El Concilio California joins the community in mourning the passing of Dolores Huerta, 96. Before she helped change American history, she was a young teacher in Stockton confronting a reality that should have shamed a nation: in one of the cruelest of ironies, the children of the people who helped feed America were arriving at school hungry and without shoes. She refused to accept their suffering as the inevitable. She left teaching to organize farmworkers and confront the conditions that kept their families in poverty.
Today, El Concilio California and the local community mourns her passing at age 96 and extends our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones. We honor the woman as well as the leader, recognizing that a loss felt across the nation is, first, a deeply personal loss for those who loved her.
Her achievements changed lives.
As a co-founder of the United Farm Workers, a determined organizer, and a formidable negotiator, Dolores helped turn demands for fair wages and safer working conditions into enforceable agreements. Her leadership helped sustain the grape boycott, and her advocacy helped secure California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975. These victories were not symbolic; they established protections for people whose labor had too often been valued more than their humanity.
Her influence reached far beyond the fields. She challenged gender discrimination, championed immigrant rights, and helped generations of women recognize their own capacity to lead. Her place in history is not at the edge of another leader’s story. It is at the center of the changes she helped make possible.
Dolores Huerta taught generations to believe that change was possible and is achievable. But she understood that believing was never enough. It required the courage to organize, the determination to persevere, and the willingness to stand against injustice, even when standing alone.
Today, as we mourn her passing, the greatest tribute we can offer is not simply to remember what she accomplished, but to accept responsibility for the work she leaves unfinished.
She taught us to say, “Sí, se puede.”
Now it is ours to prove her right.
Photo Credit: San Joaquin Delta College