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At 95, labor rights leader and feminist activist Dolores Huerta brought a message of action to John R. Lewis High School in Springfield on Feb. 24, 2026: Young people already have the power to change their communities and the world.

“This is the best day of my life,” Huerta told the cheering students gathered in the school auditorium.

Interim Principal Matthew Johnson called the visit a historic moment centered on leadership, courage and the ability of young people to make a difference.

Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers’ Association in 1962. She crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, with civil rights leaders in 1965 while supporting the Voting Rights Act. Three years later, she was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, whom she supported, was assassinated.

Her visit began with members of the Lewis Leadership Lab, a class in which students develop solutions to challenges facing their school and community. Students had studied Huerta’s life and work before meeting her.

“A lot of our students, their passion is to give back, and that’s tied to [Huerta’s] whole career,” Johnson said.

During a discussion circle, Huerta and the students shared their hopes for the future and talked about helping others recognize their own influence.

Genesis, a ninth grader, said Huerta’s accomplishments were inspiring because achieving them could not have been easy.

Classmate Sophia said Huerta’s emphasis on individual agency stood out. Collective action matters, she said, but people must also understand that they can make even small changes themselves.

Another ninth grader, Zafira, connected that lesson to student activism she witnessed in her home country of Bangladesh. She said students came together and helped create a more peaceful country, demonstrating their ability to change the world.

Huerta later took questions from a larger group in the auditorium during a session moderated by Assistant Principal Erik Giblin.

Asked what gives her hope about today’s youth, Huerta pointed to social change driven by younger generations. She cited movements for workers’ rights, women’s suffrage, an end to the Vietnam War, LGBTQIA+ rights and action against climate change.

“Young people like yourself are the ones who did it,” she told the crowd as the applause grew.

Huerta ended the session by asking everyone to stand and join her in a call-and-response chant.

“Who’s got the power?” she asked.

“We got the power!” the students answered.

“What power?” Huerta called. “Student power!” the students answered.

The auditorium then erupted into rhythmic clapping and a united chant of Huerta’s famous rallying cry: “¡Sí se puede!”—“We can do it!”

Students and staff presented Huerta with a poster signed by student leaders. Deborah Sran, senior manager of the John R. Lewis Leadership program, said Huerta’s legacy shows that history is shaped by people’s choices and by actions both large and small.

Her hope, Sran said, is that Lewis students will recognize their collective ability to move history forward.