22 Sep 2023

Nora Linares-Moeller

“He (Hightower) really was the kind of leader that depended on a bunch of people. He hired the right kind of people to do the right kind of work, and he was the titular head. A great person to really get the word out to everybody, but he really didn’t get into the weeds of things. He’s great on the […]

Gallery of Stars
22 Sep 2023

Jim Harrington

“Hightower’s tenure is certainly a meteor compared for the farmworkers compared to what it was and what it is now. It’s still it’s not as bad now as it was before. And that is because, I think, Hightower brought it along. You get to a place you can’t retrench too much. And I think that’s where it is. I’m not […]

Gallery of Stars
3 Sep 2023

Mike Moeller

“When Hightower comes around, and they’re starting to put emphasis on organics, that was an attraction. By the time I got there, I was already working on farm worker issues and it was obvious pesticide protection was going to be a major thing that we would have to fight for, all the way until Rick Perry came along. I definitely […]

Gallery of Stars
21 Apr 2023

Rebecca Flores

“In July of 1988, Cesar (Chavez) started a fast, and he call it the Fast for Life. And this was really around the issue of pesticides, because he had seen that even though we’d been talking about it and we knew there were cancer clusters and we knew children were dying at a very, very young age. They’re like 10,11 […]

Gallery of Stars
Pesticides are Hell on Bugs and Not Much Better on People
29 Jul 2021

Pesticides are Hell on Bugs and Not Much Better on People

People’s History in Texas is in the middle of a in-depth project collecting oral history and archives on the Jim Hightower tenure as Commissioner of Texas Department of Agriculture from 1983-1991.  In those eight years, an amazing legacy of support for family farmers and sustainable rural agriculture was implemented.  That legacy of positive programs is still making its impact on […]

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