Renowned labor leader, civil rights and feminist activist, LGBTQ+ ally and National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and United Farm Workers of America (UFW) co-founder Dolores Huerta died Oct. 28 of breast cancer. She was 96.

Huerta was born April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico and at the age of five moved with her mother Alicia and siblings to Las Vegas after her parents’ divorce. The family later moved to Stockton, California. She later described her neighborhood in Stockton as diverse and harmonious.

This was in stark contrast to her experiences at Stockton High School (1947 graduate) which was segregated by both class and race. She was falsely accused of cheating on a writing assignment there because the teacher said it was “too well-written” for a Mexican American student. Huerta attended the University of Pacific’s Stockton College (now called San Joaquin Delta College) and graduated with a provisional teaching credential in 1953.

Huerta told people on multiple occasions that her mother encouraged her activism and feminist views from an early age. She watched her mother welcome low-wage workers to the small hotel she ran.

After Huerta graduated from college she worked as a teacher in California’s agricultural regions for a short time. She realized quickly education alone would not solve the problems her students faced, including hunger and exhaustion.

In the early 1950s, Huerta worked with the Community Service Organization and then co-founded the NFWA alongside fellow activists Cesar Chávez and Gilbert Padilla. NFWA merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee which morphed into the UFW in 1966. Huerta served as the UFW’s vice president until 1999.

One of Huerta’s most notable activist actions was her leadership role in the 1965 Delano Grape Strike and nationwide consumer boycotts of grapes. The contracts she negotiated raised wages, banned dangerous pesticides and expanded health care and unemployment benefits access for agricultural workers and later a union contract.

Huerta did a 25-day fast in Phoenix, Arizona in 1972 and this is where she coined the phrase “¡Sí, se puede!” which has become synonymous with protests, strikes and other actions to advance labor and civil rights across the United States since that time. She also led another grape boycott action in 1973, which resulted in the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the first U.S. law specifically protecting farmworkers’ collective bargaining rights.

Initially, Huerta dismissed feminist activism as a “middle-class phenomenon” and opposed the movement’s stances on abortion and contraception, however her views changed over time.

She called herself a feminist in a 1976 interview with Ms. Magazine and said the women’s liberation movement was instrumental in changing her mindset over her divorces. Huerta got more involved with the feminist movement in the 1980s and called herself a “born-again feminist” who embraced abortion rights and contraception access among other women’s right issues.

Huerta’s union demonstrations led to her being jailed 22 times. In 1988, she protested Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush’s opposition to the UFW grape boycott when he came to San Francisco on a campaign stop. During that protest, a police officer struck her with their baton which resulted in three broken ribs and a pulverized spleen. The city settled in court with Huerta.

While on a leave of absence from the UFW in the late 1980s to recover from her injuries, Huerta worked with the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) to, among other things, encourage Latina women to run for office. She was also an honorary co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. alongside Gloria Steinem and others. Huerta wove feminist causes into the work the UFW did to advance labor rights until her retirement from the organization in 1999.

Huerta’s involvement in politics expanded with her civic advocacy organization, the Dolores Huerta Foundation ,which she founded in 2002 with the $100,000 she received when she was awarded the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship grant. On behalf of her foundation, she participated in protests and spoke in cities across the United States about race, poverty and LGBTQ+-, women’s- and immigrant-rights.

An early supporter of marriage equality, Huerta campaigned to make it legal in California in 2005. The bill passed in the California State Assembly but was vetoed by then-GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. She said in a 2006 speech: “Gay marriage, that’s a big issue. Come to think about it, if Thelma and Louise get married, does that affect your paycheck? Does that affect any part of your life? … How many children a woman chooses to have, who one chooses to live with and marry—that is your constitutional right.”

Huerta’s other efforts to advance LGBTQ+ equality in her home state included speaking at a Fresno Pride celebration in 2021, serving as an Equality California board member for an extended period of time and endorsing through her foundation California Proposition 2 in 2024, which removed language in the state constitution referring to marriage as only a union of a man and a woman. This proposition passed with 63% of the vote.

She was also the keynote speaker at the 1998 sixth annual LLEGO conference with hundreds of LGBTQ+ Latiné people in attendance. In her remarks, she encouraged attendees to run for public office in order to advance their equality efforts.

In 2009, the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference featured Huerta as a keynote speaker where she said, in part, “What they’ve done, basically, is that by attacking the gay and lesbian [and] transgender movement, by attacking feminists and the right to abortion, the right to choose, by attacking immigrants, basically what they have done is distracted the country because of these so-called cultural wars from the real issues, which are of course the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic meltdown, these people who are ripping off our Treasury, ripping off investors and shareholders. And they’ve done this very, very successfully.”

Huerta also campaigned for Democratic candidates throughout her life , beginning with Robert F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency in 1968.

Huerta was married and divorced twice, first to Ralph Head, with whom she had two daughters and second to Ventura Huerta with whom she had five children. From the early 1970s until his death in 2011, Huerta was in a romantic relationship with Richard Chávez, Cesar’s brother, and they had four children.

On March 18 of this year, Huerta revealed to the public that Cesar Chávez sexually assaulted her twice (1960 and 1966) which resulted in pregnancies. She gave birth to two daughters who were, in her words, “raised by other families that could give them stable lives.” Huerta later became close to those children and introduced them to their siblings.

