1930-2026

Posted October 29, 2026

 

Editor’s Note: The following is a message from Dolores Huerta’s family on her passing on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Also, included are condolences from the community at the end of the obituary:

 

We are sad to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family. We know that many of you around the world share in our mourning, and we will be following up on plans to recognize and celebrate her incredible life and legacy.
With gratitude,
Dolores Huerta’s Family 

 

Obituary for Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta inspired generations with three words: “Sí, se puede”—“Yes, we can.” In her hands, those words became a rallying cry for workers, women, immigrants and people fighting for justice around the world. She gave people the courage to recognize their own power—and showed them how to use it. Through historic labor contracts, groundbreaking legislation and campaigns that helped women claim political leadership, she turned a declaration of possibility into lasting change.

Huerta, the pioneering labor leader, feminist and environmental justice advocate who co-founded the United Farm Workers and transformed the possibilities of Latina leadership in America, died today, October 28 at home in Bakersfield surrounded by her close family. She was 96.

She came of age at a time when women, especially Mexican-American women, were rarely expected to lead political movements, negotiate with powerful businessmen, or challenge elected officials. Dolores did all three. She did not wait for permission. She became one of the most powerful organizers, negotiators, and advocates of the modern civil rights movement.

Her fight began in the agricultural communities around Stockton, CA. She began her career as a teacher, where she saw children coming to school hungry and without proper clothing because their parents worked long hours in the fields for poverty wages. She decided she could do more to help them by organizing their parents than by teaching their children.

Through the Community Service Organization, she registered voters, challenged discrimination and learned how to turn community demands into political pressure. By the late 1950s, she was lobbying in Sacramento, a young Mexican American woman confronting a political establishment overwhelmingly controlled by men.

One of the few women lobbyists of her era, she became a formidable advocate for people who could not afford one. Her legislative victories included a California measure allowing driver’s license examinations in Spanish, the extension of Aid to Families with Dependent Children to California farmworker families, and disability insurance protections for agricultural workers.

In 1960, she helped establish the Agricultural Workers Association with Larry Itliong. In 1962, she joined Cesar Chavez in building the National Farm Workers Association, which merged in 1966 with the Filipino-led Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Mr. Itliong, to form the organization that became the United Farm Workers.

The decisive call to strike in Delano came from Filipino farmworkers. On September 8, 1965, workers organized through the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, with leaders including Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, walked out of the vineyards. The National Farm Workers Association joined them that month. Their organizations merged in 1966 to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which later became the United Farm Workers.

Dolores became a principal architect of the union’s power.

During the Delano strike and nationwide grape boycott, she helped turn the struggles of California farmworkers into a national moral and economic confrontation. She enlisted consumers, unions, religious communities, and civil rights allies. She helped make the purchase of grapes a public decision about the treatment of the people who harvested them, which made 17 million people stop buying grapes.

Dolores was often the only woman in the room and almost always one of the few women with real power. She was also a Chicana working in a culture, an industry, and a labor movement dominated by men.

At the bargaining table, she translated that pressure into binding agreements. As a leading union negotiator, she secured gains that reached beyond wages to health care, retirement, job security and safer working conditions. The protections she helped win changed what growers could demand of workers—and what workers could demand in return.

She became a tough and highly effective negotiator. During the Delano grape strike and the nationwide grape boycott, she helped organize workers and consumers nationwide and sat at the bargaining table with some of California’s most powerful growers. She negotiated historic contracts that gave farmworkers better wages and protections they had never had before.

She also became a force in Sacramento, Washington, DC, and other state Capitols. Her advocacy helped win passage of California’s landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, giving farmworkers the right to organize and bargain collectively.

Dolores was also an environmentalist who placed workers and their families at the center of environmental protection. She understood that the dangers of agricultural chemicals began with the people required to work among them.

She fought pesticide exposure through organizing, boycotts and contract negotiations. The union sought restrictions on hazardous chemicals and protections for the workers handling the nation’s food. Her environmentalism connected the workplace to the surrounding community: the health of a farmworker, a child’s drinking water and the safety of the food supply belonged to the same struggle. The Smithsonian later recognized her among the figures who shaped American environmentalism.

