Chavez was accused of Sєxually abusing girls and women during his era leading the United Farm Workers. The union’s co-founder Dolores Huerta said he Sєxually ᴀssaulted her, as well.

The late Cesar Chavez, one of the nation’s most prominent labor rights leaders, has been accused of Sєxually abusing girls and women in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was at the forefront of a movement to improve farmworkers’ rights.

Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta said in a statement that Chavez, her co-founder of what became the United Farm Workers, coerced her into having Sєx with him once and, on another occasion, she was raped.

“The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having Sєx with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” Huerta said in a statement published online. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Huerta first revealed her claims of Sєxual ᴀssault to The New York Times, which published an investigation Wednesday of allegations by her and two other women, who said they were 12 and 13 when Chavez first Sєxually molested them.

The newspaper said it relied on interviews with more than 60 people, including former top aides, relatives and former members of the United Farm Workers. It also combed union records, confidential emails, pH๏τographs and recordings of UFW board meetings.

Chavez, who was Mexican American, is one of the most celebrated and recognized Latinos in modern U.S. history and an inspiration to generations who credit his work with inspiring their own activism and causes. He died in 1993.

Many consider Chavez to be a civil rights hero. He has been honored at the highest levels of government, many streets are named after him, and he is a symbol of the longtime struggle for equality for Mexican Americans, the largest Latino group in the U.S., as well as for farmworkers.

The news has generated profound reverberations in the Mexican American and Latino communities.

In an initial statement, the Chavez family said it was “shocked and saddened” by the news that Chavez had “engaged in Sєxual impropriety with women and minors nearly 50 years ago”.

The family updated the statement Wednesday afternoon, saying the news was “deeply painful for our family” and repeating some of its earlier statement.

“We wish peace and healing to the survivors and commend their courage to come forward. As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report Sєxual abuse,” the family stated. “We carry our own memories of the person we knew. Someone whose life included work and contributions that matter deeply to many people.” The family said it remains “committed to farmworkers and the causes he and countless others championed and continue to champion.”