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Labor leader Dolores Huerta dies at 96, family says

Dolores Huerta, a labor union leader and civil rights activist, died Wednesday in California at age 96, her family said.

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Partial view of Dolores Huerta at the left edge of a black-and-white photograph, beside part of a labor-movement sign.
A cropped black-and-white photograph of Dolores Huerta beside a labor-movement sign.

Dolores Huerta, a labor union leader associated with the activism of the 1960s and a civil rights activist, died Wednesday in California at the age of 96, her family said.

Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez. The union was credited with improving agricultural workers' pay and conditions through strikes, boycotts and protests during the 1960s and 1970s.

Huerta is credited with originating the phrase meaning 'Yes, we can' that became the UFW's slogan. Obama adapted it as a rallying cry during his successful 2008 campaign for the White House.

The UFW described Huerta as a fierce advocate for women's rights whose influence reached both women working on farms and young women more broadly.

Her name also appears on schools across several states: four elementary schools in California, an elementary school in Fort Worth, Texas, and a high school in Pueblo, Colorado, are named after her.