Dolores Huerta – Organizing for Justice
Dolores Huerta, now 93 and still going strong, is a genuine living legend, one of the most influential labor activists in U.S. history as well as a foundational leader of the Chicano civil rights movement. Huerta’s 7 decades of activism have included co-founding the world-renowned United Farm Workers’ Union with César Chávez, leading major strikes and consumer boycotts, negotiating contracts, and tirelessly advocating for safer working conditions (including the elimination of harmful pesticides) and for unemployment and healthcare benefits for agricultural workers. Drawing from her decades of experience, she shares her thoughts on the critical importance of organizing unions in all sectors of the economy to fight for a fairer society, and on how to build more unity between labor, social, racial, gender, and climate justice movements.
This talk was delivered at the 2024 Bioneers Conference.
Dolores Huerta is a world-renowned civil rights activist and community organizer who has worked for labor rights and social justice for 50+ years. In 1962 she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union, in which she served as Vice President and played a critical role in many of the union’s accomplishments for four decades. In 2002 she received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship that she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF), which connects groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters; advocate for education reform; bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities; advocate for greater equality for LGBT people; and create strong leadership development. She has received numerous awards including The Eleanor Roosevelt Humans Rights Award and The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
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