Dolores Huerta starts foundation to promote organizing

By JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) If anyone deserves a quiet retirement it's Dolores Huerta, but the co-founder of the United Farm Workers, who raised 11 children even as she led marches and strikes that repeatedly put her in hospitals and jails, isn't slowing down.

She re-learned how to walk in time to march on Sacramento last year after a near-fatal aneurism left her incapacitated. And now she's giving away a $100,000 award she recently received for her lifetime of service, to launch a new foundation in her name.

The award will be seed money for the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which will train grassroots activists in the kind of person-to-person organizing Huerta and Cesar Chavez made the cornerstone of the UFW.

``Immigrants are the new civil rights movement,'' said Huerta. ``There is a backlash against them, and they need to know how they can participate in the political process.''

Huerta announced the effort at a gathering last week of activists and politicians that was a who's who of California's labor and immigrant rights movement.

The boisterous crowd punctuated the evening Thursday with the staccato of applause and the rallying songs that have become trademarks at labor actions, and people spoke with pride and visible emotion of the legacy of Huerta, a woman Chavez called ``totally fearless'' in her drive to improve working conditions in California's fields.

The fund-raiser also honored Fred Ross, Sr., the civil rights icon Huerta credits with teaching her and Chavez the craft of organizing.

``Workers are still fighting for dignity, respect and decent working conditions, and each worker is inspired by those who came before, who taught us how to fight, and how to win,'' said Triana Silton, the janitors' union's director of building services.

Others remembered how the labor leaders took over their lives, bringing change and a sense of purpose.

``Make no mistake about it, if I'm the former speaker of the state assembly and state representative for Los Angeles, it's because there was a civil rights movement, and there was a Dolores Huerta and a Fred Ross,'' said Los Angeles City Councilmember Antonio Villaraigosa.

Huerta's half-century as a UFW organizer began in 1955, when frustration led her to stop teaching the hungry children of farm workers and organize their parents instead. She joined Ross' Community Service Organization, whose members went on to help lead the civil rights movement.

A few years later she partnered with Chavez to found the UFW at a time when the AFL-CIO thought migrant farmworkers couldn't be organized. Her leadership pushed the union through the international grape boycott, which culminated in UFW's first contract. Huerta hasn't stopped since.

Huerta, still working the crowd at 73, said their struggle is far from over, and will be carried on by her foundation.

``More than ever, we need to develop grass roots, indigenous leaders,'' Huerta said. ``People need to know they have power, and it needs to come from the bottom up.''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)