New York Times interviews show Huerta said Chavez raped her in 1966

Huerta’s account emerged amid allegations Chavez abused teenage girls

In interviews published by the New York Times in March, one month before her 96th birthday, Huerta said her relationship with Chavez was darker than it had been publicly portrayed. As allegations emerged that Chavez, who died in 1993, had groomed and sexually abused a number of teenage girls, Huerta revealed that he had raped her during the winter of 1966 in a vehicle in a secluded California grape field.

Huerta said she was 36 at the time. She told the Times she did not report the assault because of authorities’ hostility to the UFW and a fear that nobody in the union would believe her.

Huerta died Wednesday in California at 96, her family said. “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96,” the family said in a statement on social media. “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. 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 co-founded the UFW with Chavez, another veteran unionist and political activist. The union was credited with improving pay and conditions for agricultural workers through a series of strikes, boycotts and protests in the 1960s and 1970s.

Huerta is credited with coining the phrase “Si, se puede!” (“yes, we can”), which became the slogan of the UFW and which Obama adapted as a rallying cry for his successful 2008 campaign for the White House.

The UFW said on its website that as well as serving as Chavez’s right hand at the union, she “could also be the greatest thorn in his side.” The union said: “The two were infamous for their blow out arguments, an element that was a natural part of their working relationship. Dolores viewed this as a healthy and necessary part of the growth process of any worthwhile collaboration.”

Huerta was later engaged in a long-term domestic partnership and had four children with Chavez’s brother Richard, who died in 2011.

Huerta was born in New Mexico in 1930 and followed her father, a miner and farm worker, into union activism. As a political operative, she worked on the presidential campaigns of several Democratic Party candidates, including helping Robert F. Kennedy secure the party’s 1968 nomination before his assassination, and aiding the elections of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The UFW said Huerta was “seemingly unaware of the tremendous impact she was having on not only farm worker women, but also young women everywhere” as a fierce advocate for women’s rights.

Four elementary schools in California, one in Fort Worth, Texas, and a high school in Pueblo, Colorado, are named after her. In 2012, Obama awarded Huerta the Presidential Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award in the US, in a ceremony at the White House; she was among 13 people receiving the award.