Her revelations came after the New York Times published an extensive investigative piece into Chávez’s alleged sexual abuse patterns. She told reporters she kept this secret for over 60 years because she didn’t want to damage the labor rights movement as well as the political and gender dynamics in years past.

Huerta said, “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor—of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.” She added, “You know, I think it’s up to God” to determine whether Chávez should be forgiven.

Among Huerta’s many awards and accolades are the first Latina to be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame; the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 from then-President Barack Obama; then-California Gov. Jerry Brown proclaiming April 10 as Dolores Huerta Day in 2018;  the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in 1988; the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award in 1993; and the Hispanic Heritage Award in 2000.

She received nine honorary doctorates from U.S. universities; schools are named after her in California, Texas and Colorado; murals bare her image, streets bare her name across the country and Asteroid 6849 Doloreshuerta is named after her.

Two documentaries were made about her life, Dolores in 2017 and Seeds of Change: The Life and Legacy of Dolores Huerta in 2025, where she said, “I hope that my legacy will be one of an organizer that organized to fight injustice. We want to give our children an inheritance of justice, right, not jewels or property or money because they’ll just fight over it. So, the main thing to do is to give them this love for justice—and that is the greatest gift I think that any of us can have.”

When news of Huerta’s death was announced, she received an outpouring of remembrances from many people, including LGBTQ+ organizations and leaders.

The National LGBTQ Task Force, said in an online release, “[We are] heartbroken by the news of Dolores Huerta’s passing at 96. Just four years shy of her centennial, Huerta’s work in the labor force movement as co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, inspiring generations to fight for fair pay, safe working conditions and humane treatment while making a living.

“We will continue to keep Huerta’s memory and work alive by fighting for the rights of all people, all workers, all communities. The Task Force sends Huerta and her community our condolences and love during this difficult time.”

Equality Illinois said in an email statement, “Dolores reminded us that justice cannot exist in silos. A trailblazer in the fight for farmworkers’ rights, she was also a fierce and unwavering champion of LGBTQ+ equality, women’s rights, immigrant justice and racial equity.

“Her lifelong activism taught us that our struggles are interconnected, our identities are multidimensional and our liberation is intertwined. We cannot fight for workers’ dignity without fighting for LGBTQ+ dignity. We cannot champion racial justice without embracing gender justice. Dolores embodied the power of cross-issue solidarity and intersectional justice—recognizing that none of us is truly free until all of us are free.”

Equality Illinois Leadership and Capacity Building Director and LGBTQ+ and Latiné rights activist Norma Seledon said in an email statement to this publication, “I had the extraordinary privilege of sitting beside Dolores Huerta at dinner when she was the keynote speaker at a national LLEGO conference hosted by Chicago members. For over an hour, we spoke about her commitment to our community. We also spoke about being mothers and organizers.

“That night, Dolores taught me something profound about solidarity. She didn’t see LGBTQ+ rights as separate from farmworkers’ rights, women’s rights or immigrant justice. She understood that oppression, wherever it lives, demands our collective resistance. Her humility was as powerful as her courage, and her commitment to defending the dignity of every human being was unwavering.

“What I remember most about her was her extraordinary humility and fierce moral clarity. She believe  the oppression of any one of us was an affront to all of us, and defending someone else’s dignity was not an act of charity, but an obligation of justice. We need more of that humble fierceness across issues, across communities.”

Association of Latinos/as/xs Motivating Action (ALMA) Executive Director Manuel Hernandez-Ninez said in an email statement to this publication, “Dolores Huerta showed us that the fight for workers, immigrants, women and LGBTQ+ people is inseparable. For those of us who are Latinx and LGBTQ+, her advocacy affirmed that we belong in every movement fighting for our dignity.

“At ALMA Chicago, her teachings fuel our collective advocacy for equity: center those most affected, organize across our differences and build the power to secure our rights together. Her legacy lives in the work we carry forward.”

ALMA Board Member Dulce M. Quintero said in an email statement to this publication, “Dolores Huerta embodied radical intersectionality in advocating for human rights, LGBTQ+ rights and labor rights. Her work advanced the ‘Si Se Puede’ movement, highlighting the interconnected struggles of the Latiné communities, queer individuals and worker rights. As a key figure in the labor movement, she built coalitions and challenged systemic inequalities, earning recognition as a legendary icon and catalyst for change. Huerta’s role as a silence breaker has been crucial in amplifying marginalized voices within the broader human rights dialogue.”

Longtime LGBTQ+ activist Robert Castillo said in an email statement to this publication, “I remember Dolores Huerta headlining the LLEGO conference here in 1998 and being in awe because she was such an icon in the farmworkers movement. She was there to offer her wholehearted support of the LGBTQ+ community and it made me proud to have her there to support our movement.”

In a statement to the public, Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang said, “She understood that our struggles for dignity, freedom and equality are deeply connected — and that none of us are truly free until all of us are free. She stood alongside LGBTQ+ people, fought with us, and reminded us of the power we have when we organize together.”

Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendoner said Huerta was an ally to queer people “long before that solidarity was popular or politically easy.”

U.S. House Rep. Elect Scott Weiner said, “Today we mourn the passing of a legend who truly changed our state and our country. Throughout her 96 years, Dolores Huerta never stopped fighting to make the world a better place. Her courage and passion helped build the farmworkers movement, and she never stopped fighting for justice — whether for workers, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants or victims of climate disasters. She energized movements, spoke truth to power and kept fighting until the end.”