The 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change got off to a rousing start Thursday night in Denver when legendary social justice and labor leader Dolores Huerta gave a powerful call for justice for all in the opening plenary.
Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW), is a strong advocate and leading Latina voice for full equality for LGBT people. Speaking about how progressive groups, including those in the LGBT, labor, immigration reform, women and economic justice movements, need to work together, she told the crowd: “We need to educate each other’s movements to create change. ...
“We have to get out there and talk to those who even disagree with us. To paraphrase Gandhi, sometimes conflict is good because if there’s no conflict, there won’t be any change,” she continued. “This movement is about people saying, ‘I’m going to fight for my sexuality and who I am.’ It’s talking about truth but also talking about justice.”
Huerta reminded the audience, “We have a mandate to remove the ignorance from society until we get the human rights that we all deserve.” While quoting the first president of Mexico, Benito Juárez, when he famously said, “The respect of other people’s rights is peace,” she finalized with a passionate call for the coming together of the human race. While assuring that we will achieve equality and justice for all, she invited participants to join her in the chant that was made famous in her the struggle for farm workers: Si se puede!
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