A shining triumph
Feldman tribute remembers a passionate leader who left us all better off

Hundreds of union colleagues, politicians, labor leaders, friends and family gathered at the United Federation of Teachers headquarters in New York City on Dec. 6 to pay tribute to former AFT president Sandra Feldman, who died Sept. 18 at age 65 after a three-year battle with breast cancer.

The accolades and stories—both funny and poignant—from her AFT family, AFL-CIO leaders, noted politicians, personal friends and relatives revealed Feldman’s toughness and persistence as well as her deep compassion and enthusiasm for life.

“America gave her a chance to live her dream,” said President Clinton, referring to Feldman’s modest roots and rise to success through public education. “She spent her life trying to give every other child that chance.”

This was embodied in her agenda as president of the AFT, he noted, from her Kindergarten-Plus proposal to offer an extended year of kindergarten to disadvantaged children, to her continued support of high academic standards. “If it had not been for the AFT and her, there would not have been a standards movement in this country,” said Clinton.

She also faced her cancer “with a fierce determination and a smile,” said Clinton, and although she did not win all her fights, the true test of her life’s work is whether we are better off because she lived. “She was a shining triumph by that measure,” he said.

A passion for social justice
AFT president Edward J. McElroy, who opened the tribute, said that Feldman recognized the transforming power of education and trade unionism. These two pillars, he said, “were of one piece for her, for together they both meant that ordinary people’s lives, and therefore our society, would be improved.”

Others in the AFT family, including UFT president Randi Weingarten and New York State United Teachers president Richard Iannuzzi, both AFT vice presidents, praised Feldman for her guidance and political savvy. Feldman was both a “hard-driving labor leader and a soft-hearted dreamer” who combined boundless optimism with “the ability to shame her adversaries into doing the right thing,” said Weingarten.

Iannuzzi announced that the state federation would name its award for women union leaders after Feldman and that the union’s Albany, N.Y., headquarters would install a gazebo and flower garden in her memory.

Underlying Feldman’s strong union principles was her early commitment to the civil rights movement, which informed her lifelong passion for social justice. Two longtime friends, former AFT COPE director Rachelle Horo-
witz and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), described their early days of activism together under the mentorship of civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin. Most compelling to those around her, Horowitz said, was “Sandy’s belief that she could remake the world—and her insistence that you be there to help.”

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) also praised Feldman’s advocacy, remembering that when she fought for better schools as UFT president, it was “not just for New York but for the entire country.”

In a videotaped message, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said that Feldman “taught us that justice, fairness and equality were not just abstract concepts. They were a calling, [they were] principles to live by.” Feldman “didn’t just run a union,” he added, “she led a movement.”

Making a difference for children
Among those who recounted Feldman’s leadership skills was AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, a fellow New Yorker, who described her as “serious beyond her years.” As a member of the AFL-CIO executive council and of several council committees, Feldman was particularly effective working behind the scenes with other top union presidents—“grown men with lots of ego”—to navigate the political landscape, he said.

Former New York City schools chancellor Rudy Crew, who attended the service along with former mayors David Dinkins and Edward Koch, called Feldman an indefatigable ally in fighting City Hall on behalf of children and schools. “I remember thinking, ‘This woman is a tank!’” he recalled. Crew, now superintendent of schools in Miami-Dade County, Fla., praised Feldman for raising issues of race and class and their impact on education.

In the international arena, Feldman was a strong advocate for human rights and trade union rights abroad, noted Fred van Leeuwen, general secretary of Education International. “She firmly believed that the creation of a global union for teachers and education personnel could do great good.”

The tribute ended with Feldman’s husband, Arthur Barnes, who noted that of the more than 1,000 messages of condolence he received, one stood out for him—from a New York City teacher who included the poem “Death Is Nothing at All,” by 19th-century theologian Henry Scott Holland, which Barnes read aloud. “Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. … Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.”