Her authority came at considerable personal cost. She endured arrests, threats and violence. In 1988, a San Francisco police officer severely injured her during a demonstration

Dolores’ path was not easy, and neither was the movement she helped build. She faced sexism both inside and outside the union. She challenged deeply rooted ideas about what women should say, how women should behave, and whether women should lead. She also lived through painful contradictions within a movement led by imperfect people, including sexual violence she experienced herself. In March 2026, Dolores disclosed that Cesar Chavez had sexually assaulted her in the 1960s. She chose to speak publicly after other survivors came forward, saying she had kept the secret for decades because she feared the truth could damage the farmworker movement.

Dolores did not emerge from that history by retreating from leadership. She pushed further.

Dolores’s feminism grew from a lifetime of exercising authority in places where women were expected to defer. She negotiated while men expected her to remain quiet, led while others expected her to follow, and raised a family while helping build a national movement.

By the 1970s, she was increasingly becoming an outspoken force about the sexism she saw around her and about the ways women themselves had been taught to accept it. Her feminism grew out of her own experience: negotiating while men expected her to remain quiet, leading while others expected her to follow, and raising a family while helping build a national movement.

A decade later, Dolores took that experience directly into the women’s movement. After hearing her speak at a National Organization for Women convention, Feminist Majority founder Eleanor Smeal recruited Dolores to join a national effort to get more women elected to office.

She traveled the country encouraging women to seek political office, with a special focus on Latinas and other women of color who had rarely seen themselves represented in government. She recruited women, helped them win endorsements, knocked on doors and campaigned alongside them. That work contributed to the growing political power of women that helped produce the historic “Year of the Woman” in 1992.

Her influence can be seen in generations of women who followed her into public life, including Hilda Solis, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee and Maria Elena Durazo, among many others who have looked to Dolores as a model, mentor and ally.

Dolores helped expand the meaning of feminism itself. She showed that the fight for women’s equality could not be separated from the fight for fair wages, immigrant rights, racial justice, reproductive freedom and political power.

She also allowed her own thinking to evolve. Raised in the Catholic faith, she became a forceful defender of reproductive freedom. Devoted to the labor movement, she challenged its sexism. Deeply connected to Mexican American communities, she confronted expectations that limited women’s independence. Her willingness to question institutions she loved, learn from others and reconsider her own assumptions was part of her strength.

That was sometimes complicated. Dolores was a mother of 14 and a practicing Catholic who became a strong defender of reproductive freedom. She came from a traditional Mexican American community but challenged many of its expectations for women. She loved the labor movement while refusing to accept the sexism she encountered within it.

She was willing to change and to challenge her own community as well as those in power.

That courage carried into nearly every major fight for justice of the past 70 years.

Dolores helped fight for the 1986 immigration reform law that gave legal status to millions of undocumented people, including hundreds of thousands of farmworkers. She fought California’s Proposition 187 and marched for comprehensive immigration reform. She stood with Black leaders in the fight to preserve affirmative action and challenged the unequal treatment of Black and Latino communities by law enforcement.

She marched with young people demanding action on climate change and environmental injustice. She defended LGBTQ+ equality. She remained an outspoken defender of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.

And throughout her life, Dolores fought to protect democracy.

She understood voting not simply as a right, but as a source of power for people who had historically been denied it. She spent decades registering voters, knocking on doors and reminding women, immigrants, workers and people of color that democracy only works when they participate in it.

Even in her 90s, Dolores could still be found at rallies, walking precincts, speaking to young organizers and urging people to vote. She loved to listen to jazz and other music and went out dancing as often as she could.

In 2003, Dolores returned to the place where her organizing life began: California’s Central Valley. With her three daughters, Camila Chavez, Lori de Leon and Alicia Huerta she created the Dolores Huerta Foundation to teach a new generation the organizing lessons she had spent a lifetime learning.

The Foundation works from a simple idea that has guided Dolores since she was a young organizer: the people closest to a problem should have the power to solve it. It helps parents, workers, young people, and community members organize themselves, speak to elected officials, serve on local boards and commissions, and fight for better schools, cleaner air and water, safer communities, and a government that listens to them.

