Seeking Solidarity

Presidential Address Delivered to the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC) Annual Conference at the Chicago Cultural Center on October 6, 2022, Chicago, Illinois

Good evening, friends and colleagues. I am delighted to be speaking with you tonight, here in downtown Chicago. When we began planning this year’s conference—now nearly two years ago—I knew immediately that I wanted us to come together here. I was then and remain outraged and inspired by the historical and contemporary labor movement at work in the city.

Chicago has been a hub for labor activities for nearly 200 years. Its history—and that of Illinois altogether—is indelibly bound up with that of organized labor. In the early years of statehood, Illinois’s economy relied mostly on agriculture, and in comparison to more industrialized states in the Northeast, it experienced little labor unrest. But, as the nineteenth century progressed and the state became more industrialized, it grew more and more antipathetic toward workers. In 1861, miners in the southern coalfields of the state harnessed the demand created by the Civil War and together with miners from Missouri formed the American Miners’ Association, the first national miners’ union. Shortly thereafter in 1863 the legislature retaliated by passing the La Salle Black Law, which