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Dolores Huerta, Labor and Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 96

by Bill Trott, Reuters 10-28-2026
Dolores Huerta poses for a portrait outside the Dolores Huerta Foundation headquarters in California’s 22nd congressional district in Bakersfield, on Sept. 19, 2024. The 96-year-old renowned American labor leader and civil rights activist cofounded the United Farm Workers union and worked for decades on civil and human rights. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Dolores Huerta, who cofounded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez and fought legislators and powerful growers in the US to improve the lives of a previously powerless constituency, died on Wednesday at the age of 96, her family said in a statement.

Huerta was one of the foremost women in U.S. labor history, serving the UFW as chief negotiator, strike organizer, lobbyist ,and reformer during its heyday in the 1960s and ‘70s in California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.

Thanks to the contracts the UFW negotiated, farmworkers won job security, healthcare, retirement plans, a credit union and job-specific benefits such as guaranteed rest periods, toilets in the fields, clean drinking water and protection from pesticides.

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'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin Dies at 76

by Bill Trott, Reuters 08-16-2018

FILE PHOTO - Aretha Franklin sings during the inauguration ceremony for President-elect Barack Obama in Washington, Jan. 20, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo

Franklin started touring as part of her father's gospel show as a teenager and got a musical education from gospel greats of the time — the Staple Singers, the Soul Stirrers, James Cleveland and The Mighty Clouds of Joy.

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