In the quarter century since the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF) was created, it has trained thousands of community members, mostly from farm worker families in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, to win school, water, environmental, and civil rights fights in their own communities. Dolores especially saw the importance of organizing and empowering youth and, through DHF, trained hundreds of young farm workers, developing leaders who went on to be community activists and college graduates, and who in turn continue to organize their peers and younger counterparts. Through establishing and growing DHF, Dolores’ legacy of training and mentoring organizers will live on and flourish.

In 2012, Dolores received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. President Clinton honored her in 1998 by presenting her with the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and President and Mrs. Clinton honored her in 2022 with the Clinton Global Citizen Award. Today, at least 11 schools across the country bear Dolores Huerta’s name, along with research, labor and community centers, civic education programs and scholarships created in her honor.

In 2027, the Foundation plans to open the Dolores Huerta Peace and Justice Cultural Center in the Central Valley, creating a permanent home for the work and the organizing tradition Dolores began more than 70 years ago.

Dolores represents something that was once exceedingly rare: a Latina whose leadership has stretched across nearly the entire modern history of American movements for social change.

Perhaps the most important part of her legacy is not simply that she was ahead of her time.

It is that she helped change the times.

She challenged the idea that leadership belonged to men. She challenged the idea that workers without money or political connections were powerless. She challenged her own culture, her own movement and sometimes her own assumptions. And as she gained power, she used it to help other women, workers, immigrants and young people find their own.

Dolores is survived by 14 children, 24 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren, 7 great-great-grandchildren, and a large community of organizers who continue to follow her roadmap for change, believing that Si Se Puede will mean they too can fight for and see change.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, Dolores requested that contributions be made to the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Dolores Huerta Foundation.

Her family has requested privacy at this time.

 

 

The following is a community collective of remembrances of Dolores Huerta:

 

Dolores Huerta Changed The World. Now It’s Our Turn. VOTE.

Svante Myrick

 

There will never be another Dolores Huerta. Our friend, our board member, and one of my personal heroes passed away today [Oct. 28]. She was 96.

Dolores was one of the fiercest and most consequential activists in our country’s history. And for over two decades, People For the American Way had the privilege of calling her one of our own. She brought her voice, her organizing expertise, and her boundless energy to our board and to every fight we took on.

Dolores was simply unstoppable.

As a leader of the farmworkers movement, she fought for dignity and fair treatment for the people who power this nation. She took her message everywhere, from TV ads and interviews to front porches, to turn out Latino voters. She was the first to get started in the morning and the last to quit at the end of the day. She taught communities why the courts matter and warned about the threats that extremist movements pose to women, workers, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and anyone who gets pushed aside or left out.

She poured herself into raising up new generations of activists, because she knew the work would always need more hands.

Above all, Dolores showed us that activism can be joyful. Her rallying cry became a promise millions of people still carry with them:

¡Sí se puede! Yes, we can.

And she never let any of us forget where change begins:

“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”

Dolores would not want us to mourn quietly. She would want us organizing. And right now, the moment in front of us could not be clearer.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. That’s just 6 days away.

The rights Dolores spent her life defending are on the ballot: workers’ rights, immigrant families, reproductive freedom, and the freedom to vote itself. The best way to honor her is to do exactly what she did. Show up and vote.

“Every person a potential activist.” That includes you.

Finally, we’re gathering messages of love and gratitude to share with Dolores’ family. If her life inspired you in any way, please add your name and a few words to our card of condolence. 

With gratitude for a life that changed so many of ours.

Svante Myrick, President and CEO, People For the American Way

 

 

We Mourn The Passing of An American Shero

Randi Weingarten & Evelyn DeJesus

 

AFT President Randi Weingarten and AFT Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus, who is also president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, released the following statement on the passing of Dolores Huerta, the labor movement trailblazer and legendary civil rights activist and community organizer:

Today [Oct. 28], we mourn the passing of an American shero, a giant of the labor and civil rights movements and a remarkable woman whose extraordinary life was dedicated to lifting up working people, fighting injustice and giving a voice to those too often left unheard.

