Rev. Howard Spragg; Active in Aiding Laborers

The Rev. Howard Spragg, 73, a Protestant church leader who backed United Farm Workers union organizer Cesar Chavez. Spragg, who retired in 1969, was executive vice president of the Board of Homeland Ministries of the 1.6-million-member United Church of Christ. He led denominational support for Chavez’s grape and lettuce boycott, which helped farm workers to organize in the 1960s, and rallied support for textile workers in North Carolina and woodcutters in Mississippi. On Tuesday in Deering, N.H.