Latino Heritage Month
Opening Ceremony
“Making History and
Fighting for Those Who Cannot Fight”
Featuring
Dolores Huerta
TUESDAY
SEPTEMBER 18, 2007 5:00 PM
TRABANT MPR A/B
Co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers ofAmerica, AFL-CIO (UFW), Dolores C. Huerta has played a major role in the American civil rights movement. As a founding member of the Community Service Organization (CSO), she helped battle segregation and police brutality, and was instrumental in the passage of legislation allowing farmers the right to vote and take the driver’s exam in Spanish. In 1962, she joined Cesar Chavez in forming the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which was later named the United Farm Workers Union (UFW). Together Huerta and Chavez founded the Robert F. Kennedy Medical Plan, the Juan De La Cruz Farm Worker Pension Fund, the Farm Workers Credit Union, and the first medical and pension plan for farm workers. They also formed the National Farm Workers Service Center Inc, a community based affordable housing and Spanish language radio communications organization. Over the years she has been very involved in organizing farm workers, boycotting, striking, and educating legislators about the inadequate living conditions, poor health, and extreme poverty level of farm laborers.
The California State Senate has bestowed upon Huerta the Outstanding Labor Leader Award and she has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She is the recipient of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award and the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom. She has also been featured as one of Ladies Home Journal’s “100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century.”
Reception
5:00 pm
Dolores Huerta Lecture
5:30 pm
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