The A-Team: When Teenage Athletes Replaced Migrant Farmworkers

History Shorts · Mar 19, 2026 · 1m

In the mid-1960s, America faced a growing labor crisis in its agricultural fields. For decades, farms across the country had depended heavily on migrant labor—much of it organized through the Bracero Program. But when the program ended in 1964, farmers suddenly found themselves short thousands of experienced workers just as harvest season approached. The solution the government proposed was unusual, even optimistic: send American teenagers into the fields. In 1965, thousands of high school students were recruited into what became known as the "A-Team," a federal effort to replace migrant…