Dolores Huerta showed us what courage looks like. She stood alongside farmworkers, fought for their dignity and fairness, and reminded generations that working folks united in purpose have the power to change their circumstances. Her unwavering belief in the power of collective action gave us a rallying cry that will forever live in our hearts: ‘¡Sí, se puede!’

We will forever cherish spending time with Dolores this summer at the AFT convention. Being in her presence was a powerful reminder that the movements we build are carried forward by the courage, conviction and sacrifices of those who came before us.

Her legacy is woven into the fabric of our labor movement and our nation’s ongoing struggle for justice. She leaves us with not only a remarkable history of accomplishments, but also the story of the personal struggle and sacrifice she disclosed in the twilight of her life. She taught us the responsibility to fight for working families, protect the vulnerable, teach our children and build a better future for generations to come.

Rest in power, Dolores. Your voice, your courage and your spirit will live on in all of us who continue this work.

“¡Sí, se puede! Siempre.”

 

 

NALEO and NALEO Educational Fund Mourn the Passing of Dolores Huerta

 

On October 28, the Hon. Brian Colón, President of the NALEO Board of Directors; the Hon. Alejandra Sotelo-Solis, Chair of the NALEO Educational Fund Board of Directors; and Erica Bernal-Martinez, CEO of NALEO and NALEO Educational Fund, issued the following statements on the passing of Dolores Huerta:

The Hon. Brian Colón

Today is a day of loss, but also a day to celebrate a life of extraordinary impact. I’ve lost a dear friend of nearly 20 years. Our community has lost a legend, a daughter of New Mexico who built a life of purpose in California that moved the world.

Dolores’ legacy as a champion for marginalized communities, the environment, and people who too often live in the shadows endures through our individual advocacy and the collective work of NALEO’s team and members.

Fierce she was, and she always brought her heart of gold to the work.

 

Hon. Alejandra Sotelo-Solis

Dolores showed us that leadership isn’t a title. It’s a choice, made every day, to stand up for people who are too often overlooked. She made that choice for more than seven decades, on picket lines, in statehouses, and in neighborhoods across the country, and she never let fear make it for her.

Even in her final year, she was still leading by example, telling the truth about her own life when it was painful and when it complicated a history many hold dear.

On behalf of our Board of Directors, we are grateful for her life and committed to carrying her example forward.

 

Erica Bernal-Martinez

Dolores taught generations of Latinos a simple truth: our voices matter most when we use them. For more than 70 years, she organized farmworkers, families, and communities to demand a seat at the table, and then take it. ¡Sí, se puede! began as a rallying cry. It became a call to civic action that lives on in every Latino voter, organizer, and public servant.

We see her imprint in public office. Many of the Latino elected and appointed officials serving today, including a growing number of Latinas, found the courage to serve and lead because Dolores went first. Supporting those leaders and preparing the next generation is the work NALEO and NALEO Educational Fund carry forward every day.

We extend our deepest condolences to her family and to everyone at the Dolores Huerta Foundation. The best way to honor her is to do what she asked of all of us: show up, speak up, and vote.

 

 

My Friend, Dolores Huerta

Ken Martin

 

My friend, Dolores Huerta, was living proof that anyone can rise above their station in life to change our country for the better. Born during the Great Depression in a small mining town in New Mexico, she saw firsthand how workers could be exploited on their own — yet when they joined together, they could successfully fight for better wages, safer conditions, and dignity on the job.
Dolores was a leading figure in the founding of the United Farm Workers and in the successful Delano grape boycott that secured labor protections for seasonal workers. It is why generations upon generations of Americans have been inspired by her fierce determination and her resilient spirit in the face of impossible odds. I was proud to stand with my friend in countless fights over the years, and we will all remember how she moved our nation closer to its highest ideals. Dolores Huerta’s legacy will live on every time an organizer, a worker, or a civil rights activist repeats her eternal words, sí se puede!

