Farm Labor Movement: Dolores Huerta Dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer who co-founded the United Farm Workers union, has died at the age of 96. Her family announced the news on Wednesday, marking the end of a six-decade career that reshaped the American agricultural workforce.

The union, established with Cesar Chavez, secured higher wages and better working conditions for farm workers through strikes, boycotts, and protests during the 1960s and 1970s. Huerta, born in New Mexico in 1930, followed her father into union activism after he worked as a miner and farm laborer.

In a social media statement, her family expressed deep sadness and requested privacy during their mourning period. They noted that many people around the world share in the grief and said they would provide further details on plans to celebrate her life and legacy.

Huerta’s political influence extended beyond the farm fields into national electoral politics. She contributed to the campaigns of several Democratic candidates, helping Robert F. Kennedy secure the party’s 1968 nomination before his assassination. She later supported the election bids of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. She is widely credited with coining the phrase 'Sí, se puede,' which Obama adapted as his 2008 campaign slogan.

The public perception of her partnership with Chavez shifted in March of this year, one month before her 96th birthday. In interviews with The New York Times, Huerta revealed that Chavez, who died in 1993, raped her in a vehicle in a secluded California grape field during the winter of 1966. She stated she did not report the assault due to hostility from authorities and a fear that union leadership would not believe her. These disclosures coincided with other allegations that Chavez groomed and abused teenage girls.

Huerta maintained a long-term domestic partnership with Chavez’s brother, Richard, until his death in 2011; they had four children together. The UFW described her as a fierce advocate for women’s rights who was 'seemingly unaware of the tremendous impact she was having on not only farm worker women, but also young women everywhere.'

Her name currently appears on four elementary schools in California, one elementary school in Fort Worth, Texas, and a high school in Pueblo, Colorado. In 2012, President Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award in the United States, at a White House ceremony where she was one of 13 recipients.