Dolores Huerta: United Farm Workers Co-Founder and Civil Rights Icon Die

Dolores Huerta was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Born Dolores Clara Fernandez on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico, she grew up in Stockton, California, and began organizing after seeing the poverty of farmworkers in the Central Valley.

In the early 1960s she co-founded with Cesar Chavez the union that became the United Farm Workers, serving as vice president and leading contract negotiations that won higher pay and safety protections. She helped lead the national table grape boycott and coined the rallying cry Si se puede. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. She founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation in Bakersfield in 2002.

Her family announced through her foundation that she died at her home in Bakersfield, California, on October 28, 2026, at age 96. NPR reported the cause as cancer.

Achievements: Co-founder of the United Farm Workers, Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012).

Birth: April 10, 1930 - Dawson, New Mexico.

Profession: Labor organizer, civil rights activist.

Interesting Facts: Obama told her he had borrowed her slogan Si se puede for his campaign cry Yes we can.