Civil Rights Icon Dolores Huerta: Tireless Rights Advocate — And Jazz Fan

Activist, hero, rebel, icon; those are just of the few of the adjectives often used in front of Dolores Huerta's name. They are well-deserved — for her part as a co-founder of a '60s labor movement, standing up for the rights of farm workers in this country, Dolores Huerta was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in May of 2012.

(Those who have long thought that Huerta's work was unfairly overshadowed by the legend of Cesar Chavez, with whom she worked closely, can celebrate the release of the documentary Dolores, a frank, in-depth examination of her life and her work.)

Alt.Latino is honored to have Dolores Huerta as our guest this week. We talk about history, politics, Chicano civil rights and... jazz! It turns out Huerta has been a major jazz fan her entire life, and very humbly describes her "claim to fame" as having once met jazz giant Charlie Parker.

So we turn the controls over to her as she becomes DJ for a day, playing a few of her favorite tracks and sharing the messages of the music as she hears them. It was multifaceted, complex chat — we would expect nothing less.

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