KEENE, Calif. – In a story April 23 about military honors at Cesar Chavez’s gravesite, The Associated Press reported erroneously the name of Chavez’s sister. Her name is Rita Chavez Medina, not Rita Chavez Martin.
A corrected version of the story is below:
The sister of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez says she could feel her brother’s presence at a moving ceremony honoring his Navy service 22 years after his death.
Rita Chavez Medina was one of several hundred gathered at his graveside for a ceremony bestowing honors from the U.S. Navy. Relatives said that at his death nobody thought about his military service. They focused instead on his work with farmworkers.
Chavez Medina says she wrote a letter to her brother every day of his service in the Pacific.
She says he wrote back about discrimination he endured, as well as good times.
Associate Marc Grossman says that Navy service convinced the civil rights leader that he couldn’t accept the discrimination back home.
The ceremony honored Chavez with a 21-gun salute and taps.
