Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers co-founder who accused César Chavez of sex abuse, dead at 96

Dolores Huerta attends a film premiere in Los Angeles, California, in July. The pioneering labor organizer died at the age of 96 on Oct. 28, 2026. (Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)

Dolores Huerta, the pioneering labor activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers union and spent decades fighting for better working conditions for America’s agricultural workers, has died. She was 96.

Huerta died at her home on Wednesday in Bakersfield, California, surrounded by her close family, her foundation announced.

Born in New Mexico and raised by a single mother in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Huerta began her career as a schoolteacher before helping establish a local chapter of a grassroots organization that challenged segregation and police brutality.

Eventually, her focus turned to labor organizing, and together with Cesar Chavez, whom she’d later accuse of sexual abuse, she built the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. Four years later, that association merged with another organization to form 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 founding, the United Farm Workers remains the nation’s longest-standing labor union representing agricultural workers.

Huerta herself was one of the most enduring and influential labor leaders in the country, becoming known for her rallying cry, “Sí, se puede!” 

In English, the slogan translates to “Yes, it can be done,” reflecting her sincere belief that ordinary people can affect political change.

Beyond her work to improve the lives of those working in America’s fruit and vegetable fields, many of whom are immigrants, Huerta became a prominent civil rights and women’s rights advocate, combating discrimination and fighting for gender equality in a labor movement that was dominated by men at the time.

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 one of the leaders behind the Delano grape strike, which lasted from September 1965 to July 1970. She, along with a coalition of Mexican and Filipino farmhands, accused grape growers in Delano, California, of exploiting their workers by underpaying them.

Thousands of farmworkers walked off California’s grape fields in 1965, sparking a labor movement that gained momentum in the years that followed. Huerta played a pivotal role in expanding the strike into a nationwide consumer boycott of grapes.

In the summer of 1970, the strike ended after the United Farm Workers union signed off on collective bargaining agreements that covered 10,000 workers.

Huerta received numerous awards throughout her career, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Presenting her with the award in 2012, then-President Barack Obama praised her decades of activism and joked that he had borrowed her famous slogan, “Sí, se puede,” for his 2008 presidential campaign.

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