Cesar Chavez Park in Seattle will get a new name after sex abuse allegations

(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said a small park in the city’s South Park neighborhood will no longer be called Cesar Chavez Park.

Wilson in a blog post Wednesday said that she was taking the action in response to sexual abuse allegations recently reported about the late farmworker advocate.

“Parks are community spaces, and everyone who visits should feel welcome there,” Wilson wrote. “When a name causes pain, we have a responsibility to act.”

A small sign saying Cesar Chavez Park has already been removed.

The action comes after allegations surfaced earlier this month in a New York Times report that Chavez sexually abused two women, now 66, as children, raped another woman, engaged in sexual harassment and fathered several children while married.

Chavez, who died in 1993, co-foundered the United Farm Workers. The union was particularly active in the 1960s and 1970s fighting through non-violent protests for the rights of farmworke...