Dolores Huerta tells Texas Democrats to organize and “save democracy” in surprise convention appearance

By Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune
June 26, 2026

CORPUS CHRISTI — Dolores Huerta, the iconic Latina labor and civil rights leader, addressed Texas Democrats in a surprise Q&A on stage at the state party’s convention Friday, urging the crowd of rank-and-file activists to go all out in stirring up voter turnout this fall and calling for a massive local organizing push to turn Texas blue.

“The eyes of the world are going to be on Texas — what happens in Texas is going to affect the United States of America,” the 96-year-old Huerta said in conversation with Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones. “Every single person has got to commit between now and Election Day in November that we’re going to have to work very hard and just organize, organize, organize.”

Huerta is best known for co-founding what grew into the United Farm Workers of America union with Cesar Chavez, one of the nation’s most prominent Latino civil rights leaders. She has advocated for years for higher wages, labor protections and women’s rights.

Huerta ended her time on stage Friday by leading an ebullient crowd in chants of “sí, se puede,” the United Farm Workers motto she once coined — Spanish for “yes, you can” — that has gained widespread use in labor and political causes.

Her unannounced appearance at the convention in downtown Corpus Christi comes as Democrats in Texas and across the country are looking to reestablish themselves as the party of working people and win back Latino voters, particularly those in blue-collar jobs, who swung massively to the right in 2024. Ample polling has shown that many Latinos are returning to the Democratic fold amid discontent with Republicans for not delivering on pocketbook campaign promises.

In March, The New York Times published an explosive investigation in which Huerta and two other women alleged that Chavez, who died in 1993, had sexually abused them and promoted a culture of machismo that viewed women as “sex objects.”

Briones opened her Q&A with Huerta by asking how she navigated and stayed motivated while organizing in a male-dominated environment that subjected her to abuse.

“When we make our decisions, we think, how will this decision help what is the most important thing to me and the people I’m trying to help?” Huerta said. “We make the decisions in a selfless way, and always having faith in ourselves and the work that we’re doing, and thinking, how is this going to affect everyone else?”

In a statement after The New York Times’ report, Huerta detailed Chavez’ abuse and said, “I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. … The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people.”

Huerta urged Texas Democrats on Friday to get out the vote by organizing in their local communities and hosting gatherings, such as jewelry-making and Tupperware parties, to commit people to voting. She spoke about voting as the means to solve injustices and fight back against the Trump administration’s immigration and border security policy, and to pass the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment.

“All of the punishment that we have seen that has been spent on our community — I mean, if we’re not angry at this point, we should be,” she said. “The way you make change is by getting people together, taking direct action and making it political, getting people to vote. … It’s that simple.”

Yet, any major surge in turnout will require a herculean lift in Texas, which has spent decades logging among the lowest voting rates of any state in the country — most recently coming fifth-to-last in 2024.

As she prepared to leave the stage, Huerta led the crowd in a thunderous call and response that she said she wanted to reach the “haters”: “Who’s got the power?” she asked. “We’ve got the power!” Texas Democrats responded. “What kind of power?” she asked. “People power!”

“You are going to save democracy in Texas, you are going to save democracy in the United States of America,” Huerta said. “You are going to make an impact on the entire world. All of you right here, you can make this happen.”

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This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.