During a recent get out the vote rally with former President Barack Obama, one of the featured speakers was well-known activist Dolores Huerta who is now in her 90s.
You may remember the strikes by farmworkers in the 1960s, Bobby Kennedy’s efforts in support of the Farm Workers Union, the grape boycotts, Cesar Chavez’s hunger strike ... Huerta has been a central figure in each of these events.
Books, documentaries and movies have been made about her life; streets and parks have been named after her.
Despite all this recognition, Huerta is not slowing down. At 92, she is still an activist.
"If whatever comes out of this work I've done, if it can touch other people, and make them understand that they have a role in civic life, they can also be activists and that this is the way that we change the world," she said.
Huerta said she admires how today's technology is such a powerful tool to organize and mobilize, but said a personal connection is still important.
When she speaks with students, she reminds them they have the power to change the world.
"It’s great that we protest and mobilize to get people to know what our issues are, but at the end of the day, every policy that we want changed, we have to put it into a law," she said. "A law that can be implemented, that can be enforced and that the people who are supposed to enforce that law can be held accountable. Because this is the way that we change it. This is the way democracy works.”
