Chualar bus crash

Chualar bus crash
The Chualar bus crash site in 2021
Map
Details
DateSeptember 17, 1963 (1963-09-17)
LocationChualar, California, U.S.
Coordinates36°33′14.24″N 121°30′10.44″W / 36.5539556°N 121.5029000°W / 36.5539556; -121.5029000[1]
Incident typeGrade crossing collision
CauseBus driver negligence
Statistics
Vehicles
Deaths32
Injured25

The Chualar bus crash took place on September 17, 1963, when a freight train collided with a makeshift "bus"— a flatbed truck with two long benches and a canopy— carrying 58 migrant farmworkers on a railroad crossing outside Chualar in the Salinas Valley, California, United States, killing 32 people and injuring 25. [2][3] Because the vehicle was actually a truck carrying people in the back, rather than a bus, the crash is ranked as the deadliest automobile accident in U.S. history, according to the National Safety Council.[1][4][5]

The collision was a factor in the decision by Congress in 1964 to terminate the bracero program, despite its strong support among farmers. It also helped spur the Chicano Civil Rights Movement.[4][6]

  1. ^ a b "Second survivor of 1963 Chualar bus crash emerges". Monterey Herald. March 1, 2014. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  2. ^ "27 Farm Workers Killed In California Train-Bus Crash", Miami News, September 18, 1963, p7
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Galarza report was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Flores, Lori A. (Summer 2013). "A Town Full of Dead Mexicans: The Salinas Valley Bracero Tragedy of 1963, the End of the Bracero Program, and the Evolution of California's Chicano Movement". The Western Historical Quarterly. 44 (2): 124–143. doi:10.2307/westhistquar.44.2.0124.
  5. ^ Martinez, Manuel Luis (2003). Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomás Rivera. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 288–290. ISBN 0299192849.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Martin was invoked but never defined (see the help page).