Dolores Huerta, UFW co-founder and civil rights icon, dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, the pioneering labor organizer and civil rights activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez, died on Wednesday at age 96, her family announced. "We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96," the family said in a statement, asking for privacy during their grief.

Born in New Mexico in 1930, Huerta followed her father—a miner and farm worker—into labor activism. After working as a teacher, she was moved by the poverty of farm workers' children and became a community organizer. She met Cesar Chavez at a 1955 fundraising dinner, and the two co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which became the United Farm Workers union. Through strikes, boycotts, and protests in the 1960s and 1970s, the UFW secured collective bargaining rights and improved wages and working conditions for agricultural workers. Huerta is credited with coining the phrase "Sí se puede!" (Yes, we can!), which became the union's motto and was later adapted by Barack Obama for his 2008 presidential campaign.

Beyond the UFW, Huerta was a lifelong political and social activist. She worked on presidential campaigns for Robert F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, and championed voting rights, immigrant rights, environmental justice, and LGBTQ+ equality. She was arrested more than 25 times for non-violent civil disobedience, including at age 89 in 2019 during a union protest. In 1993, she became the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and in 2012, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Multiple schools in California, Texas, and Colorado are named after her.

In March 2026, the New York Times published an investigation in which Huerta revealed that Cesar Chavez had sexually abused her. She stated that Chavez raped her in the winter of 1966 in a vehicle in a California grape field and on another occasion forced her into sexual contact. Huerta said she did not report the assault due to authorities' hostility toward the UFW and fear that union members would not believe her. The investigation also detailed allegations from two other women who said Chavez groomed and sexually abused girls in the labor movement. Huerta said the encounters resulted in pregnancies she kept secret, arranging for the children to be raised by other families. She later had a long-term domestic partnership with Richard Chavez, Cesar's brother, with whom she had four children.

Chavez's family responded to the allegations by saying they were "devastated" by the reports and praised the women's "courage to come forward." The UFW acknowledged Huerta's extraordinary legacy, stating that her life's work was to empower her community to face and overcome injustices, leaving farm workers and the Latino community stronger and more organized.