The AFT has always been a highly visible force for human advancement and social justice, even when such activities were politically unpopular:

• In the first half of the century, when many trade unions excluded African Americans from membership, the AFT was among the first unions to extend full membership to minorities. African-American teachers in segregated Southern school districts organized their own locals and readily affiliated with the AFT. And African-American teachers elsewhere joined on equal footing with their white counterparts to organize integrated AFT locals in their school districts.

• In 1918, the AFT called for equal pay for African-American teachers, the election of African-Americans to local school boards, and compulsory school attendance for African-American children. In 1919, the AFT demanded equal educational opportunities for African-American children and in 1928, called for the contributions of African-Americans to be taught in the public schools.

• In 1954, the AFT filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in the Brown vs. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court.

• AFT's fight to fully integrate its own ranks culminated in 1957 when the AFT expelled any local unions that refused to admit African-Americans. As a result, the AFT, then only a small union, lost nearly 7,000 members. The result—a fully integrated union—was worth it.

• In the 1960s, AFT members and staff helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In 1964, 1965 and 1966, hundreds of AFTers traveled south to register new African-American voters and to teach in Freedom Schools. The AFT, along with other unions and civil rights organizations, lobbied for passage of key civil rights legislation, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act and the Voting Rights Act.

• In 1968, the AFT's New York City local negotiated unique career ladders and training programs that enhanced upward career mobility for many minorities.

• An AFT delegation participated as observers for the 1994 South African elections.

• The AFT’s International Affairs Department has been actively involved in developing free trade unions and democracy curricula for public education systems in countries around the globe, from Eastern Europe, to South and Central America, to South Africa. The union provided organizing assistance and resources to unionists and educators throughout Eastern Europe, for example, in the years leading up to the fall of Communism.