Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers co-founder, dies in California aged 96

Dolores Huerta, the civil rights campaigner who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, died in California on Wednesday, October 28, aged 96. Her family announced her death and requested privacy as they mourned, according to the Guardian.¹²

From teaching to organising

Born in New Mexico and raised in Stockton, California, Huerta entered teaching after university before turning to worker organising, the BBC reported. Her campaigning extended to civil rights, women’s rights and environmental issues while she raised 11 children, according to the broadcaster.¹

Huerta and Chavez established the United Farm Workers in the 1960s. The Guardian reported that the union used strikes, consumer boycotts and public demonstrations to secure improvements in agricultural workers’ wages and working conditions.¹²

The union credited Huerta with devising its motto and said her organising had strengthened farm workers and Latino communities. According to the Guardian, Barack Obama adapted that slogan for his successful 2008 presidential campaign, and Huerta also helped the election efforts of Obama and Joe Biden.¹²

The BBC also credited her with helping bring the Bracero Program to an end and negotiating the 1986 Immigration Reform Act. Through the Dolores Huerta Foundation, she continued campaigning on immigration and voting, the broadcaster reported.¹

Allegations against Chavez

Reports of her death also recounted her allegations against Chavez. According to the Guardian, Huerta said he raped her in a vehicle in a California grape field in winter 1966. She said she had not reported the alleged assault because authorities were antagonistic towards the union and she feared she would not be believed.²

The BBC reported that Huerta described two encounters with Chavez that resulted in pregnancies. She said she concealed the pregnancies and arranged for other families to raise the children. The broadcaster said a New York Times investigation included allegations from Huerta and two other women concerning Chavez’s sexual abuse and grooming of girls in the labour movement.¹

Chavez’s family expressed distress at the reports and commended the women for coming forward, according to the BBC. The allegations were reported alongside accounts of Huerta’s decades of work with the union she and Chavez founded.¹²

Tributes to her work

The BBC reported tributes from Voto Latino president María Teresa Kumar and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The United Farm Workers highlighted Huerta’s efforts to give excluded communities greater political influence. Huerta herself said: “I would like to be remembered as a woman who cares for fellow humans”.¹