Huerta was born on April 10, 1930, in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico. She is the second child and only daughter of Juan Fernández and Alicia Chávez. Juan Fernández was born in Dawson to a Mexican immigrant family, and worked as a coal miner. Later, he joined the migrant labor force, and harvested beets in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. When Huerta was young, she would hear her father tell stories about union organizing. After her parents divorced when she was three years old, she seldom saw her father. He stayed in New Mexico, and served in the state legislature in 1938.

In 1955, Huerta along with Fred Ross co-founded and organized the Stockton Chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), which fought for economic improvements for Latinx/Mexican/Chicano migrant Farm workers. Due to her dedication and willingness to serve, Ross often delegated huge responsibilities to her. He knew she was capable of delivering the organization’s message in Spanish and English and promoted the agenda from door to door field organizing. “As she assumed responsibilities and stance that were traditionally held by white males, Huerta encountered criticism based on both gender and ethnic stereotypes”.

In 1960, Huerta co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association, which set up voter registration drives and pressed local governments for barrio improvements. In 1962, she co-founded, with César Chávez, the National Farm Workers Association, which would later become the United Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. Huerta was the only woman to ever sit on the board of the UFW, until 2018. In 1966, she negotiated a contract between the UFWOC and Schenley Wine Company, marking the first time that farm workers were able to effectively bargain with an agricultural enterprise.

But Chavez and Huerta quickly realized that they shared a common goal of helping improve the lives and wages of farmworkers, so they co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. In 1962, after the CSO turned down Chávez’s request, as their president, to organize farmworkers, Chávez and Huerta resigned from the CSO. She went to work for the National Farm Workers Association, which would later merge with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. “Dolores’s organizing skills were essential to the growth of this budding organization.” The Original UFW house is located in the city of Los Angeles.

In 1965, Huerta directed the UFW’s national boycott during the Delano grape strike, taking the plight of the farm workers to the consumers. She led the organization of boycotts advocating for consumer rights. The boycott resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers in 1970.

On June 5, 1968, Huerta stood beside Robert F. Kennedy on the speaker’s platform at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as he delivered a victory statement to his political supporters shortly after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election. Only moments after the candidate finished his speech, Kennedy and five other people were wounded by gunfire inside the hotel’s kitchen pantry. Kennedy died from his gunshot wounds on June 6.

Asteroid 6849 Doloreshuerta, discovered by American astronomers Eleanor Helin and Schelte Bus at Palomar Observatory in 1979, was named in her honor. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on August 27, 2019 (M.P.C. 115893).

In September 1988, in front of the St. Francis Hotel in Union Square, Huerta was severely beaten by San Francisco Police officer Frank Achim during a peaceful and lawful protest of the policies/platform of then-candidate for president George H.W. Bush. The baton-beating caused significant internal injuries to her torso, resulting in several broken ribs and requiring the removal of her spleen in emergency surgery. The beating was caught on videotape and broadcast widely on local television news. Later, Huerta won a large judgment against the SFPD and the City of San Francisco for the attack, the proceeds of which she used for the benefit of farm workers. As a result of this assault and the suit, the SFPD was pressured to change its crowd control policies and its process of officer discipline.

Following a lengthy recovery, Huerta took a leave of absence from the union to focus on women’s rights. She traversed the country for two years on behalf of the Feminist Majority’s Feminization of Power: 50/50 by the year 2000 Campaign encouraging Latinas to run for office. The campaign resulted in a significant increase in the number of women representatives elected at the local, state and federal levels. She also served as National Chair of the 21st Century Party, founded in 1992 on the principles that women make up 52% of the party’s candidates and that officers must reflect the ethnic diversity of the nation.

Huerta was named one of the three most important women of the year in 1997 by Ms. magazine. She was an inaugural recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights from President Bill Clinton in 1998. That same year, Ladies’ Home Journal recognized her as one of the ‘100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century’, along with such women leaders as Mother Teresa, Margaret Thatcher, Rosa Parks, and Indira Gandhi.

