Civil rights leader who called for greater solidarity with Native Americans dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, a civil rights leader who rose to prominence in the 1950s as a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, has died. She passed away in her home on Wednesday, according to a statement issued by her family. She was 96.

Her work is widely known to have supported Chicano rights. Her rallying cry, “Si se puede,” became an international motto for working class people and was at the foundation in 2008 for Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” messaging.

Huerta was born in New Mexico and became a resident of California. There she started the Dolores Huerta Foundation and created a hub to address racial issues, poverty and LGBTQ+ and workers’ rights. She traveled the world forging solidarity on these issues. 

She also called for greater solidarity with Native Americans, encouraging people, through her blunt observations, to speak honestly about the United States’ role in Indigenous suffering. 

In 2018, she traveled the country, making stops at colleges and universities to warn of historical revisionism that seeks to eliminate the impact that slavery had on Black and Native Americans.

“Native Americans were the first slaves,” she told ABC57 after meeting with students at Notre Dame. “African slaves built the White House, it was the people from Mexico and Asia that came and built the infrastructure of this country. If we don’t erase the ignorance, it’s devastation for the country and the world.”

In 2021, Huerta told KOAT News that a DNA test offered her insight into her Pueblo heritage. “I found out that I have a great, great, great 14th generation grandmother named Ines, who was a Pueblo Indian, you know, and that fills me with so much pride.”