Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer who co-founded the United Farm Workers and gave the movement its rallying cry "Si se puede," has died at 96. Her family announced her death on her Instagram account.

Huerta was one of the best-known Latina civil rights leaders in the country. With Cesar Chavez she built the United Farm Workers. The union fought for better pay and conditions for farmworkers, most of them Latino.

Her phrase "Si se puede," or "Yes, we can," spread far beyond the fields. It became a chant at marches and rallies for decades.

From the classroom to the fields

Huerta was born in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico. She grew up in Stockton, California. She worked as a teacher before turning to organizing full time.

A lifetime of activism

Huerta kept fighting long after her UFW years. She pushed for voting rights, immigrant rights and women's rights. She was arrested more than 25 times for nonviolent protest. One arrest came in 2019, when she was 89.

She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Earlier this year Huerta revealed in a New York Times investigation that Chavez had sexually abused her during their years building the union.

She leaves behind a large family and a movement that changed the lives of millions of workers.