Students, faculty and administrators gathered at the library Thursday during the state's second annual day to honor the legacy of Cesar Chavez.

Chavez is best remembered for his role in organizing the National Farm Workers Association, which would later become the United Farm Workers. Through boycotts and hunger strikes, Chavez and the association brought national attention to of the plight of migrant farm workers.

Visiting history Professor Jerry Garcia spoke at the Main Library on Thursday about the impact of Chavez's social movements throughout the nation.

"Chavez became the catalyst for social change outside of the Southwest," he said. "He spent his life fighting for social justice."

The day also honors the 10th anniversary of the founding of the library's Chavez collection. The collection is the only one of its kind in the Midwest and is the result of a 1994 student-led hunger protest, said Ethnic Studies librarian Diana Rivera.

For six days, six members of Movimiento Estudiantil Xicano de Aztlan led a nonviolent protest to create a Chicano literature collection in the name of Chavez for the library, and also to urge MSU to take part in a national grape boycott.

Maria Zavala was one of the students who participated in the water-only hunger strike and spoke at the library about what the students hoped to achieve.

"We were in it for the long haul - we were in it for the people," Zavala said. "Many of us had families who were working in the fields."

Luis Garcia, director of the High School Equivalency Program and the College Assistance Migrant Program, said Chavez understood migrant farm workers.

"As a former migrant worker, he was someone who struggled his entire life to help migrant workers," he said. "We have so many migrant workers historically in Michigan, but people go by the fields and never realize these people are there working."