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Lecture: Dolores C. Huerta
Thursday, April 23, 2009, 8:00pm
Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW). The mother of 11 children, 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, Huerta has played a major role in the American civil rights movement. As a founding member of the Community Service Organization (CSO,) a grass roots organization, Dolores Huerta helped battle segregation and police brutality, lead voter registration drives, push for improved public services and fight to enact new legislation. Recognizing the needs of farm workers while working for the CSO, she organized and founded the Agricultural Workers Association. She became a fearless lobbyist and succeeded in obtaining the citizenship requirements removed from pension and public assistance programs. Huerta led the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) and negotiated the first UFWOC contract with the Schenley Wine Company. This was the first time in the history of the United States that a negotiating committee comprised of farm workers negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with an agricultural corporation. Speaking out against toxic pesticides threatening farm workers, consumers, and the environment, Huerta’s early UFWOC agreements required growers to stop using such dangerous pesticides as DDT and Parathyon. She lobbied, organized field strikes, directed UFW boycotts, and led farm worker campaigns for political candidates, becoming one of the UFW’s most visible spokespersons. Over 70, Dolores Huerta still works long hours for the union she co-founded and nurtured, promoting “La Causa” (the farmworkers’ cause) and women’s rights. For more than thirty years Huerta remained Cesar Chavez’s most loyal and trusted advisor.
Thursday, April 23, 2009, 8:00pm
Dolores Huerta
NEIU Auditorium
Enter campus at
3701 W. Bryn Mawr in Chicago
Free parking in Lot F
773-442-4636
773-442-4978
All lectures are free and open to the public.
