Sisters and Brothers in Labor,

I'm writing as the President of the Memphis Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) — and as the worker who launched Labor Education (laboreducation.org), a free public platform now used to teach the next generation what unions are, why they matter, and how Black workers built the modern American labor movement.

We have a problem worth solving together.

Our young people do not know our history. They do not know that Memphis was the city where 1,300 Black sanitation workers carried "I AM A MAN" signs in 1968. They do not know that those signs were made by a Memphis-born organizer named William "Bill" Lucy, who later founded our coalition (CBTU) in 1972. They do not know that A. Philip Randolph spent twelve years building the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters — or that Bayard Rustin, an openly gay Quaker pacifist, organized the 1963 March on Washington in eight weeks while history wrote him out of the credits.

If we don't teach them, no one will. That's the ask in this letter.

What We've Built

Over the past two years, we've assembled a 16-module teacher-ready curriculum — co-built with APRI Memphis and CBTU Memphis — covering Randolph, Rustin, and Lucy. Every module is downloadable as a PDF lesson plan with primary sources, discussion questions, and classroom activities. The platform also hosts:

• A Youth Labor Library with kid-friendly lessons, books, videos, and three union-themed video games (ages 4–14)
• A Strike Tracker, Job Board, Grievance Center, and Steward Training suite for adult members
• A 3D Construction Trades Simulation (MC3 pre-apprenticeship curriculum) for youth ages 16–24
• Direct integration with the Memphis & West Tennessee Central Labor Council's District 10 Labor Education & Trades Pathways Initiative — a $150,000 workforce development grant endorsed by the Memphis-Shelby County Board of Education and the Greater Memphis Local Workforce Development Board

The lessons are written. The platform is live. The grant is funded.

What we need now is YOU — and the brothers and sisters in your local — to bring this curriculum off the screen and into Memphis classrooms, union halls, apprenticeship programs, youth centers, and church basements.

What We're Asking

We are recruiting a Volunteer Teaching Corps of union members willing to give a few hours a month to teach what they already know — the dignity of organized work.

This letter is addressed to local unions because they are the heart of this work. But we are also actively recruiting retired teachers, current classroom teachers, Sunday school teachers, youth ministers, and community elders who want to teach this curriculum. You do not have to be a union member to volunteer. You only have to believe that our young people deserve to know where their rights came from. If that's you, please respond using the reply slip below.

You do not need to be a credentialed teacher. You do not need a college degree. You need:

• A union card (active, retired, or honorary)
• A story worth telling — yours, your local's, or one of the three giants in the curriculum
• A willingness to stand in front of a room of kids, students, apprentices, or fellow workers and say: "This is who we are. This is who we have always been."

Time commitment is flexible:

• Light — Adopt one module. Teach it once or twice a year at a local school, library, or union hall. (2–4 hours total per occurrence.)
• Medium — Adopt a curriculum strand (Randolph, Rustin, OR Lucy). Teach 2–4 sessions per year. (8–12 hours total per year.)
• Heavy — Become a Master Teacher. Train other volunteers. Lead a multi-week unit at a Memphis high school, MC3 pre-apprenticeship cohort, or community college.

What Volunteers Receive

• A free Teacher's Edition binder — printed copies of all 16 modules, ready to teach
• Public recognition in the Labor Education platform's "Teaching Corps" registry (opt-in)
• A Labor Education Volunteer Instructor digital certificate for your records and your local's newsletter
• Continuing professional development credit where applicable (in coordination with Memphis-Shelby County Board of Education)
• The thing no money can buy — looking a young person in the eye and telling them where their weekend, their eight-hour day, their health benefits, and their dignity came from

How Your Local Can Help

We are asking each local to do two simple things:

1. Forward this letter to your membership through your regular communication channels — email blast, hall bulletin board, monthly meeting agenda, or local social media page.
2. Designate a point of contact in your local who can collect names from interested members and send them to us in a single roster.

If your local would like me to come speak at a membership meeting, executive board, or stewards' council to make this ask in person, I will come. I will bring a printed module sample for every member in attendance, and I will not take more than fifteen minutes of your floor time.

Join the Movement — Become a Member

Whether or not you volunteer to teach, I want to invite every union member reading this to consider joining the two Memphis institutions that this curriculum is built on. Both have local Memphis chapters. Both need active members, not just names on a roster. Both are how Black labor power gets defended and passed down.

Membership in either organization is open to any union member (and many retirees, students, and community allies). Dues are modest, meetings are local, and the work is real. If you'd like to join, mark the box on the reply slip below and I will personally connect you with the right intake contact.

The Bigger Picture

This is not a side project. This is how we honor Bill Lucy, who supported me personally during the 2013 Kellogg's lockout — and who, until his passing on September 25, 2024, spent forty years building the institutions that made the Black labor movement what it is today.

We owe him a generation of organized, educated, union-loyal young workers.

You and your members are how we deliver.

To Volunteer or Designate a Local Liaison

Please respond by ___________________ so we can have our first cohort of volunteer instructors trained and placed before the start of the next school year.

In solidarity,