From BBC News · · 2m
Dolores Huerta, farm workers' champion, dies at 96
The pioneering civil rights leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union and fought for decades to improve conditions for agricultural workers has died of cancer.
In brief
The pioneering civil rights leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union and fought for decades to improve conditions for agricultural workers has died of cancer. Dolores Huerta, the US civil rights leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union with Cesar Chavez and spent her life fighting for farm…
Pioneer of farm workers' rights dies
Dolores Huerta, the US civil rights leader who fought for poor farm workers' rights, has died aged ninety six. Her family announced the death on Wednesday. The BBC has confirmed she died of cancer.
Co-founder of the United Farm Workers
Huerta campaigned alongside labour leader Cesar Chavez for farm workers' rights in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. Together they founded the transformative United Farm Workers Union, or UFW.
From teacher to labour organiser
Born in New Mexico, Huerta grew up in Stockton, California, in the heart of the state's agricultural industry.She first became a teacher after university before turning to organising workers and shepherding the Chicano power movement.
Decades of activism across many causes
Huerta worked on civil and women's rights, gender equality and environmental issues while raising eleven children. She continued her advocacy work on immigration and voting issues through her foundation into her nineties.
Her vision for a better world
Huerta is reported by multiple sources to have once said: I would like to be remembered as a woman who cares for fellow humans.
“I would like to be remembered as a woman who cares for fellow humans. We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live, not just to acquire things.”
Allegations against Cesar Chavez
Earlier this year, Huerta said Chavez, who died in nineteen ninety three, had manipulated and pressured her into having sex and forced her in the nineteen sixties.
The UFW's tribute to Huerta
The United Farm Workers Union said Huerta had coined its motto, Si Se Puede, Spanish for Yes, we can, which became a familiar rallying cry for activists.
“Si Se Puede!”
Major achievements for workers and immigrants
Huerta helped negotiate the first farm worker contracts in North America. She helped end the Bracero Program, where Mexican men were brought to work temporarily in the US, and helped negotiate the nineteen eighty six…
Leaders remember a fearless champion
Former US President Bill Clinton said he and Hillary Clinton lost a dear friend and stalwart champion of working Americans.California Governor Gavin Newsom said Huerta represented the best of us.
The takeaway
Dolores Huerta, the US civil rights leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union with Cesar Chavez and spent her life fighting for farm workers' rights, has died aged ninety six.
