At an event on Tuesday, April 27, 2021, California State University, Bakersfield and the CSU Chancellor's Office honored Dolores Huerta, American labor leader and civil rights activist, for her many contributions to our community, to students, to California and to farm workers' rights.
Dolores Huerta is founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. Huerta is a civil rights activist and community organizer. She has worked for labor rights and social justice for over 50 years.
She served as vice president and played a critical role in many of the union’s accomplishments for four decades. In 2002, she received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship which she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). DHF is connecting groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters; advocate for education reform; bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities; advocate for greater equality for the LGBT community; and create strong leadership development.
She has received numerous awards, among them the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights from President Clinton in 1998. In 2012, President Obama bestowed Dolores with The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
"In the fertile fields of our Valley, Dolores Huerta became the mother of ‘La Causa,’ a movement born of her belief that all humans, especially the disenfranchised — farmworkers, immigrants, the poor — deserve justice, self-determination and dignity," said CSUB President Lynnette Zelezny. "When this heroic and iconic leader visits our campus, students flock to her and thank her for the legacy she inspires each of them to emulate. Viva, La Causa! Viva, Dolores!"
The 23 campuses in the CSU system have celebrated Huerta in a variety of ways. They established benches in her honor, planted trees, created murals and plaques, named boardrooms/on-campus spaces, and gave her awards.
In 2018, former CSUB President Horace Mitchell (now retired) presented the campus's President's Medal to Huerta, describing her as “a living legend … an icon whose name is synonymous with civil rights."
More recently, a CSUB bench with a plaque was established in recognition of Huerta, next to a tree planted in her honor. In addition, on April 27, CSUB presented Huerta with a book detailing the ways in which each CSU campus celebrates her impact.
The event was a belated birthday gift to Huerta, who celebrated her 91st birthday on April 10.
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