Dolores Huerta

Civil rights activist, community organizer
Dolores Huerta is inspired by a passion to spend most of her time pursuing social justice and civil rights.

Why you should listen

Dolores Huerta is a civil rights activist and community organizer. She has worked for labor rights and social justice for more than 50 years. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union. She served as vice president and played a critical role in many of the union's accomplishments for four decades. In 2002, she received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship, which she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF).

DHF is connecting groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters, advocate for education reform, bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities, advocate for greater equality for the LGBT community and create strong leadership development. She has received numerous awards including The Eleanor Roosevelt Humans Rights Award from President Clinton in 1998. In 2012, President Obama bestowed Huerta with The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Dolores Huerta’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Dolores Huerta

Live from TEDWomen

Showing up: Notes from Session 1 of TEDWomen 2018

November 29, 2018

Women the world over are no longer accepting the status quo. They’re showing up and pushing boundaries. Whatever their focus and talent — business, technology, art, science, politics — pioneers and their allies are joining forces in an explosion of discovery and ingenuity to drive real, meaningful change. At TEDWomen 2018 — three days of […]

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