Ken Martin, Chair, Democratic National Committee

 

 

Mi Amiga Dolores Huerta

Ken Martin

 

Mi amiga Dolores Huerta fue testimonio de que todos podemos lograr nuestros sueños y mejorar nuestro país. Nacida durante la Gran Depresión en un pequeño pueblo minero de Nuevo México, Dolores presenció directamente cómo los trabajadores podían ser explotados individualmente; sin embargo, cuando se unían, podían exigir mejores salarios, condiciones más seguras y dignidad en el trabajo.
Dolores fue una figura clave en la fundación de la Unión de Campesinos (UFW por sus siglas en inglés) y en la exitosa huelga de la uva en Delano que garantizó protecciones laborales a los trabajadores agrícolas. Es por eso que tantos se han inspirado en su determinación y espíritu resiliente ante las adversidades más difíciles. Me enorgulleció luchar junto a mi amiga a lo largo de los años y todos recordaremos cómo hizo que nuestra nación refleje mejor nuestros ideales. El legado de Dolores Huerta resonará durante la historia cada vez que un organizador, un trabajador o un activista de los derechos civiles evoque sus palabras eternas, ¡Sí Se Puede!”

Ken Martin, presidente del Comité Nacional Demócrata (DNC)

 

 

Dolores Huerta: Honoring a Daughter of New México

Sara Attleson

 

Dolores Huerta will always be remembered for giving voice to those who are systematically silenced and oppressed. Till the end, she continued to demonstrate the courage and leadership for which we all know and admire her.

Born in Dawson, New México, and with roots in the Labor Movement, Dolores Huerta became one of the most legendary Labor leaders in the history of our country. New Mexicans will always remember Dolores Huerta as the pinnacle of civic engagement and advocacy, whether on the campaign trail, on the picket line, or in the halls of government. New Mexico is fortunate to have had so much time with such an iconic leader.

Throughout my years as a Labor activist, Dolores Huerta has always been my personal North Star for exemplifying everything our movement stands for. The Democratic Party of New Mexico will miss Dolores Huerta. We send our heartfelt condolences to her family, friends, and the many, many people whose lives she positively impacted.

Sara Attleson, Chair, Democratic Party of New Mexico

 

 

‘El Rojo Tocino’ – A Personal Reflection on the Life of Dolores Huerta

David Bacon, ACoM

 

Renowned activist and organizer Dolores Huerta, who helped co-found the United Farm Workers (UFW) union and whose work on behalf of civil rights for farmworkers and migrant laborers won her international acclaim died Wednesday October 28. She was 96. Below, photojournalist and labor organizer David Bacon shares reflections and images from his interactions with Huerta, which span decades, from the early years of the Delano Grape Strike in the 1960s through to Huerta’s continued anti-war activism in the 1990s and beyond.

Three years ago I walked from Poplar to Delano, Calif., in honor of Larry Itliong, who started the 1965 grape strike and boycott there. I walked alongside Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers (UFW). She was 91 then, and I had a hard time keeping up.

She sent me a note afterward that ended, “Sí Se Puede con El Rojo Tocino.” It was a beautiful joke.

“Sí Se Puede” are three words we all use now, but she invented this confident way of saying “Yes We Can!” “Tocino” was the nickname the union gave me in the years I worked as an organizer—it means “bacon,” my last name. And calling me “El Rojo,” or “The Red,” in this way honored my politics.

When I came back from a solidarity work brigade in Cuba in the 1970s, I landed in New York City with no place to sleep. I called Dolores’s daughter, Lori, a friend from California. Not only did I get space on the floor of the NYC boycott’s headquarters, but Dolores and her partner, Richard, César Chávez’s brother, took us out to eat.

Over pizza I enthused about the island. I had stars in my eyes, for both Cuba and Dolores, and still do.

I went to work for the UFW as an organizer a few months later. There was often tension in the union about radical politics, and being called a red was sometimes the route out the door. But for Dolores and Eliseo Medina, stalwart leaders of the union, being a good organizer was the bottom line—doing what the workers needed.

Over the years, long after I had left the UFW and worked for other unions and then as a photojournalist, I would see Dolores again and again. Going to Watsonville to cover the organizing drives of strawberry workers or to Salinas for the strikes in the vegetable fields, I knew she’d be there.

It was a profound experience to watch her in union contract negotiations—this diminutive woman facing off against the beefy growers across the table—and see the sense of power it gave workers.

