Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta is the President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Her lifelong journey has been working as a community organizer and social justice activist for over 50 years.  

Dolores is a two time United States Presidential Award Recipient; she received the Medal of Freedom Award from President Obama in 2012, the highest civilian award in the United States, and the Eleanor D. Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Clinton in 1998. 

Huerta has played a major role in the American civil rights movement. Most notably she co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) with Cesar Chavez advocating for farm workers in this country. She is a founding board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation; she also serves on the board of Ms. Magazine. Numerous awards include the Ohtli award from the Mexican Government, the James Smithson Award from the Smithsonian Institution, the Icons of the American Civil Rights Movement Award, bestowed to her in 2011 by the National Civil Rights Museum. She also was named Ms. Magazine’s one of the three most important women of 1997, the Ladies Home Journal’s 100 most important woman of the 20th Century, she is a recipient of the Puffin Foundation award for Creative Citizenship as a Labor Leader in 1984, the Kern County woman of the year by the California State legislature, among many other accolades. She is a former UC Regent and has earned nine honorary doctorates from universities throughout the United States. Her most recent recognitions include her induction to the U. S. Department of Labor Hall of Honor. Dolores was also the first Latina inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.  

As one of the most famous and celebrated Latinas in the US, Huerta has been an advocate for social justice, women’s rights, and reproductive freedom and LBGT civil rights. She continues working to develop community leaders to advocate for the working poor, immigrants, women and youth through her work with the Dolores Huerta Foundation.  She speaks at universities and conference forums on issues of public policy, social justice, and advocacy influencing thousands of young people to serve their communities.