Dolores Huerta, the U.S. labour leader and civil rights icon whose union work changed the lives of migrant workers, has died, her family said Wednesday (October 28, 2026). She was 96.
For nearly four decades, Huerta was vice president of United Farm Workers, the union she founded with Cesar Chavez, organising strikes and walkouts that won improvements in working conditions for the millions of men and women who labour in U.S. fields. “The first time… Huerta remained a galvanising figure in left-wing politics well into her 90s, helping to organise a fightback among migrant labourers targeted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration swoops that saw farmworkers snatched from the fields by masked federal agents.
Because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” she said in a statement to the New York Times , which broke the story, i didn’t feel I could say no. Because what’s happening right now is so huge, “We’ve got to be a lot more active,.
“We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96,” said a family statement. But that fame and the seemingly tight relationship between him and Huerta hid a dark secret that came to light this year, when Huerta said she was one of a number of women Chavez had raped. I liken it to what was happening in Germany before Hitler took power,” she said.
Former President Bill Clinton praised her as a “dear friend” and “stalwart champion of working Americans.”
