Labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta encouraged audience members to become activists for political change during her lecture at Sacramento State on Thursday.

“We have to make change in this country by getting involved in political action and applying direct pressure on politicians,” Huerta said.

As Huerta, who founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez in 1962, took the stage, the audience rose to give her a standing ovation.

“There are so many issues confronting us that it is hard to know where to begin,” Huerta said.

Huerta spoke for more than an hour and a half on topics centering around the theme of social justice, including education, women’s rights, the labor movement, racism, corporate greed, gay and lesbian rights, health care, the war in Iraq and free trade.

Speaking to student concerns about the state of education in the U.S., Huerta said that the national trend of reducing the amount of money for education is dangerous.

“We cannot continue to be the leaders of the free world if our citizens are not educated,” she said. “If citizens are not educated, the greedy and corrupt take control of the country. That is what we see happening now.”

While she felt there is nothing wrong with creating and accumulating wealth, Huerta said it should be used to benefit everyone, and there are more important things people can do.

“Leave your children a love of justice when you die,” she said.

For Cyndi Long, a graduate student in social work, this message was what struck her most about Huerta’s lecture.

“That was an amazing way to bring home the theme of social justice,” Long said. “I have never heard it put that way before.”

Huerta also stressed that though there are many ethnicities and nationalities in the world, there is only one race – the human race.

“If we don’t come together, organize together, and fight together we cannot win,” she said.

“I learned that no matter what race we come from we are all connected no matter what your last name is,” said 9-year-old Jasmine Carter, who came to the lecture with her mother Angela Carter and her Girl Scout troop.

Todd Wilson can be reached at [email protected].