Friday, NBC Bay Area spoke to Sarah Hurtes, one of the New York Times journalists who helped uncover the sexual assault allegations made against Cesar Chavez, long known as the father of the farmworker’s movement.

The article details the allegations made by Dolores Huerta as well as two other women, who say they were 12 and 13 when Chavez first sexually molested them.

“At first, the women did not want to tell their stories, it took a long time to have the trust that was required,” Hurtes said.

But it wasn’t just their stories.

Hurtes said reporters interviewed 60 other people including Chavez’s top aides and relatives. They also looked at hundreds of pages of union records, emails and photos.

“We found emails dating back 10 years, that were talking about the abuse of these very women, it took travelling across the country to access archival documents,” she explained.

New York Times investigative journalist Sarah Hurtes, who revealed the allegations against Cesar Chavez in her investigative reporter piece, joined NBC Bay Area’s Jessica Aguirre to talk about her findings and how the story came to fruition.

Hurtes said she is still in touch with the victims and has been speaking to them daily.

“I think it’s a different emotional state every day but largely, I think they feel happy with the reaction, but it’s overwhelming, one day at a time,” Hurtes said.

Dolores Huerta, who worked alongside Chavez for years, said she fathered two children by Chavez in secret. She was recently interviewed by Maria Hinojosa of Latino USA, where she explained that other survivors gave her the courage to also speak out

“I just want to say that I think the fact that the women survivors, who had this happen to them as girls, that they have had the courage to come out, I applaud them, their courage has given me the courage to come out,” Huerta said.

Conversations with survivors and staff whose words would not only expose a hidden pattern of abuse, but force a reckoning no one saw coming.

“Holding him accountable doesn’t take away the farmworkers movement, the struggle they faced, that they’re still facing today, the actions of this one man doesn’t undo what his movement and what the people in his movement did,” Hurtes said.