Harriet Merchant, a founder of the UFT who served as the union’s treasurer from 1993 to 1997, died on March 11 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 79.

“Harriet was my mentor,” Retired Teachers Chapter Corresponding Secretary Frances Brown said of Merchant, with whom she had a 30-year friendship that started at PS 194 in Harlem and carried over to the union. She noted that Merchant brought her “into so many union activities.”

A native New Yorker, Merchant began her 27 years as a teacher and chapter leader at PS 194 in 1959. A year later, she began a parallel career as an activist and spokesperson for the UFT at its inception in 1960. Throughout those years, the UFT honored her again and again with its most prestigious awards.

As the recipient of the UFT’s Charles Cogen Award on Teacher Union Day in 1997, Merchant was recognized for her dedication to racial justice and educational opportunities for the city’s children.

AFT President Randi Weingarten credited Merchant with giving her and another former UFT president, Sandra Feldman, years of advice on diversity issues.

In 1987, Merchant became the director of the UFT Scholarship Fund (now the Albert Shanker College Scholarship Fund) that each year awards more than $1 million in scholarships to deserving students from low-income families.

Merchant was particularly proud of receiving the NAACP Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award and the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce Service Award for community service.

Retired Teachers Chapter Leader Tom Murphy reminisced about “how quickly we became union partners and friends working to promote UFT policies in city, state and national labor and political forums.”

Merchant is survived by Alton, her childhood sweetheart and husband of 57 years, two daughters and two grandchildren.