Sensing in the civil rights movement a natural ally with shared goals and values, the early leaders of the UFT and its predecessor, the Teachers Guild, threw their support behind the movement and its objectives of racial equality and individual dignity, and forged a strong alliance with black leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. UFT President Al Shanker encouraged New York City schoolteachers to attend the 1964 March for Jobs and Freedom co-organized by Rustin, and the union subsidized travel to the march for participating UFT members.

All photos courtesy: UFT Photo Collection, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University

The UFT Brooklyn borough office put together a festive evening of student performances and award presentations to thank schools that raised more than $1,000 apiece for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in 2018.

UFT members across New York City dressed in pink on Oct. 16 to raise awareness about breast cancer.

UFT members joined students, family members and other educators on Oct. 13 to participate in the United Way’s March United for Public Schools, a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate the importance of public education and raise money for the United Way’s long-term public education programs. The walk led marchers to the “Future Festival,” a children’s learning fair at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

More than a thousand UFT members and their families marched up Fifth Avenue in the annual Labor Day Parade, and then gathered for food and games at a barbecue at the Robert F. Wagner Middle School on the Upper East Side.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew joined Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chancellor Richard Carranza and a classroom full of students for an algebra lesson at Bronx Leadership Academy II on Sept. 5, the first day of the new school year.

Kids are kids, whether the calendar says 1890, 1910 or 2019.

So when 4th-graders from Brooklyn’s PS 10 took the “Sweatshop Workers” tour at the Tenement Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it’s no wonder they were fascinated to learn about the immigrant children who had lived there.

Chapter leaders from across the city gathered at UFT headquarters on Sept. 20 to learn more about their responsibilities and the issues facing New York City public schools as the new school year begins.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew met with staff at PS 811 in Queens on Jan. 22 to discuss various education and union issues and also checked in on members during a tour of the building.

The 16th annual School Counselors Conference at UFT headquarters, Manhattan, brought counselors together on March 7 to celebrate the positive change they bring to New York City public schools.