Dolores Huerta attends a film premiere in Los Angeles, California, in July. The trailblazing labor organizer died at 96 on Oct. 28, 2026. (Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)
Dolores Huerta, the influential labor leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers and devoted decades to improving conditions for the nation’s farmworkers, has died at age 96.
Huerta died Wednesday at her home in Bakersfield, California, surrounded by family, according to an announcement from her foundation.
Born in New Mexico and raised by her single mother in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Huerta first worked as a teacher. She later helped create a local chapter of a grassroots group that confronted segregation and police brutality.
Her attention eventually shifted to labor organizing. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez—whom she would later accuse of sexual abuse—formed the National Farm Workers Association. Four years later, the group merged with another organization, giving rise to the United Farm Workers union.
Dolores Huerta waves to fans before throwing out the first pitch during Mexican Heritage Night at Dodger Stadium on May 26, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Six decades after its creation, the United Farm Workers remains the country’s longest-running labor union representing agricultural workers.
Huerta became one of America’s most influential and enduring labor figures, widely recognized for the rallying cry, “Sí, se puede!”
The phrase means “Yes, it can be done” in English and captured Huerta’s conviction that everyday people have the power to shape political change.
Her activism extended well beyond the fight for better treatment of the largely immigrant workforce harvesting the country’s fruits and vegetables. Huerta also emerged as a leading voice for civil rights and women’s rights, challenging discrimination and advocating for gender equality in a labor movement largely controlled by men.
Dolores Huerta attends a demonstration after the Women’s March Foundation and Feminist Majority deliver 15,000 letters, postcards and printed emails to Senator Kyrsten Sinema on Aug. 2, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Matt Young/Getty Images)
Huerta was a key leader of the Delano grape strike, which ran from September 1965 through July 1970. Alongside Mexican and Filipino farmworkers, she accused grape growers in Delano, California, of exploiting employees through inadequate pay.
Thousands of farmworkers left California’s grape fields in 1965, launching a movement that continued to grow. Huerta was instrumental in turning the local action into a nationwide consumer boycott of grapes.
The strike concluded in the summer of 1970, when the United Farm Workers reached collective bargaining agreements covering 10,000 employees.
Over the course of her career, Huerta received numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. When then-President Barack Obama presented her with the medal in 2012, he celebrated her decades of activism and joked that he had borrowed her signature “Sí, se puede” slogan for his 2008 presidential campaign.
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