9.1 Triumph of the Paraprofessionals, August 22, 1970

Teaching Labor's Story

9.1 Triumph of the Paraprofessionals, August 22, 1970

Photo: UFT President Albert Shanker and Bayard Rustin, October 6, 1970 (American Federation of Teachers), Courtesy of Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University and The Gotham Center for New York City History.

This opinion piece by civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin celebrates the signing of the first union contract for paraprofessional educators — community-based classroom and school support staff, nearly all of them black and Hispanic women — in New York City. It was published in the New York Amsterdam News, the city’s largest black-owned newspaper, in 1970.

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