Dolores Huerta, Labor Leader and Civil Rights Champion, Dies at 96

Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer and civil rights activist who helped build the modern farm workers' movement in the United States, has died in California at the age of 96. Her family announced her death on Wednesday.

In a statement on social media, the family said: "We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96." They asked for privacy while they grieve, noting that many people around the world share in the mourning. They added that they would follow up with plans to recognize and celebrate her life and legacy.

Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers union (UFW) with Cesar Chavez, another veteran unionist and political activist. Through a series of strikes, boycotts and protests in the 1960s and 1970s, the union was credited with improving pay and working conditions for agricultural workers.

Born in New Mexico in 1930, she followed her father, a miner and farm worker, into union activism. She also worked in electoral politics, contributing to the presidential campaigns of several Democratic candidates. She helped Robert F Kennedy secure the party's 1968 nomination before he was assassinated, and later aided the elections of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Huerta is credited with coining "Sí, se puede!" (yes, we can), which became the UFW's slogan. Obama adapted the phrase as a rallying cry for his successful 2008 presidential campaign. The union has described her as Chavez's right hand, but also, on its website, as someone who "could also be the greatest thorn in his side." It said the two were known for heated arguments, which Huerta saw as a healthy part of any worthwhile collaboration.

The public picture of that partnership changed in March, one month before her 96th birthday. In interviews with the New York Times, Huerta said Chavez, who died in 1993, had raped her in a vehicle in a secluded California grape field during the winter of 1966, when she was 36. Her account came as allegations emerged that Chavez groomed and sexually abused a number of teenage girls. Huerta told the paper she did not report the assault because of the hostility of authorities toward the UFW and her fear that no one in the union would believe her.

Huerta later had a long-term domestic partnership with Chavez's brother, Richard, with whom she had four children. He died in 2011.

The UFW has said she was also a fierce advocate for women's rights and was "seemingly unaware of the tremendous impact she was having on not only farm worker women, but also young women everywhere."

Her name is carried by four elementary schools in California, one in Fort Worth, Texas, and a high school in Pueblo, Colorado. In 2012, Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award in the US, at a White House ceremony where she was one of 13 recipients.