Building Power Breaking Power

From 1965 to 2005 the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) defied the South’s conservative anti-union efforts to become the largest local in Louisiana. Jesse Chanin argues that UTNO accomplished and maintained its strength through strong community support addressing a Black middle-class political agenda internal democracy and drawing on the legacy and tactics of the civil rights movement by combining struggles for racial and economic justice all under Black leadership and with a majority women and Black membership. However the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina provided the state government and local charter school advocates with the opportunity to remake the school system and dismantle the union. Authorities fired 7500 educators marking the largest dismissal of Black teaching staff since <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>.<br/><br/>Chanin highlights the significant staying power and political social and community impact of UTNO as well as the damaging effects of the charter school movement on educators.