Dolores Huerta, the Farmworker Organizer Who Gave America Its Rallying Cry, Dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, the Farmworker Organizer Who Gave America Its Rallying Cry, Dies at 96

A death announced by family, at home on Wednesday

Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the organization that became the United Farm Workers and spent decades organizing in America's fruit and vegetable fields, has died at 96. Her family said in a statement issued through her foundation and posted to social media that she died Wednesday at home. The family asked for privacy, said people around the world shared in their mourning, and promised to follow up with plans to recognize and celebrate her life and legacy.

From Stockton to the fields, a union is built

Huerta grew up in Stockton and organized farmworkers in the San Joaquin and Coachella valleys. She helped lead the grape boycotts that carried conditions in California's fields onto the national stage. In 1960, she helped establish the Agricultural Workers Association with Larry Itliong. In 1962, she joined Cesar Chavez in building the National Farm Workers Association, which merged in 1966 with Itliong's Filipino-led Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form the organization that became the United Farm Workers.

"Si, se puede" travels from the fields to a presidential campaign

Huerta is credited with coining the phrase "Si, se puede" — "Yes, we can" — the slogan of the farmworker movement. It later became a defining rallying cry of Barack Obama's successful 2008 campaign for the White House. When Obama presented Huerta with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, he praised her as a tenacious leader and joked that he had stolen her slogan. The line has since echoed through generations of American social movements.

Concrete legislative wins for farmworker families

Her organizing produced tangible policy gains: a California measure allowing driver's license examinations in Spanish, the extension of Aid to Families with Dependent Children to California farmworker families, and disability insurance protections for agricultural workers. Through her Bakersfield-based foundation, she continued that work in her later years, focusing on leadership development, civic engagement, and grassroots organizing.

Arrested scores of times, badly beaten at 58

The struggle carried heavy personal costs. Over her career, Huerta was arrested more than 20 times. In 1988, at age 58, she was severely beaten by a police officer at a San Francisco rally against presidential candidate George H. W. Bush, suffering broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. She kept a demanding public schedule well into her 90s, marching in protests and speaking in cities across the country about race, poverty, women's rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.

A shelf of honors, from the White House to schoolhouse walls

Huerta received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2012. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award, and was awarded nine honorary doctorates from universities in the United States. Four elementary schools in California and one in Fort Worth, Texas, plus a high school in Pueblo, Colorado, are named after her, and her image appears in murals while streets bear her name.

A legacy larger than one movement, and what comes next

Beyond labor, Huerta fought for women's rights and immigrants' rights, saying the women's movement of the 1970s confirmed that she too could stand on stage alongside other labor leaders. Her journey was revisited in the 2025 documentary "Seeds of Change: The Life and Legacy of Dolores Huerta." Her family says memorial plans will be announced. For the labor and civil rights communities she helped build, the task ahead is to carry forward the organizing — and the rallying cry — she leaves behind.