Sandra Feldman, who died yesterday at age 65 of breast cancer, is someone we didn’t always agree with but who nevertheless lived the sort of upwardly mobile life that makes New York a wonderful place. Born into a poor family in Coney Island, she went to public schools all the way through Brooklyn College and became a teacher before working her way up through the United Federation of Teachers and then the American Federation of Teachers to become their presidents. In those capacities, she was one of the most powerful political operators in New York City and a national figure in the labor movement and on education policy, meeting not only with mayors of New York but with four presidents of America. When she retired as president of the American Federation of Teachers in 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on a voice vote honoring her for “her outstanding contributions and leadership in improving the quality of teaching and learning.”

Though her union’s opposition to school vouchers served to the detriment of the quality of teaching and learning, Feldman could be a constructive voice on education issues. Unlike the far progressive fringe of the education policy community, she was a defender of standardized testing. Within the labor movement, Feldman played a valuable role in asking probing questions within the AFL-CIO about some of the shenanigans that took place under the leadership of John Sweeney. Though the merger she supported of the AFT with the National Education Association did not come to fruition, it represented a far-sighted recognition that unions would have to change to grow.

Where we found ourselves most in admiration of Feldman, though, was in the fight for freedom. Not only in the struggle, of which she was a part, against racial segregation in America in the 1960s. But also in foreign policy, where she was a worthy heir to her late mentor Albert Shanker, a towering figure. Like their colleagues among the Social Democrats, Feldman was an uncompromising foe of tyranny and advocate for freedom. We think of the AFT resolution on Iraq passed in January 2003. Many other parts of the labor movement were in an isolationist crouch. But the AFT, led by Feldman, stated, “The AFT supports a comprehensive program of support for members of the Iraqi democratic opposition inside and outside of the country who are attempting to topple the regime.” Or of a column she wrote about Communist China in 2001 after Beijing won its bid to host the 2008 Olympics. “Twelve years after Tiananmen Square, innocent people are being imprisoned for trying to organize real unions, for conducting scholarly exploration, and for trying to exercise basic democratic rights,” she wrote. Sandra Feldman stood at the head of a long and distinguished faction in American labor and will be missed, not only by many New York City teachers, but by friends of freedom from Brooklyn to Beijing who will remember that she was on their side.