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- Dolores Huerta Merits Our Highest Honor
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- Dick Meister
No one has been more deserving of our highest civilian honor than Dolores Huerta, who has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Piece Description
No one has been more deserving of our highest civilian honor than Dolores Huerta, who has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Broadcast History
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Transcript
How fitting it is that Dolores Huerta has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her many years of hard and invaluable work for union rights and civil rights generally deserve no less than the country's highest civilian honor, bestowed on her on last month by President Obama.
Huerta, now a vibrant 80 years old, has had a remarkable career spanning more than a half-century. She's probably best known for her work with Cesar Chavez in the founding and operations of the United Farm Workers union. But that's been just part of her lifelong and extraordinarily successful and courageous fight for economic and social justice.
Huerta, five-foot-two, 110 pounds, hardly looks the part. What's more, she's had 11 children to raise along the way, much of the time as a single mother. She's traveled the country, speaking out and joining demonstrations in behalf of a wide variety of causes.
Intro and Outro
INTRO:Commentator Dick Meister says President Obama has honored one of our greatest labor and civil rights activists.
OUTRO:Dick Meister is co-author of "A Long Time Coming: The Struggle To Unionize America's Farm Workers."
