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

Death and family statement

Dolores Huerta died on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, at her home in Bakersfield, California, at the age of 96. Her family announced the death in a statement issued through her foundation, and family spokesman Erik Olvera said the cause was cancer. The family asked for privacy as they grieve and said further plans would be announced to honour her life and legacy.

“As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family.”

Building the farm workers' union

Huerta and Cesar Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, an organization that later became the United Farm Workers. She served as the union's vice president for nearly four decades and was Chavez's second-in-command until his death in 1993, according to The New York Times. Together they led strikes and boycotts in the 1960s and 1970s that unionized many California table-grape growers. Huerta negotiated contracts with agribusiness and coordinated walkouts under a black Aztec eagle banner. The phrase "Sí, se puede" ("Yes, we can") came from her and became a widespread rallying cry. The Times also reports that she was arrested 22 times and that a police officer once beat her severely, breaking her ribs and rupturing her spleen, which left her disabled for months.

Honours and legacy

She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, and Barack Obama presented it in 2012. At that ceremony he praised her as a tenacious leader and joked that he had borrowed her slogan for his 2008 campaign. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and US universities have given her nine honorary doctorates. Schools in California, Texas and Colorado carry her name, and her image appears on many murals. Her 2016 endorsement of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary did not always win her favor with more liberal activists. Actor Rosario Dawson, a Sanders supporter who had played Huerta in a 2014 film about Chavez, later reconciled with her.

Allegations against Cesar Chavez

Earlier in 2026, Huerta said she had been raped by Chavez decades earlier, and she told The New York Times she had never spoken about it publicly before. The Times was reporting on extensive evidence that Chavez had groomed and molested underage girls as young as 12 when it interviewed her. The Independent reported that the abuse led to the birth of two children and that Huerta had kept the secret for 60 years, fearing that speaking out would compromise her life's work. Asked why she stayed silent, Huerta gave the Times this explanation.

“I never talked about it to anybody, and the reason I didn't is because I just didn't want to hurt the movement.”