General News
UFTers toast new bio of teacher union leader Al Shanker
Sep 20, 2007 3:15 PM
Author Richard Kahlenberg autographs the book for UFT Teacher Center staffer Maureen Ciano.
They threw a book party at UFT headquarters on Sept. 10. It looked like a reunion of the Shankerites, many of whom lined up like expectant children at holiday time for their long-anticipated present: a 400-page biography of UFT founder Albert Shanker, signed by author Richard Kahlenberg.
Union veteran Abe Levine pronounced it “brilliant,” and who would argue with him?
Kahlenberg fittingly titled the book, “Tough Liberal,” and Eadie Shanker, the late leader’s wife, agreed that “it captured the essence of Al.”
Looking around at the crowd of old union warriors, Brooklyn Borough Representative Howard Schoor said the people in the room “lived this book. They were comrades in arms,” an expression that would have made the virulent anti-communist Shanker wince, or laugh.
Robert Astrowsky, the union’s assistant secretary, said “it seemed like old times” as he reminisced with Shelvy Young Abrams and Velma Hill about organizing the paraprofessional chapter back in 1969; it was a Shanker dream come true.
NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi described Shanker as “a strong leader of trade unions. This book is a credit to Al’s great work for all of us.”
UFT President Randi Weingarten welcomed those “whose faces I see every day” and those whose faces she hadn’t seen in a long time. “This is the house that Al built,” Weingarten said, adding that Shanker’s defining virtue was “his belief in public education and democracy.”
Robert Astrowsky reminisces with Shelvy Young Abrams (left), paraprofessionals chapter leader, and Velma Hill about organizing the chapter back in 1969.
She said Kahlenberg captured the complexity of Shanker, “including his strength and weaknesses.”
Weingarten noted that the union never gets credit “for being the conscience of New York City for poor children and their educational needs.”
Oh, and Kahlenberg, the author? For much of the night he was busy signing books and listening to Shanker’s friends, family members and co-workers chin-wag, regaling him with anecdotes about how well they knew Shanker.
Then Kahlenberg took the stage.
“Shanker accomplished three things,” he said. “He was the father of modern teacher unions, an educational reformer and a true visionary.”
Kahlenberg reminded listeners how one day Shanker would say something that “delighted liberals and infuriated conservatives” and the next day, the reverse would be true.
Hill, a veteran civil rights leader beaten up in 1960 trying to desegregate a public swimming pool in Chicago who went on to get a master’s degree from Harvard, came to New York restless. “ I wanted to organize,” she said. “So I went to Al and asked to organize the paraprofessionals.” Shanker agreed to hire her, but only on the condition that she become one herself, which she did.
She still gets annoyed when she remembers how Shanker was demonized as a racist during the struggle over the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district. “Do you really think that the paras — most of whom were black and Latina — would vote for the UFT over another union if they thought Al was a racist?”
Eadie Shanker, herself a classroom teacher who participated in the first teachers strike of 1960, was asked if there was ever a time when she and Al felt they might not succeed. “Who had time to think? We were too busy building a union,” she answered.
Everyone in the room was thankful for that.
