When Antonio Bustamante stepped in front of roughly 110 people at Friday’s Cesar Chávez Forum, he talked about his experience as a bodyguard for Chávez in the 70’s. But that was to be expected.

The last thing anyone expected Bustamante to say was that the experience was boring.

“(Being a bodyguard is) the most boring thing in the world when you’re 22 years old -- it sucks,” Bustamante said while speaking at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona last week. “But it was a front row seat to one of the most historical people of the 21st century.”

Chávez was one of the most well known civil rights activists of this century, who fought for the rights of farm workers. He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.

Saturday, March 31, marked what would have been the 80th birthday of Chávez, who passed away in 1993. To commemorate his life, the University of Arizona organized a week of discussions, forums and lectures, concluding with a march Saturday morning.

Bustamante, who graduated from high school in Douglas, Ariz. in 1970, became the head of Chávez’s road staff in 1973. Everywhere Chávez went, they followed, he said. They were his protection.

Not that Chávez needed that much protection.

“We were almost always in a situation where people loved him,” Bustamante recalled as he took the audience back with him to the days of the Chicano civil rights movement. “And if something came up, the people there would circle around him...Chávez had a great deal of luck on his side.”

It must have been more than luck though, according to Bustamante, who asked himself what it was about Chávez that caused people to gather around him.

“He was no actor. He was no Jesse Jackson, no Martin Luther King, Jr. It was an amazing charisma,” Bustamante said. “He was just a guy who, once in his presence, just moved people, just moved the spirit.”

Bustamante had several stories from his days protecting Chávez. He laughed as he remembered how at the end of a long, 16-hour day Chávez would sit down to eat his meal and make fun of his staff for how tired they looked.

In between his junior and senior years of college, there was a period of six months Bustamante said he was with Chávez constantly. And in those six months, Chávez only took two days off.

“I was continually around a great man and I think I bothered him a great deal [with endless questions]," Bustamante said, reflecting on how Chavez couldn’t even use a public restroom alone.

It all came down to Chávez’s sacrifice at the end of the day, according to Bustamante. When one sacrifices, two things happen – they are getting things done, and they are inspiring others to give themselves.

“Cesar was insane – he was so insanely inspiring,” Bustamante said. “They’d say, ‘We can’t get through. There’s a wall.’ And Cesar would look at it and say, ‘It’s just a wall.’”

Inspiration may have stemmed from Chávez, but the power came in the numbers that followed his inspiration.

“You don’t realize how much power you have until you just get together,” Bustamante said as he encouraged the audience of students, faculty, staff and community members of all different ages, races, backgrounds and beliefs. “Together, you can get people to do the most ridiculous things – and he used his heart [to bring them together]."

Bustamante went on to graduate from Stanford in 1974, later attending the Antioch School of Law. Bustamante then moved to Phoenix in 1989 and opened the Antonio Bustamante Law Office, his private practice.

But perhaps it was his years with Chávez that inspired him the most, looking back.

“I had a snapshot of time I spent with Cesar,” Bustamante said moments before he left the podium. “People understood this was a man in the world practicing a life of love – and I had a front row seat.”