From the Fields to the Courtroom: CRLA’s Role in Civil Rights History

Oliver A. Rosales, Professor of History at Bakersfield College, spoke with CRLA President and CEO Jessica Manriquez Jewell during a special session for alumni and current staff at UC Merced in June 2026. Excerpts from his remarks are included below along with the full video.

When we think about the 1960s, the creation of CRLA, and the kind of master narrative of civil rights…at least as a historian, one of the things I've come to have a greater appreciation for is that there were a lot of efforts prior to the 1960s to organize workers, to champion justice, to create dignity in the fields, and to desegregate. But I think the throughline is that they were mostly failures. 

In the [Central] Valley, the scale of opposition, of challenges, of deliberate marginalization is extreme. I had to go far and wide to find the stories that I tell in my book [Civil Rights in Bakersfield: Segregation and Multiracial Activism in the Central Valley, University of Texas Press]. And it may be in some ways it's easier to tell a metropolitan story of L.A. or San Francisco or other big cities. To try to capture these itinerant migrant histories that are lost to time and place, or there's no archive, or it's in someone's garage, it's tough. It's hard. 

But those oral traditions are there. Those stories are there. Those corridos are there. The historian has to mine them, and that's what I tried to do in this [book]. But much more could be done. The Central Valley is a catalyst for civil rights and labor rights in this country.

Rethinking the War on Poverty

I wanted to [comment on] how historians talk about CRLA, it's like rethinking the War on Poverty—it wasn't a failure. There was real reform that took place in people's lives, and [that reform] wouldn't have been possible without the War on Poverty, [because] it empowered grassroots organizations to maximally, feasibly participate in the civic process.

[Historians are] trying to find those grassroots success stories of maximum feasible participation on the ground because it's not like Black and Brown people weren't fighting poverty before 1964. They were. But maybe they didn't have the attorney support, and that's so critical.

Getting CRLA involved was in part like taking the Civil Rights Movement into the courts. But the courts also have limits, right? You kind of need both. You need like the political pressure as well as the legal pressure. So I think, again, in the long run, historians are recognizing those contributions that CRLA made to the War on Poverty. 

Civil Rights Genealogy

I want civil rights activists, civil rights workers, social justice groups to understand that the work that they're doing now is not in a vacuum. I want them to know that it has a genealogy, that people have tried these strategies before, so they can learn from the past. I think there's such a disconnect, there's a lack of memory in the Valley.

The first time I heard about CRLA, was from a doctoral student from [University of Wisconsin] Madison who was researching this organization. I hadn't heard about it. 

CRLA History Is Public History

I'm so glad you're doing this [60th anniversary campaign], marking the history of this organization. Because it's a crisis moment for Latino public history. It's a crisis moment for how the story of the Farmworker Movement is told and that's something I'm really invested in. So the fact that CRLA has been there and moved so much of that important work in connecting to farmworker communities—that's why I'm here. I want to be part of that dialogue and these dialogues need to be deliberate. 

People need to learn about CRLA history. A week ago, I was revising a lecture for about 200 students on the Farmworker Movement. I have like five slides on CRLA. I have Carol Ruth Silver [and her work as CRLA McFarland directing attorney]. I have El Cortito. They didn't have that before because it's not really in the curriculum. I mean, it's very marginal even within text, right. It needs to be a greater part of the curriculum. 

Having a physical place where young people and historians can access things and learn the history [of CRLA], I think is honestly a priority, because it can beget so many other positive things. And just recognizing the role of CRLA in the California civil rights story, that's a huge endeavor right now, particularly as we rethink how we teach Civil Rights history in the state of California. We need to know about CRLA. It's very simple.