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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Albert Shanker
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
Albert Shanker
Albert Shanker. President of the AFT from 1974-1997, speaks to New York City Teachers during the painful 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike was triggered by a local school board's attempt to dismiss teachers without due process. Shanker served a 15-day sentence in jail for leading the Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike.
PRESIDENT CLINTON TO AWARD
PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM
POSTHUMOUSLY TO AFT’s ALBERT SHANKER
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton will award posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Albert Shanker, who led the American Federation of Teachers for 23 years until his death in February 1997. "This is the most apt kind of honor for Al," said his widow, Eadie Shanker. She will accept the award at a January 15 White House ceremony.
"Al always felt that education is a freeing and liberating force for all people and societies," said Mrs. Shanker. She said the Medal of Freedom award is so appropriate because of Shanker’s ardent advocacy of democracy, freedom and civil rights in the United States and throughout the world.
Shanker first achieved national prominence during the 1960s as a firebrand New York City teachers’ union leader who blazed the way toward basic workplace rights for teachers across America. He was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers in 1974 and served until his death at the age of 68.
Presidents and other lawmakers of both political parties sought his counsel on education and labor issues.
"Al Shanker was a model, a mentor, a friend, a union leader, a national leader, a world leader. But first and last, Al Shanker was a teacher - one of the most important teachers of the 20th Century," President Clinton said at a May 1997 memorial service. "He thought that this whole (academic) standards movement was essential for democracy to work, that it was the only way to ever get every child, regardless of their background, to live up to his or her God-given capacity," Clinton said, adding that he included Shanker’s ideas for national academic standards in his February 1997 State of the Union address.
Shanker’s successor at the AFT, Sandra Feldman, said the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a generous and fitting honor.
"No one deserves this more than Al. He was a true patriot, passionately committed to democracy and freedom," Feldman said. "He understood so well the vital role the labor movement plays in a democracy. Al Shanker touched the lives of millions of teachers and children, leaving all of us a rich legacy."
In Selma, Ala., 1965, Shanker and AFT President Charles Cogan turn over car keys and registration papers for $40,000 worth of
station wagons to Martin Luther King Jr. for use in a voter registration drive.
Albert Shanker talks with labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph (seated) and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin at an Urban League dinner in 1966.
Albert Shanker greeting Nelson Mandela at the AFL-CIO headquarters in 1990, shortly after Mandela was freed from prison. At center is Lane Kirkland, former president of the AFL-CIO.
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Medal History
