Fred Ross

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For the classical art campaigner, Fred Ross, see Art Renewal Center.

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Fred Ross (1910 – 1992) was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization (CSO), which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he would later use in founding the United Farm Workers. Ross also trained the young Dolores Huerta in community organizing. ^[1]

Ross was born in San Francisco. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1936, intending to become a school teacher, but was unable to find work during the Great Depression. Instead, he managed a migrant labor camp near Bakersfield. The experience led him to become an organizer.

He left the migrant camp to work with Japanese-American internees. In work funded by the American Friends Service Committee, he sought to improve the conditions for and to effect the release of the internees. After the war, he returned to the Southern California, where he worked with African-Americans and Mexican-Americans to fight school and housing segregation.

Ross was trained in community organizing by Saul Alinsky, who became his mentor. He founded the CSO in 1948.

Ross is the author of Conquering Goliath: Cesar Chavez at the Beginning (El Taller Graphico Press; 1989). ISBN 096252980X

Ross has a daughter, Diana.