Karen Lewis, American Hero

Remembering a historically significant woman

Karen Lewis’s name should be shared for generations to come.

In her role as president of the Chicago Teachers Union, she was a transitional figure. Not just for Chicago: Her legacy reverberates across America. Perhaps beyond.

Many others have written tributes. They knew her better, they had more occasion to interact with her, they have better first hand knowledge of the work she did.

What I want to impress here, though, is not what a fighter she was, or anything quite like that. I want to impress that hers was a historically important life. And in this, Black History Month, it is especially important to consider not just what a fighter she was, but far beyond that, what her legacy is and how that legacy will continue to grow.

I wanted to write more. But I thought it important to get this out sooner rather than later. I want to spur a larger discussion about Karen’s legacy. It’s that important.

Karen Lewis passed away Sunday night. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2014. So this was not entirely unexpected.

Chicagoans will of course know all of the following. But for those of you outside of Chicago, just a little prologue:

Rahm Emanuel was elected Mayor of Chicago in 2011, replacing long-time Mayor Richard M. Daley. Emanuel was a long-standing Democratic Party insider who had just been Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff.

Karen Lewis was elected President of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010. She was part of a slate of candidates under the banner of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators. CORE swept into union leadership on a strong activist platform. Some people would call them progressive, some people would call them militant. I will use these words: Strident. Passionate. Caring. Tough.

Chicago Public Schools is a separate entity with a separate budget, but its board is appointed by the Mayor. Every other school board in the state is elected. The Mayor of Chicago is ultimately in charge of the schools, the community colleges, the libraries, the park district, the police, the fire department… it’s an absurd amount of power.

When Emanuel came to power, he immediately put some of Daley’s initiatives into hyperdrive. He pushed for a longer school day. He closed 50 neighborhood schools, disrupting not just those immediate neighborhoods but also those of the schools to where students were rerouted. He was starkly pro-privatization, and pushed for numerous new, largely unaccountable, charter schools. In all of these and so many other ways, Karen Lewis was his #1 foil in the city.

It didn’t matter what so many people might have thought about Emanuel. His being an asshole was literally one of the reasons people voted for him. He was well known for dropping f-bombs on people. People knew what they were getting with him, for better, or more usually, for worse.

Well, the legend goes like this. In one of their first meetings, she called his longer school day a “babysitting” initiative. This is her telling, as reported this week by WBEZ’s Sarah Karp:

“He jumped out of his chair and said, Fuck you, Lewis,” she recalled. “And I jumped out of my chair and said, who the fuck do you think you are talking to? I don’t work for you.”

I think the three most fateful words Rahm Emanuel ever spoke were “Fuck you, Lewis!”

The Chicago Teachers Union, under the leadership of Karen Lewis, went on strike in September 2012. They were striking for pay - state law actually precluded them from striking for anything else - but they were really striking for much more. They were striking for respect. They were striking to protect public education broadly. They were striking for the kids.

When you went to a CTU rally, it wasn’t like other rallies. It didn’t feel like a protest, where you were defined by what you opposed. It was an ocean of red, through which crashed waves of exuberance. It was a meaningful manifestation of “hope & change”. It united people of all ages and colors. You felt empowered just by being there.

In the center of it all was Karen Lewis. Karen was a goddamn rock star. It felt like she was tapping a power source and redistributing it all. You get a sense of it all in this photo that CTU shared this week:

But the critical thing was - again - they were striking for the kids. The line between the best interests of the kids and the best interests of the teachers was annihilated. Maybe this sounds simplistic. Maybe you’re a teacher and you’re thinking that sounds overstated, that that line has always been overstated. But I believe that what CTU did is they changed the discourse. CTU empowered teachers - they empowered themselves - with a greater ability to advocate for themselves and for their kids. In this they were following Karen’s lead. But, and this is critical: She wasn’t empowering them. They were empowering her to lead on their behalfs.

CTU’s stridency, passion, advocacy, and belief: These spread far and wide. Statewide teacher actions in states like West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona: they all took inspiration from what CTU had done.

CTU didn’t just win that strike in September 2012. It was about who all they were taking on. It wasn’t just Rahm Emanuel standing on the other side, although in retrospect he proved to be an ideal foil. It was Barack Obama too. It was the entire political establishment.

A lot of progressives hated on Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Secretary of Education, and for good reason. But in numerous ways, DeVos was truly a continuation of what was being done under Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education. On education policy, the Obama people were much closer to the Trump people than they were to the CTU. But today? It feels like Biden is moving away from all of that. I think that a lot of the Obama people have sincerely come around to understand much of the shortcomings of their positions. But if there is one single person to point to and say, that’s who showed them the error of their ways: that person was Karen Lewis.

She was so popular that she was preparing to run for Mayor herself. She had a committee together in 2014. It was not just a possibility. It was happening.

There was an event held late that summer. I think it was nominally an exploratory committee event. But the actual candidate doesn’t show up to things like that unless something is actually happening. That was when I met Karen myself. It’s also when I got this button:

Yes, she was running. And yes, she would have won.

But a few weeks later they found the tumor.

I’m sure she rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I know that there were a lot of political decisions she participated in that people may have had - and may still have - good reasons to question.

The fact remains that she was a hero. A hero for teachers, certainly. But a hero for us all.

Of course it was significant that here was a Black woman taking on the system. But I think it runs deeper than that. Only a Black woman could have taken on the system quite like this. The moment called for the kind of leadership someone like her could bring to the table. And we are all in her debt.

In broad strokes, the American public had long considered teaching to be something lesser. Glorified babysitting. Women’s work. If these words make you mad, it’s because you know I’m right: this is how teachers have long been regarded by too many people.

I think the CTU strike was a critical moment in fracturing that sexist, racist narrative. Rahm Emanuel literally said “Fuck you, Lewis!” Figuratively, though, he said fuck you to the people of Chicago, especially the kids. This was one of the most powerful people in the world. And Karen Lewis’s response was: Who the fuck do you think you are talking to? It wasn’t that the entire city fully rallied behind her; after all, Emanuel did win reelection in 2015. But Karen and the CTU made it clear. They weren’t going to be treated like that anymore. They were going to fight back.

They were going to fight back, and not just for themselves. They were going to fight for the minutes the kids with IEPs needed. They were going to fight for a nurse in every school. They were going to fight for equity within and across schools. Critically, this meant that the fight was being carried even to the schools where the facilities were better, where the kids weren’t required to wear uniforms, where the PTOs would raise a few hundred thousand dollars annually like it was nothing. The fight was also being carried beyond the city limits, to the state capital where the legislature had long punted on fixing the inequity between districts, and even to other states where in many cases teachers weren’t even being paid a living wage.

I felt it important to write all of this. Although I’ve seen wonderful statements made, although I’ve seen a lot of love shared, I think through all of it the media and even many of her admirers may be understating how important Karen Lewis was.

We all have a lot of work to do to see through the things that Karen fought for. We do not remotely have equity in our schools. We are not giving every child a fair chance to succeed. But compared to where we were a decade ago, I think we are better off. Even with four lost years at the national level, even with substantial funding problems in so many places, I think we are better off. We are better off because we are better equipped to advocate, we are better equipped to challenge, we are better equipped to support one another. What CTU did in 2011-2012 was to forge a movement that it still growing. It is, daily, spreading its roots more deeply into the fertile soil of our consciences. And when we aren’t sure where to go next, we have historical guidance to follow. We have the example of the teachers in Chicago. We have the example of Karen Lewis.

Rest in peace, Karen. We will carry your fight forward.

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