With the passing of Tom Hayden this month, we thought we would share some San Diego history, showing the connections between our Chavez Clubs Board Vice President Ken Msemaji, Cesar Chavez and Tom. Here is a brief article written by Ken about this historic photo showing him walking with Tom and Cesar in San Diego in 1977.
Fahari, Akili, Raquel and I worked with Tom Hayden going back to his run for the U.S. Senate
in 1975, then to CED where I served as Southern Vice-chair, then through our work
founding and building the United Domestic Workers of America, UDW, and his
legislative career.
Some of you may know that Tom organized Domestic Workers in New Jersey in the
1960’s. It didn’t work out in New Jersey but when we at Cesar’s request were
considering trying to build a UNION here in California, Tom’s advice and assistance
was invaluable.
The photo showing Cesar, Tom and myself was taken here in San Diego in May of 1977 at our African Liberation March honoring Malcolm X’s birthday. In fact we were discussing building a Domestic Workers Union as we marched.
The United Domestic Workers of America, UDW, was founded later that year, in
Cesar’s back yard on August 14, 1977. Tom attended our 1st collective bargaining
contract signing celebration in November 1980. As we went on to build and lead
the UDW its first 28 years, Tom was always near-by to help.
Ken Seaton-Msemaji
Founder, 1st UDW President
August 14, 1977 through June 2005