1966

1967

1968

1970

After decades of cooperation, collaboration, and negotiation, NEA and ATA merge. The agreement is signed by NEA president Richard Bachelder and ATA president R. J. Martin in Miami Beach, Florida.

Braulio Alonso serves as the first Hispanic president of the NEA.

A forum is organized in the NEA Department of Classroom Teachers to acquaint ethnic minority members with Association programs and opportunities and to encourage participation.

Elizabeth Duncan Koontz becomes the first Black female president of the NEA.

NEA successfully leads an effort to establish the Bilingual Education Act.

The UniServ (Unified Service) program is instituted to provide assistance to local Associations to help with collective bargaining, defense of member rights, political action, and other matters.

The Association negotiates the first collective bargaining agreement at a four-year institution of higher education.

The Association’s minority caucuses are formed.

1972

1974

1975

1980

The NEA Representative Assembly votes formal support for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The NEA Political Action Committee (PAC) is put into place. It becomes one of the nation’s largest and most influential PACs.

NEA backs a case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court that proposes to make unlawful the firing of pregnant teachers or forced maternity leave.

NEA establishes a special membership category for Paraprofessionals — later changed to Education Support Personnel (ESP), and again to Education Support Professionals.

The NEA Constitution guarantees minority representation.

ESPs are voted full membership rights by the Representative Assembly.

1982

1983

1984

1986

The NEA-Retired program is instituted.

Mary Hatwood Futrell is elected president -- NEA’s third Black president.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday becomes a federal holiday (NEA had lobbied for its passage for years).

NEA fights for and wins passage of a federal retirement equity law that provides the means to end sex discrimination against women in retirement funds.

Christa McAuliffe, NEA member and social studies teacher who was the nation's first teacher in space, dies with other astronauts on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. NEA creates the Christa McAuliffe Education Fund to provide grants to teachers to experiment with imaginative teaching approaches or to study for the purposes of professional growth.

1997

1997

Iona Holloway of Louisiana is elected to the NEA Executive Committee, becoming the first ESP member elected to this office.

NEA releases Education Support Personnel: Working Together to Improve Schools, a report describing how the "invisible" school work force — school support staff — provide a safety net for children at risk and improve education for all students.