Dolores Huerta had spent decades advocating for labor rights and marginalized people when she went to a central California college and met a group of farmworkers’ descendants — many of them students who choked back tears over the then-94-year-old taking the time to listen to them.

That was the effect Huerta had on young people, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the Community and Labor Center at the University of California, Merced, which had hosted Huerta for the event.

“It was transformative,” Padilla said. “Something that I heard a lot from students in particular was just how accessible she was. That’s just what made Dolores a natural organizer, just an ability to connect immediately with really anyone.”

The activist and icon who helped improve the lives of laborers in farming and other industries died Wednesday from cancer at 96.…