An Intimate Look At One of the Most Important Activists of Our Time
Dolores Huerta, Film Subject and Activist
(San Francisco, CA, Thursday, March, 22 2018) – Dolores is the story of one of the most important, yet least known activists of our time, Dolores Huerta. Tirelessly leading the fight for racial and labor justice, Huerta evolved into one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century — and she continues the fight to this day, at 87. Dolores was an equal partner in founding the first farm workers union with César Chávez.
With unprecedented access to this intensely private mother of 11, the film Dolores chronicles Huerta’s life from her childhood to her early years with the United Farm Workers, from her work with the headline-making grape boycott launched in 1965 to her role in the feminist movement of the 70s to her continued work as a fearless activist.
Featuring interviews with Gloria Steinem, Luis Valdez, Hillary Clinton, Angela Davis, her children and more, Dolores is an intimate and inspiring portrait of a passionate champion of the oppressed and an indomitable woman willing to accept the personal sacrifices involved in committing one’s life to social change.
Dolores premieres on Independent Lens on Tuesday, March 27, 2018, from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET on PBS.
Huerta continues to work tirelessly developing leaders and advocating for the working poor, women and children as founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in March of 2013 and has received numerous awards including The Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Clinton in 1998, Ladies Home Journal’s “100 Most Important Woman of the 20th Century,” and nine Honorary Doctorates from U.S. universities. In 2012, President Obama bestowed on Huerta her most prestigious award, The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Dolores Clara Fernández was born on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, a small mining town in New Mexico; she spent most of her childhood and early adult life in Stockton, California, where she and her two brothers moved with their mother following their parents’ divorce. Independent and entrepreneurial, her mother was an active participant in community affairs.
It was in 1955 that she met a like-minded colleague, CSO Executive Director César E. Chávez. The two soon discovered that they shared a common vision of organizing farm workers and in 1962 they launched the National Farm Workers Association, which would evolve into the United Farm Workers and bring national attention to the conditions faced by farm laborers.