10/31/2026
Rest in Power Dolores Huerta
Born in New Mexico in the 1930s, Huerta was introduced early on to the fraught relationship between the farm industry and the agricultural community during the Great Depression. After receiving an associate teaching degree, she taught in the 1950s for a short time but was deeply troubled by the number of farm children coming to school hungry. Huerta believed she could do more for these children by organizing farmers and farm workers. In 1955, Huerta began her activist career by co-founding the Stockton Chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO). The organization led voter registration drives and fought for economic improvements for Hispanics. In 1962, Huerta helped to form the National Farm Workers Association, the organization that would become the United Farm Workers (UFW), and went on to lead the historic Delano Grape Strike of 1965. The UFW emerged from a powerful alliance between Mexican American and Filipino labor organizers, notably members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). Together, both groups shared a vision, courage, and steadfastness vital to the birth and success of the farm workers’ movement, and they developed a union that changed the landscape concerning labor rights in America. Huerta’s leadership reached beyond organizing strikes; she played a key role in negotiating contracts, championing safer working conditions, and securing critical benefits such as unemployment insurance and healthcare for agricultural workers.
Learn more about her powerful contribution and the example she has set for us as a labor leader here.
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/10/29/dolores_huerta_death_maria_hinojosa
