Los Angeles County to Honor Dolores Huerta on her 95th Birthday

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will Tuesday vote on proclaiming Thursday as Dolores Huerta Day in honor of the labor and civil rights activist’s 95th birthday.

Dolores Clara Fernández was born on April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico and moved to Stockton, California at the age of 3 with her mother after her parents divorced.

Witnessing racism against Latino-Americans from early on inspired her towards activism. The National Museum of Women’s History lists two significant events she witnessed as a child, when a prejudiced schoolteacher accused her of cheating because her papers were too well-written and in 1945 at the end of World War II, white men brutally beat her brother for wearing a popular Latino fashion Zoot-Suit.

She took up her last name after marrying her second husband and fellow activist Ventura Huerta.

She received an associate teaching degree from the University of the Pacific’s Delta College and briefly taught school in the 1950s. Working with hungry farm children coming to school motivated her in organizing farmers and farm workers.

In 1955, she founded the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization which led voter registration drives and fought for economic stability for Latinos, according to the motion introduced by Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Huerta met activist César Chávez through an associate and in 1962, the pair founded the National Farm Workers Association, the predecessor of the United Farm Workers’ Union. Huerta served as UFW Vice President until 1999.

At the UFW, she negotiated contracts, and ardently advocated for safer working conditions including the elimination of harmful pesticides, unemployment and healthcare benefits for agricultural workers.

In 1973, Huerta led consumer boycott of grapes resulted in the ground- breaking California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the motion states.

Through her career, Huerta has worked to improve workers’ legislative representation and towards electing more Latinos and women to power.

Some of her numerous accolades include the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also the first Latina inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993.

“As founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, she travels across the country fighting for equity and civil rights,” Solis’ motion states. “Her contributions to California and Latinos across the country have inspired generations of leaders fighting for justice for all workers.”

In 2024, the board passed a motion proclaiming April 10 as Dolores Huerta Day and this year marks her 95th birthday.