members of Chavez's organization repeatedly chanting, "Huelga!" – the Spanish word for strike – in favor of supporting the Delano grape farmer workers. September 16, 1965 marked the day that Filipino and Mexican farm workers officially joined forces to picket together and fight for farm labor justice. On March 17, 1966 Cesar Estrada Chavez embarked on a 300-mile pilgrimage from Delano, California to the state's capital of Sacramento. This was an attempt to pressure the growers and the state government to answer the demands of the Mexican American and Filipino American farm workers which represented the Filipino-dominated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the Mexican-dominated National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez. The pilgrimage was also intended to bring widespread public attention to the farm worker's cause. Shortly after this, the National Farm Workers Association and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee merged and became known as the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. In August 1966, the AFL-CIO charted the UFW, officially combining the AWOC and the NFWA. After a record harvest in the fall of 1965, thousands of California farm workers went on strike and demanded union representation elections. Many were arrested by police and injured by growers while picketing. The growers used many tactics to intimidate and harass the picketers. The growers were sure the strikers would maintain a position of nonviolence. The growers would push protesters, punch the strikers and jab elbows in to their ribs. Some growers drove their cars towards the protesters and swerving just as they reached the strikers. There were several cases where pesticide spraying equipment was used to drench picketers with deadly surfer, which temporarily blinded them. Chavez continued to encourage the people to "not react against the violence, but to react in such a way to get closer to our goal". There was a lot of support towards nonviolent protest across the country and he wanted to continue with that focus. Chavez stated "we can change the world if we do it nonviolent". Chavez sent two workers and a student activist to follow a grape shipment from one of the picketed growers to the end destination at the Oakland docks. Once there, the protestors were instructed to persuade the longshoremen to refrain from loading the shipment of grapes. The group was successful in its course of action, and this resulted in the spoilage of a thousand ten-ton cases of grapes which were