Huerta is president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which she founded in 2002. It is a 501(c)(3) “community benefit organization that organizes at the grassroots level, engaging and developing natural leaders. DHF creates leadership opportunities for community organizing, leadership development, civic engagement, and policy advocacy in the following priority areas: health & environment, education & youth development, and economic development.”

She was awarded the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship in 2002. On September 30, 2005, she became an honorary sister of Kappa Delta Chi sorority (Alpha Alpha chapter – Wichita State University). She received an honorary degree from Princeton University in recognition of her numerous achievements May 2006. She was lauded in the ceremony: “Through her insatiable hunger of justice—La Causa—and her tireless advocacy, she has devoted her life to creative, compassionate, and committed citizenship.” She was co-recipient (along with Virgilio Elizondo) of the 2007 Community of Christ International Peace Award .

On May 18, 2007, she announced her endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, and at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Huerta formally placed Clinton’s name into nomination. Also in 2008, Huerta received the “Maggie” Award, highest honor of the Planned Parenthood Federation, in tribute to their founder, Margaret Sanger.

She was recognized in 2008 by United Neighborhood Centers of America with its highest individual honor, the Jane Addams Distinguished Leadership Award at its National Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. She was awarded the UCLA Medal, UCLA’s highest honor, during the UCLA College of Letters and Science commencement ceremony on June 12, 2009.

In October 2010, Huerta was awarded an honorary degree by Mills College, who lauded her as “a lifetime champion of social justice whose courageous leadership garnered unprecedented national support from farmworkers, women, and underserved communities in a landmark quest for human and civil rights”. The same month, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by University of the Pacific, which unveiled an official portrait of her for the Architects of Peace Project by artist Michael Collopy.

Later, Huerta had a romantic relationship with Richard Chavez, the brother of César Chávez. Huerta and Chávez never married, but the couple had four children during their relationship. Richard Chávez died on July 27, 2011.

Huerta received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on May 29, 2012.

Four elementary schools in California; one school in Fort Worth, Texas; and a high school in Pueblo, Colorado, are named after Huerta. Pitzer College, in Claremont, California has a mural in front of Holden Hall dedicated to her. A middle school in the major agricultural city of Salinas, California, which has a dense population of farm workers, was named in 2014 after her. She was a speaker at the first and tenth César Chávez Convocation. In 2013, Huerta received the annual Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, given by Jefferson Awards.

In 2014, Dolores Huerta organized people in Colorado to vote against Amendment 67, which would limit a woman’s access to birth control, family planning services, and abortions. Amendment 67 extended the definition of “person” and “child” to fertilized egg. Many call this amendment a “trigger law” meaning if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned the law would be “triggered”, automatically banning all abortions, even in the case of rape, incest, or the save the life or health of the woman. Amendment 67 would not only restrict all access to birth control and abortions, but it would also subject any woman whose pregnancy did not result in a live birth, including women who have a miscarriage, to a criminal investigation.

On November 17, 2015, Dolores Huerta was bestowed the highest decoration a foreign national can receive from the country of Mexico for her years of service helping the Mexican community in the United States fighting for equal pay, dignity in the workplace, and fair employment practices in the farms of Northern California like Stockton, Salinas, and Delano.

There have been several ‘victories’ along the way for this foundation. For example, the registration of more than 1,000 young immigrant voters in Kern and Tulare counties. They also have “secured millions of dollars for local infrastructures such as new sewer connections, street lights, sidewalks, and gutters in Lamont and Weedpatch from 2007-2015.” Education is one of the biggest priorities for the organization and had a historic win in 2017 where the Kern High School District “agreed to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of Latino and Black students for disproportionately suspending students of color due to implicit bias.” The district now has positive disciple practices and provides training to all staff members.

Huerta was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Mount Holyoke College, where she delivered the commencement address, on May 21, 2017.

Huerta was honored by California State University, Los Angeles in October 2017 with its highest honor, the Presidential Medallion.

Huerta was an honorary co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as president.

In July 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 2455, by Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes, designating April 10 each year as Dolores Huerta Day. In March 2019, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed a measure also designating April 10 each year as Dolores Huerta Day.