR)

synopsis

In the summer of 1988 Cesar Chavez, then 61 years old, embarked on a water-only fast - a personal act of penance for not having done enough to stop growers from spraying toxic pesticides on farm workers. For more than a month no one, including Cesar, knew when he would eat again. Structured around dramatic, neverbeforeseen footage of Chavez's "Fast for Life," this film is the inspiring but overlooked 40-year story of how Chavez organized America's poorest, least educated workers, built a movement that successfully challenged our nation's powerful agribusiness, and launched the modern day Latino civil rights movement in the U.S. Motivated by Catholic social teaching, Chavez risked his life in pursuit economic justice for America's most vulnerable workforce.