Returning from Iraq, where I photographed workers after the 2003 US invasion, I took her picture in the front line of marchers against the war. When we were in Sacramento trying to stop the anti-immigrant, anti-affirmative-action, anti-bilingual initiatives, she was the first to speak out.

So when she called me El Rojo Tocino, I thought, “What a compliment!” I hope I live up to it.

This story was first published by American Community Media, a national nonprofit that reports on America’s diverse communities from the inside out.

 

 

‘El Rojo Tocino’ – Una Reflexión Personal Sobre la Vida de Dolores Huerta

David Bacon, ACoM

 

La reconocida activista y organizadora Dolores Huerta, cofundadora del sindicato United Farm Workers (UFW) y cuyo trabajo en defensa de los derechos civiles de los trabajadores agrícolas y migrantes le valió reconocimiento internacional, falleció el miércoles 28 de octubre a los 96 años. A continuación, el fotoperiodista y organizador sindical David Bacon comparte reflexiones e imágenes de sus encuentros con Huerta, que abarcan décadas, desde los primeros años de la huelga de la uva de Delano en la década de 1960 hasta su continuo activismo pacifista en la década de 1990 y posteriores.

Hace tres años caminé desde Poplar hasta Delano, California, en honor a Larry Itliong, quien inició la huelga y el boicot de la uva de 1965 en esa ciudad. Caminé junto a Dolores Huerta, cofundadora de la Unión de Trabajadores Agrícolas (UFW). Ella tenía 91 años entonces, y me costaba seguirle el ritmo.

Después me envió una nota que terminaba: “Sí Se Puede con El Rojo Tocino ”. Fue una hermosa broma.

“ Sí Se Puede ” son tres palabras que todos usamos ahora, pero ella inventó esta forma segura de decir “¡Sí, podemos!”. “Tocino ” era el apodo que me puso el sindicato durante los años que trabajé como organizador; significa “tocino”, mi apellido. Y llamarme “El Rojo ” de esta manera honraba mi ideología política.

Cuando regresé de una brigada de trabajo solidario en Cuba en la década de 1970, llegué a Nueva York sin un lugar donde dormir. Llamé a Lori, la hija de Dolores, una amiga de California. No solo conseguí un sitio en el suelo de la sede del boicot en Nueva York, sino que Dolores y su pareja, Richard, hermano de César Chávez, nos invitaron a comer.

Mientras comíamos pizza, hablé con entusiasmo de la isla. Tenía los ojos brillantes, tanto por Cuba como por Dolores, y todavía los tengo.

Unos meses después, empecé a trabajar como organizador en la UFW. En el sindicato solía haber tensión por las ideas políticas radicales, y a veces, ser tildado de comunista significaba la expulsión. Pero para Dolores y Eliseo Medina, líderes incondicionales del sindicato, lo fundamental era ser un buen organizador: hacer lo que los trabajadores necesitaban.

Con el paso de los años, mucho después de haber dejado la UFW y haber trabajado para otros sindicatos y luego como fotoperiodista, volvía a ver a Dolores una y otra vez. Cuando iba a Watsonville a cubrir las campañas de organización de los trabajadores de la fresa o a Salinas para las huelgas en los campos de hortalizas, sabía que ella estaría allí.

Fue una experiencia conmovedora observarla en las negociaciones del contrato sindical: esta mujer menuda enfrentándose a los fornidos productores al otro lado de la mesa, y ver la sensación de poder que eso les daba a los trabajadores.

Al regresar de Irak, donde fotografié a trabajadores tras la invasión estadounidense de 2003, le tomé una foto en primera línea de la marcha contra la guerra. Cuando estábamos en Sacramento tratando de detener las iniciativas antiinmigrantes, contrarias a la discriminación positiva y contrarias al bilingüismo, ella fue la primera en alzar la voz.

Así que cuando me llamó El Rojo Tocino , pensé: “¡Qué halago!”. Espero estar a la altura.

Este artículo fue publicado originalmente por American Community Media, una organización nacional sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las diversas comunidades de Estados Unidos desde una perspectiva interna.