For more than half a century, Fred Ross, Sr. educated, agitated, and inspired people of all races and backgrounds to overcome fear and despair. Ross’s goal was “to help people do away with fear, to speak up and demand their rights, to push people to get out in front so that they could prove to themselves that they could do it.” He brought a passionate sense of justice, focused energy, and a matchless persistence to honing the craft of organizing.
View the list of people who voted for Fred to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom
“Ross fought racism, discrimination, and all the injustices confronting working men and women for five decades. He helped build the labor movement and the bridges between labor, religious, civic, and neighborhood organizations. He was a pioneer in opening doors to women and people of color, encouraging their full participation in leadership roles.”
—Former AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
“Fred taught us how to turn our grief and anger into action and hope. We learned to ‘tell our story’, create a plan of action and to track our progress.”
—Jessica Govea Thorbourne, UFW organizer and Board Member
Ross was a pioneer for racial and economic justice. In the 30s and 40s, he organized “Dust Bowl” refugees in the migratory worker camps that John Steinbeck wrote about, helping them form camp councils and self-governance. In the mid-40s, he worked with Japanese-Americans during World War II, helping them get out of internment camps by assisting with employment and housing.
After the war, in the midst of KKK activity, he organized eight Civic Unity Leagues in California’s Citrus Belt, bringing Mexican-Americans and African-Americans together to battle segregation in schools, skating rinks, and movie theatres. In Orange County, he organized parents to fight the segregation of local schools and successfully integrated School Boards across the Citrus Belt through voter registration drives and civic engagement. One of the most dramatic outcomes of his work in Orange County occurred when parents sued the School Districts and prevailed (Mendez et al vs. Westminster School District, et al.), creating a legal precedent and laying the foundation for the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education decision.
In 1947 Saul Alinsky hired Ross to organize the Community Service Organization (CSO) in Los Angeles’ east side barrio. The CSO activists helped 50,000 individuals obtain citizenship, registered 500,000 voters, elected the first Hispanic to the Los Angeles City Council, and won a major legal victory against police brutality directed at Mexican-Americans. In the early 1950s, he met Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, recruiting them to the cause and becoming a lifetime mentor to both. Together with CSO leaders across California and Arizona, they successfully overcame voter suppression efforts and passed legislation on behalf of immigrants.
In 1966 Fred Ross became Organizing Director for the United Farmworkers Union (UFW), where he trained organizers for the strikes and boycotts for the next ten years. Jerry Cohen, former UFW General Counsel said of Ross: “Fred fought more fights and trained more organizers and planted more seeds of righteous indignation against social injustice than anyone we’re ever likely to see again.”
His influence continues through the thousands of leaders and organizers he trained, who work day in and day out for the protection of our rights. Their work is his most enduring legacy.