Karen Lewis was a visionary leader who empowered Black and Brown communities, inspired educators across the country, and revitalized the American labor movement. We join friends and allies across the country in mourning her passing.

Under Karen’s leadership, the Chicago Teachers Union showed the nation that educators can fight for the schools that students deserve without compromising the well-being of their own families. As a Black woman, she centered the needs of Black and Brown students during the CTU’s 2012 and 2016 contract fights and showed us yet again that teachers are on the front lines in the struggle for racial justice.

Karen helped usher in a new kind of labor movement in which workers are in deep relationship with their communities, and they fight together for a just society. Karen helped birth the Bargaining for the Common Good movement, and we are forever grateful to her.

Rest in power, Karen Lewis