Dolores Huerta remembered: a friend recalls her final hours as Bakersfield vigils and tributes pour in

A day after Dolores Huerta’s death at 96, the people who knew her are filling in the picture of her final hours, and communities across California are gathering to remember the organizer who gave the farmworker movement its rallying cry, “Sí, se puede.”

Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers, died of cancer Wednesday in Bakersfield, surrounded by family, according to a family statement. Her family has asked for privacy and said plans to recognize and celebrate her life will be announced later. No funeral or memorial service details had been released as of early Thursday.

How did Dolores Huerta die?

Her family said she died of cancer. Filmmaker Gregory Nava, the director of “Selena” and “Frida” and a friend for decades, told NBC Los Angeles he was with her on her last day. He said she had seemed like her old self only a few days earlier before her health declined quickly, and that she appeared at peace at the end.

“We played music for her,” Nava said. When they played a song he described as the anthem of the farmworker movement, he said, “that just affected her in a very powerful way because it summarized everything in that song that she went through.”

Nava said the two had discussed a film about her life, and that she told him, “I don’t want it to be about me,” and that she wanted it to “inspire a new generation of activists who fight for justice.” He said he now plans to finish the movie.

How is Bakersfield remembering her?

Within hours of her death, a makeshift altar of flowers and candles formed outside Martin’s Meats & Catering near downtown Bakersfield, where a mural of Huerta was recently completed, KVPR reported. Store owner Audrey Chavez said elected officials, candidates and neighbors had stopped by. “She was someone who challenged how things were and worked toward the way things ought to be,” Chavez said.

Family spokesperson Erik Olvera, whose grandparents were undocumented farmworkers, told KVPR that when Huerta walked into a room, “people would just go silent.” Bakersfield Vice Mayor Manpreet Kaur said she would not hold her office if not for Huerta.

What are leaders saying?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who ordered flags at the State Capitol lowered to half-staff, said Huerta “represented the best of us,” according to ABC7. Other tributes collected by ABC7 included:

• Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called her “a dear friend” whose rallying cry “inspired generations of Americans to believe in the power of collective action.”
• Sen. Alex Padilla said, “Now, it’s on all of us to carry on that torch.”
• San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said she “proved that one person can create widespread change.”

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions go to the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which she founded in 2003.

What did Dolores Huerta say about Cesar Chavez?

This is part of why Chavez’s name is in the news alongside hers. In March 2026, Huerta disclosed that Chavez had sexually assaulted her in the 1960s, as part of a New York Times investigation into abuse allegations against the late UFW co-founder, according to her foundation’s obituary and KVPR. She said she kept the secret for decades because she feared it could damage the farmworker movement. Chavez died in 1993.

Newsom referred to that in an interview quoted by ABC7, saying he couldn’t imagine “what she’s gone through in those last few months, with the revelations around Cesar.”

What did Dolores Huerta accomplish?

Her foundation’s obituary credits her with helping build the National Farm Workers Association with Chavez in 1962, negotiating contracts that brought farmworkers better wages and protections, and helping win California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, which gave farmworkers the right to organize and bargain collectively. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, and at least 11 schools bear her name, the foundation said.

Her advocacy extended to women’s political leadership, immigrant rights, pesticide protections and voting rights. Asked last year what she hoped people would remember, she told KVPR: “I hope that they would take away that all of us have power.”

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Earlier coverage: Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers co-founder and civil rights icon, dies at 96 (Oct 28)