10/29/2026
“I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.”
Dolores Huerta wrote those words this year, after nearly six decades of carrying a secret so the movement she built could survive.
That’s who she was until the very end.
She put the work first, then she told the truth anyway.
She started as a teacher in California who couldn’t stand watching farmworkers’ kids show up to school barefoot and hungry. So she became an organizer. With César Chávez, she co-founded what became the United Farm Workers and helped win farmworkers the right to bargain for better wages and conditions.
She was beaten by a police officer at a protest at 58. She was still getting arrested at 89.
She raised 11 children.
The first Latina in the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
A Presidential Medal of Freedom.
History too often filed her as the sidekick. She was the engine.
In 2024, she warned that “fascism, and voter suppression, is real.” Then she told us what to do about it: “We, the people, have the power to change things; if we organize, if we vote.”
Six days out from an election, there’s no better way to honor her.
