Political leaders and community organizers are commemorating the life and legacy of Dolores Huerta, the farmworker and civil-rights leader who died Wednesday at the age of 96, according to her family.
The United Farm Workers co-founder’s cause of death was cancer, family spokesperson Eric Olvera said during a phone call Wednesday with The Examiner. Huerta died at her family home in Bakersfield, according to The New York Times.
“We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away,” her family wrote in a social-media post the same day.
“This is an incredibly difficult time for us,” the family said, asking for privacy while they grieved Huerta’s death.
Plans to celebrate Huerta’s life and honor her civil-rights legacy would be shared at a later date, the family said in its post.
Huerta, who was born in New Mexico, was raised in nearby Stockton. She earned an associate degree in teaching at San Joaquin Delta College, according to the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas.
Huerta rose to prominence in the early 1960s alongside fellow activist Cesar Chavez. The pair launched the National Farm Workers Association, which became the UFW, acc...