Dolores Huerta, the labor leader, feminist and civil rights figure, has died at 96, her family said Oct. 28, 2026, in a statement posted on Facebook.
Huerta died of cancer on Wednesday at her home in Bakersfield, California, surrounded by family, With 14 children, she is survived by 24 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
“We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96. 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,” her family announced Wednesday
Beginning in 1955, the labor leader and feminist activist had a long history of advocacy in the United States. She joined the Community Service Organization in Stockton, California, where she campaigned for economic rights and helped register Latino voters and campaigned for improved public services and equal rights.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass remembered Dolores Huerta as "somebody who has impacted each and everyone of us." The labor activist co-founded the United Farm Workers union and coined the phrase "¡Sí, se puede!" In a statement, her family said that she died Wednesday at home. pic.twitter.com/sJUI9BncO7
— Spectrum News 1 SoCal (@SpecNews1SoCal) October 28, 2026
Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association that became the United Farm Workers union and later co-founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and she was still campaigning for women’s rights, immigration reform and action against pesticides in her 90s.
In the 1960s, Huerta and the farmworker movement were among Robert F. Kennedy’s strongest supporters during his presidential campaign.
On the night of Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968, the feminist advocate was at the hotel and standing near Kennedy as he celebrated his victory in the California Democratic primary.
Labor and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta testified on Capitol Hill at an October 2019 House hearing in support of legislation creating a Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino: "We are not outsiders. We have always been here from the very beginning and that needs… pic.twitter.com/14D6xfqawR
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) October 28, 2026
Later, she lobbied for California’s 1975 law that protects farmworkers’ right to organize and bargain collectively, where her advocacy also helped win passage of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, which gave farmworkers the right to organize and bargain collectively.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California said he and his wife Angela were mourning Huerta, describing her in a statement on X as a towering figure in the fight for workers’ rights, women’s rights and civil liberties whose work improved conditions for migrant laborers and advanced the rights of immigrants and women.
“From the Delano Grape Strike to her work for equal pay and reproductive freedom, Dolores fought until the end for a more just and equitable future. She showed us the power of organizing, the strength of solidarity, and what we can accomplish when we stand together,” Padilla added.
Additionally, the outstanding feminist activist backed Democratic candidates including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Furthermore, in 2008, Huerta helped promote Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama in 2012.
Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers labor union, died Wednesday at the age of 96.
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 28, 2026
She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 from President Obama in recognition of her advocacy for civil rights and women's rights. pic.twitter.com/gWZZpYkf9u
And in 2020, she endorsed Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign and later campaigned for Biden against Donald Trump.
“Dolores Huerta was a hero of mine. … She helped thousands of migrant laborers working in brutal conditions make their voices heard, and demand something better,” former President Barack Obama wrote in a statement expressing condolences over her death.
“Michelle and I are thinking of Dolores’s family, the people whose lives she changed, and everyone who drew inspiration from her example,” he added
Huerta said in March 2026 that César Chávez had sexually assaulted her in the 1960s. Saying she spoke publicly after other survivors came forward and that she had kept it private for decades because she feared it could harm the farmworker movement.
In June last year, at a rally in Los Angeles, Huerta participated, calling for the release of labor union leader David Huerta, who had been arrested amid protests against immigration raids. The protests followed the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement operations and deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
As a labor leader, the feminist activist helped organize the Delano grape strike including the national boycott that followed, serving as a lead negotiator on contracts that raised pay and strengthened medical benefits and workplace protections.
That organizing broadened into campaigns against pesticide exposure in the fields and advocacy for immigration reform, including the 1986 law, and she continued to march for comprehensive reform.
After Huerta spoke at a National Organization for Women convention, Feminist Majority founder Eleanor Smeal recruited her to carry that model into electoral politics, and she spent years traveling the country urging women — especially Latinas and other women of color to run for office.
In San Francisco in 1988, Huerta was badly hurt during a demonstration when a police officer struck her. The same same year she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights from President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Citizen Award in 2022.
The foundation has said it plans to open the Dolores Huerta Peace and Justice Cultural Center in the Central Valley in 2027.
The Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF) was created in 2003 with the feminist activist and her three daughters, Camila Chavez, Lori de Leon and Alicia Huerta. The organization has trained thousands of community members, mostly from farmworker families in the Southern San Joaquin Valley.
