Gilbert Padilla

He and Jim Drake challenged the California state government for a sudden rent hike in labor camps where the buildings were long past their demolition date; it helped garner attention for the grape strike later in the year.

Living in Hanford, California and working part-time as a dry cleaner and onion gleaner, Padilla was at first uninterested in joining the Community Service Organization (CSO), thinking that it was nothing more than a "social club" with temporary goals.

A meeting with Chavez and the President of the Hanford Community Services Organization and war veteran who received the Purple Heart for meritorious achievement and the Bronze Star for saving his platoon under enemy fire, Peter B Garcia, (Larry McSwain,1957) occurred through the night that included the discussion of the improvement of farm worker conditions, which helped Padilla to change his mind.

The CSO was primarily focused on voter registration and while it did have housing and education committees, there was no specific group that addressed the plight of farm workers.

However, at the next CSO convention in 1962, Chavez's farm worker committee proposal was shot down, leading him to resign from his director position and thus, his salary to support his family.

By May, Drake and Padilla were organizing farm worker families living in the area's Woodville and Linnell labor camps in a rent strike.

[4] The workers were living in shabby tin houses, freezing in winter and sweltering in summer, that were meant to be torn down by 1947, but the California state government paid no attention to this and continued to charge monthly rent without trying to update the conditions.

Many of those who had participated in the rent strike came to support the new effort, including Drake, farm workers, LeRoy Chatfield, and young college students that Padilla had gotten to know.

She was first Latina elected to the Fresno City Council where she served a four year term representing District 5, a predominate Latino area, from 1991 – 1995.