Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers, dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers, and lifelong workers' rights advocate, died from cancer on Oct. 28 at 96, reports Robert D. McFadden for The New York Times. Huerta led strikes and boycotts that would change the lives of thousands of migrant laborers. 

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Huerta protested with the nonviolent tactics promoted by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "She was arrested 22 times, roughed up by strikebreakers and once severely beaten by a police officer, suffering broken ribs and a ruptured spleen that left her disabled for months." She was also mother to 14 children, who were young during the time of her peak advocacy. 

She advocated for immigrants’ and women’s rights, and was an ally to U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, whose assassination she witnessed. In 1962, she and Caesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association, which would become the UFW, and protested low wages and abuses like toxic pesticide exposure by California grape growers. Their protests and boycotts amid police harassment culminated in the industry providing first-time benefits to laborers in 1970. 

The groups' efforts led to passage of the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act in California, the first major farm reform outside of Hawaii, which guaranteed the right to organize a union. Though Huerta continued her activism, she was forced out of the UFW by her male coworkers. 

The NYT investigated Chavez for his abuse of underage girls in 2026. Huerta revealed during an interview with the Times that Chavez had raped her, and that two of her children were the product of his abuse. By her arrangement, the two children were raised by others. Other women at the UFW claimed Huerta rebuffed their complaints of sexism in the workplace. Huerta, fearing nobody would believe her allegations, said, "I never talked about it to anybody, and the reason I didn’t is because I just didn’t want to hurt the movement."

Huerta "was showered with awards, including 15 honorary degrees, and at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, she formally placed Hillary Clinton’s name in nomination for president," McFadden writes. "Her life was extolled in 'Dolores,' a 2017 documentary by Peter Bratt. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California proclaimed an annual Dolores Huerta Day to commemorate her 'lifelong pursuit of justice.'"