Dolores Huerta, farmworker movement leader, dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer and civil rights activist who helped build the modern farmworker movement in the United States, died Wednesday at 96, prompting swift tributes from the Democratic National Committee and the United Farm Workers.

Huerta’s family announced her death in a statement published through the Dolores Huerta Foundation and family social media accounts. “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96,” the statement said. Outlets citing family spokesperson Erik Olvera reported that Huerta died at home in Bakersfield, California.

The Democratic National Committee posted a statement Wednesday from Chair Ken Martin, who cast Huerta as both a labor icon and a model for political organizing. “My friend, Dolores Huerta, was living proof that anyone can rise above their station in life to change our country for the better,” Martin said. He added that “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!”

The United Farm Workers, the union most closely tied to Huerta’s life’s work, also issued a statement through its president, Teresa Romero. “Her life’s work was to empower her community to face and overcome injustices, and she has left farm workers and the entire Latino community stronger and more organized than she found it,” Romero said.

Huerta was one of the most prominent labor leaders in modern U.S. history and a central figure in the farmworker movement. In 1962, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association alongside César Chávez and Gilbert Padilla; that organization later became part of the United Farm Workers. She was also a principal organizer of the Delano grape strike and nationwide boycott that began in 1965, helping turn the struggle of California farmworkers into a national cause.

She became widely associated with the phrase “sí se puede” — “yes, it can be done” — a rallying cry that endured far beyond labor organizing and became embedded in broader civil rights and political activism.

Though best known for her role in building the farmworker union movement, Huerta remained a major public figure long after the union’s formative years. She founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation in 2002, extending her work into community organizing and civic engagement, and in 2012 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.