Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with well known 1960s labor activist César Chávez and is currently vice president of the California AFL-CIO, began by paying tribute to King and reminding the audience of his commitment to labor and peace. "Dr. King was killed in Memphis, Tennessee when he was right in the middle of organizing the garbage workers," Huerta said.
Huerta went on to emphasize the importance of labor unions. "If you compare the farm worker and the employer, who needs an organization to represent them? I think it's obvious, right?" Huerta said, after pointing out how many organizations exist to represent the interests of agribusiness.
Huerta exhorted students to use their diplomas and their skills to make a difference. She told the story of a young man named Bill, or Guillermo in Spanish, who came from a humble background and went on to attend college. Whenever anyone asked what had happened to Guillermo, those who knew him well replied that he had gone to college to learn "como chingar al pobre"-how to screw the poor person.
"You've got to go out there and use whatever skills you learn to make the world a better place," Huerta said. "You can only eat three meals a day. You can only wear one suit a day. I'm not against building wealth, [but you must] use that wealth, that power, to help other people, because when you die, you can't take it with you."
In rallying students to action, Huerta spoke of her own experiences working alongside Chávez in the 1960s. Besides co-founding the United Farm Workers of America, Huerta spearheaded the national grape boycott that, at its height, inspired 14 million Americans to stop eating grapes in solidarity with farm workers.
"[Chávez] said to me, 'You know, farm workers will never have a union unless you and I do it,'" Huerta said. "I thought he was kidding. Of course, he wasn't. There is no reason why farm workers should not be earning as much money as any other worker[s]."
Huerta then discussed the necessity of fighting racism. After pointing out that in the United States today African-Americans and Latinos represent 90 percent of judicial convictions despite being involved in only 50 percent of the cases tried, Huerta told a story about a high school principal who said of African American and Latino students, "Don't bother teaching them. They're all going to go to prison anyway."
Huerta explained that she makes a point of speaking up whenever she hears bigoted comments. When she heard the man next to her on her flight to Amherst make anti-Semitic remarks, she told him the comment really bothered her. When he asked why, she responded, "Because I'm Jewish."
"Sometimes it becomes uncomfortable, but you know, that's okay," Huerta said. "Racism is a cancer we have in society, and we just have to get rid of it."
Huerta also pointed out the importance of fighting for gender equality. "If we don't have women in all those places where decisions are made … [the people who are there are] going to make the wrong decision," Huerta said. "We've got to butt in. They need our voices in there."
Before opening the lecture to a question-and-answer session, Huerta led the audience in a round of shouts of support for King, for peace and justice and for Chávez. The audience rose to its feet and joined in yells of "Viva!," "Sí se puede!" and "Wozani!"
Students had a variety of reactions to Huerta. "From the responses I got from other people, yeah, she's one of the best MLK speakers we've had in the years I've been here," said Pablo Ruiz '05. "She's in her 70s and she's still doing this. That just shows her utter passion for civil rights. It was not so much what she spoke but what she represented that struck me."
As a student representative on the MLK committee, Ruiz had initially suggested Huerta as a speaker after hearing Angelica Corral '05 tell of how much Huerta had inspired her when she heard Huerta speak at the 2000 National Youth Convention.
"Dolores' energy is contagious, and hearing her speak truly sparked my activism career in high school," Corral said.
"Since that moment, Dolores Huerta has remained a very influential figure in my life. She taught me pride and responsibility-that same pride in my history and responsibility to help others are two things that I carry everywhere with me. At 16, hearing that message was huge."
Hearing Huerta speak again gave Corral renewed strength, she said. "College life has made it harder for me to be as active as I was in high school. Here I'll go to a couple marches and rallies, donate to a good cause and be satisfied with my involvement," Corral said. "The truth is, we are each capable of doing so much."
Ruiz took the same message away from the lecture. "She made me feel like she's placing some of the burden on us now, because we're the new generation," Ruiz said. "And it is a burden. Do you know how hard it is to fight for civil rights? It's toil; it's hard work. It made me feel less like I could lay on her laurels."
Not everyone was entirely satisfied with Huerta's lecture. Michael Simmons '06E asked Huerta about the AFL-CIO's lackluster support for African-American and Latino candidates for public office in areas where those groups are not the majority.
"Her response was, in my opinion, unsatisfactory. She basically said she was not the AFL-CIO-though she supports labor unions-and posited that the phenomenon I mentioned was just 'politics,'" Simmons said. "But it saddens me that politics, we can conclude from that response, still sharply and consistently follows the color line-even in liberal organizations purporting to fight for the oppressed."
Simmons, however, appreciated Huerta's portrayal of racism as a cancer. Most students seemed to be impressed with her as a speaker.
"She's on a first-name basis with César Chávez. That's huge," said Tamara Pompey '06. "I was amazed at how she was able to transform the stories of her experiences into a call to action," she added.