Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association and helped lead the United Farm Workers, died Wednesday at 96 at her home in Bakersfield, California, her family said through the Dolores Huerta Foundation².

A family spokesperson told ABC News the cause was cancer¹. The foundation said she died Oct. 28 surrounded by close family².

ABC News reported that she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez and Gilbert Padilla, an organization that became the United Farm Workers and negotiated the first farmworker union contracts in U.S. history¹.

The 19th, in an account carried by Minnesota Reformer, said she left classroom teaching in California's Central Valley to organize farmworker families and later helped join the Delano grape strike that began in 1965³.

The union and The 19th credited her with the Spanish-language motto Sí se puede, a slogan later used by other U.S. politicians^1,3. UFW President Teresa Romero said her work left farm workers and Latino communities more organized than she found them¹.

The foundation said she had lobbied in Sacramento for measures including Spanish-language driver's license exams and disability insurance for agricultural workers before the UFW years².

Minnesota Reformer, carrying The 19th, said she served as a lead negotiator on grape contracts, later helped found the Coalition of Labor Union Women, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012³.

Nevada Current reported tributes from state lawmakers and the Nevada AFL-CIO and noted a North Las Vegas resource center named for her⁴. A 2025 Nevada bill to proclaim April 10 Dolores Huerta Day was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, the Current said⁴.

The family asked for privacy and said it would announce plans to recognize her life^1,2.