At 93, civil rights activist Huerta ‘still raising hell’

Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, 93, “was still raising hell” as he introduced her at the Intercultural Development Research Association’s 50th anniversary gala Thursday night.

It was reminiscent of what former President Barack Obama said in 2012 when he awarded Huerta, who fought for the rights of farmworkers and others, the 2011 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.

Obama spoke about the seminal moment when César Chávez asked Huerta, a single mother of seven, to start a union with him.

“Dolores had been an elementary teacher and remembered seeing children come to school hungry and without shoes, so she did,” Obama said. “And workers everywhere are glad that she did.”

In 1962, Huerta co-founded the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America. Huerta served as a community activist and a political organizer. She was influential in securing the passage of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 and disability insurance for farmworkers in California.

Huerta thanked the Intercultural Development Research Association, or IDRA, for its 50 years of work in education policy across our country.

“But none of it would be possible without teachers,” Huerta told me during an interview before her speech

Thursday. “Teachers are going to go straight to heaven.”

Huerta said the work of teachers is critical and necessary.

“We have to do more to promote democracy, to promote civic engagement, to get people to vote,” she said. “Voting (in Texas) is dismal.”

IDRA’s gala was a celebration and vow to move forward in ensuring all students, especially historically underserved Black and Latino students and students from families with limited means, have equal educational opportunities.

Since 1973, San Antonio’s IDRA has advocated for equality of educational opportunity for every student. IDRA played a key role in landmark civil rights and school funding education court cases, including Rodríguez v. San Antonio ISD, which led to IDRA’s founding by former Edgewood ISD Superintendent José Cárdenas.

Celina Moreno, IDRA president and CEO, said she describes education across America as “the Texas three step.”

“Public schools are being defunded, demonized and privatized. We’re living in a time where so much of the progress that has been made over the last 50 years is at risk,” she said, mentioning how the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned 50 years of precedent “that we thought was well settled, because there’s a wellfunded and well-orchestrated effort to undermine public schools and undo gains.”

“But here’s the problem with that plan,” she said. “They don’t know on whose shoulders we stand. We stand on the shoulders of giants and geniuses and fighters and farmworkers . ... And because they don’t know, they underestimate our commitment to stand together to protect the legacy and the bright future of students across this nation.”

IDRA’s legacy is one of strengthening and transforming public education by providing educator training, research and policy advocacy. IDRA directs student and parent leadership programs to create schools that nourish all students.

The fight for students is far from over for IDRA, which has been lobbying against taxpayerfunded private school vouchers that threaten funding for public schools.

The slogan “Sí, se puede” filled the banquet hall Thursday night as Huerta, a giant though she is just taller than 5 feet, closed her riveting speech by leading the audience to stand and chant those words. She called on the hundreds in the audience to take action, to go forward and make a difference for students, the community and democracy.

Huerta