Dolores Huerta Dies at 96 as Austin Weighs the Future of Cesar Chavez Street

Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer who helped build the nation's first recognized farmworkers' union, died Wednesday at her home in Bakersfield, California. She was 96. Her family announced the death in a statement released through the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and a family spokesperson, Erik Olvera, told the Associated Press she died of cancer, surrounded by loved ones.

Huerta was born Dolores Fernandez on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico, and raised in Stockton, California. She trained as a teacher, left the classroom, and went on to co-found, alongside Cesar Chavez, the organization that became the United Farm Workers - negotiating contracts, lobbying in Sacramento and Washington, and enduring the five-year Delano grape boycott. The phrase most associated with her, 'Si, se puede' - yes, it can be done - traveled far beyond the fields, into labor halls and presidential campaigns. Her honors included the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and California marks her birthday, April 10, as Dolores Huerta Day. She was still appearing in public in her mid-90s; in 2025 she spoke at a rally at the Texas Capitol in Austin, leading the crowd in her signature chant.

Her death arrives while Austin is in the middle of a decision about the movement's other name. Cesar Chavez Street - the downtown and East Austin thoroughfare renamed from 1st Street by the City Council in September 1993 - has been under review since a New York Times investigation in March 2026 reported allegations of sexual abuse against Chavez, who died in 1993; Huerta addressed the allegations in a public statement of her own this year. Several council members asked City Manager T.C. Broadnax to develop a community outreach plan and a cost estimate, the city held three community meetings and an online survey, and the Downtown Commission weighed in with a recommendation supporting a change. KXAN has reported that a renaming could cost as much as $1.2 million, much of it for highway signage, and could take 18 months or longer; a change also requires majority support from property owners along the street, an emergency services review and a council vote. A staff recommendation was expected this fall.

Tributes crossed the country's politics on Wednesday. 'Dolores Huerta was an American hero,' Texas Senate candidate James Talarico wrote in a public post. In Austin, the question her death leaves behind is a practical one with her life's work inside it: what the city writes on the street signs of the road that carries her co-founder's name - a decision the council has not yet taken. Funeral and memorial arrangements had not been widely reported as of Thursday morning.