Dolores Huerta, Labor Icon and Longtime LGBTQ+ Ally, Dies at 96

This story originally appeared on The Advocate.Dolores Huerta, the labor rights activist, civil rights leader, and United Farm Workers co-founder, died Wednesday surrounded by family at her home in Bakersfield, California. She was 96.Family spokesperson Erik Olvera told The Associated Press that she died of breast cancer.“As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family,” Huerta’s family said in a statement. “We know that many of you around the world share in our mourning, and we will be following up on plans to recognize and celebrate her incredible life and legacy.”Huerta inspired generations of farmworkers, Latinos, feminists, and civil rights organizers with the words “Sí, se puede,” which translate to “Yes, it can be done.” The phrase became a rallying cry for social justice movements across generations.“We have lost a revolutionary in the civil rights movement. Dolores Huerta dedicated her life to fighting at the intersection of working people, women, immigrants, and communities too often left behind and out of history books,” Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendoner wrote in a statement. “She understood that justice cannot be selective, and she stood with LGBTQ+ people decades ago, long before that solidarity was popular or politically easy.”Related: Meet the masc lesbian judge challenging the justice cis-tem with lived experienceBorn in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico, Huerta was exposed to union organizing early on. Her father, a coal miner, was a member of the United Mine Workers, and her mother, Alicia Chavez, later worked as a unionized cannery worker after her parents divorced. She began organizing farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley after working as an elementary school teacher and seeing the poverty her students faced.“I couldn't tolerate seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes,” she said, according to The 19th. “I thought