This year’s celebration of Dolores Huerta’s April 10 birthday also marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the grape strikers’ historic 25-day, 340-mile march—or peregrination (pilgrimage)—up the Central Valley from Delano to Sacramento. Dolores spoke on that momentous day representing the farm workers before a crowd of 10,000 on the state Capitol steps that greeted the 77 marchers who walked the entire route. She addressed herself directly to the Legislature and Gov. Pat Brown, who refused to be there to meet with the farm workers: “We say, you cannot close your eyes and ears to our needs any longer. You cannot pretend that we do not exist. You cannot plead ignorance to our problem because we are here and we embody our needs for you.”