Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of the Farm Workers Movement, Dies at 96
Seven Lights
Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer who co-founded what became the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, helped organize the 1965 Delano grape strike and boycott, and gave American politics its rallying cry “¡Sí, se puede!”, has died. She was 96.
Ms. Huerta was born on April 10, 1930, in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico, about 140 miles northeast of Santa Fe, and was raised around labor activism before moving as a child to Stockton, California. She and Mr. Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962; it later became the United Farm Workers of America.
In California’s central valley she laid the movement’s foundations, helping organize the 1965 Delano grape strike — a national boycott of table grapes that won pickers better wages and working conditions. The 2018 PBS documentary “Dolores” traced her passage from a married woman in a middle-class home to a union activist who gave up a comfortable life for the fight for equality. She spoke in later years of the sexism she faced inside the farmworker movement, even as her likeness became a fixture on T-shirts, murals and school names across California.
Her honours crossed the country. In 2012 President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and acknowledged that his “Yes, we can” slogan drew on her chant. “Dolores was very gracious when I told her that I had stolen her slogan,” Mr. Obama said. “Knowing her, I’m pleased she left me off easy because Dolores does not play.” California declared her birthday, April 10, Dolores Huerta Day in 2018, and her portrait has hung at some US embassies. She also took part in negotiating national immigration policy.
Tributes came from across public life. UFW president Teresa Romero said: “Our greatest monument to her memory is for the union she helped found to continue to grow. Dolores fought for farm workers to the very end of her life.” Nancy Pelosi called her “a dear friend,” and Governor Gavin Newsom said “California – and the United States – would not be what we are today without her resolute spirit.” Former vice-president Kamala Harris said she was “proud to organize alongside” her.
Ms. Huerta remained at rallies and in organizing work well into her nineties, sought out by Democrats running for office at every level. Tributes continued Thursday from labor bodies and California officials.