former Chicago teachers Union president Karen Lewis can still be felt in public education in the city today.

The feisty and outspoken teacher led nearly 25,000 fellow teachers on a historic week long strike in 2012 changing the way the union organized and negotiated.

Lewis also consider challenging Mayor Rahm Emanuel before dropping her plans to run for mayor after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

She died in 2021 at 67 years old, but she's still telling her story in a new memoir called I didn't come here to Lie My Life and education.

She co-wrote that book with Elizabeth Land, a history professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago and former vice president of the Chicago Public School board.

She joins us now.

Welcome back, Chicago tonight.

Thanks joining Thank you so much for having I love the title of the book.

I didn't come here to like is it definitely sounds like something.

Karen would she came up with the very much her selection on the title.

course, that was why does it matter to tell her story now?

You know, we started this project together in 2017 and it is just as relevant today as it has been at any moment and in some ways, maybe even more so.

>> The issues and struggles that face us in public education.

I still like her voice has so much to say to those concerns.

What just a bit.

Everybody knows.

Tell us a little bit about the process for you writing this book, certainly after she had died.

Sure.

So in 2017, Karen and of editor, friend of Mine, Joe Petty, Ask Me to come help.

Karen write her memoir and initially care was going write her story.

And I was there a sort of historical context, right?

I'd write the historical context.

But early hour at the end of 2017, she had a really bad stroke.

And after that, she was no longer able to write.

So from there on out, we switched went into a form of her having long from conversations that we've recorded and then transcribed and that took us really up until the pandemic.

And then during the pandemic, I started trying to massage all these, you know, stories into something like a narrative form that took shape certainly after she passed away in 2021, that became a bit harder.

But I think for me, you know, I made a promise that I would finish it and it felt very important to me to make that happen and to keep the integrity of having it be in her first person narrative.

So I had to scrub around and find public statement she had made and other writing and speaking to add and kind of fill out the narrative.

But I also feel really lucky because in these mild form recordings, there was a lot of information about that.

She shared about her personal life about her early life, that there would have been no other way for me to access after her unfortunate passing.

And to that point, you know, she does talk about her early life in this book.

What were some of the early influences that lead to the Karen Lewis that we all remember today?

Yes, I mean, I think some of it can be taken back to her family.

She had a really strong relationship with her father who was always pushing her and particular Chicago Feminist pushing her to do things that may not traditionally been seen as leadership roles for women, women and young girls at the time.

But he was definitely a backer in her corner.

She grew up in a large extended family and spent a lot of time around adults that I think shaped her in particular ways.

And then certainly as a young person, she was outspoken as a teenager.

She led walkouts for black power and community control of schools in the late 60's was an activist during her time in college.

So you just see this progression and this growth in her leadership over time.

But also someone who was just curious who explored the world and was eager to seek out new experiences.

Karen was known for, obviously for her mind, right?

Being very smart.

But with that officials know for a lot of very witty responses and retorts.

Here's a little bit of some of that.

>> We will never do that.

24 7 or We're too old for that.

People have to go home and go to bed Jim France have you seen him with you to additional ideas?

>> Why there could be there could be problem.

can you do in Well, I know people in want ice water, but I'm going to tell you, Dorothy, we cannot do that.

>> calling Jim frantic old.

I happen to know, Jim frantic, you know, despite their different he was a Karen Lewis often sitting across the table from her while negotiating those futures What else did you learn about her as a percent incur reading this?

But, you know, I think one of the things that that highlights is she was brilliant and often the way that brilliance can show up, if you can tell jokes.

Well, you have a sharp mind and she did have these sums, right?

I know one of them.

If you've been around for, you to say something to hot buttery mess, right, like she was quick to, you know, describe something get right to the core of it.

>> But I think the other thing that felt really special and I hope that people feel this in the memoir, Israel Boehner ability in particular around her illness and how she navigated that and pulling the curtain back a little bit to show that she certainly a phenomenal person, right, and and singular and special in so many ways, but also human, you know, and I think sometimes in the bright spotlight and particularly for black women in leadership who are scrutinized and picked apart her having a vulnerability in the memoir to speak about her personal experiences but really powerful.

>> She, of course, we know lead that historic week long strike against the school board in 2012.

How Karen Lewis and of course, the court caucus as of CTU, how they shift the collective-bargaining process for teachers?

I think it's not just the collective bargaining process.

It is what social movement unionism looks like, which means bargaining for not just bread and butter, but also the common good.

>> That looming and saying that racism and poverty are things to be addressed and that that needs to be at the forefront of collective bargaining and of the work of unions that transform the conversation nationally.

So if you think about the red for Ed strikes that came up in the years that followed was berthed here out of luck or good at what Karen Lewis did.

>> Adam, what coming together teachers union and parents and community organizations right?

public education, as we know, still facing some some challenges today, certainly with the cuts changes that are happening, that the Department of Education.

>> How do you think the national current issues of sort of reflected in the overall fight for for public schools?

Yeah, you know.

>> We are in really perilous times given the fact that at the federal level in particular there is a large scale attack on public education as being a thing.

And I really think in this moment when I think back to the things that Karen and of course, other people she worked with, fought for in that moment and continue to fight for around fighting back against billionaires fighting for working people not being afraid to push against the traditional Democratic Party and push them further or to consider the needs of people on the ground.

I think all of these are really important legacies that still speak to the moment that we're in today.

And most of all the fight for full funded, fully funded public education as a public good and has a right.

They this moment, the movement that Karen Lewis was a part of any leader shifted that conversation.

So even today when we see these attacks at the federal level, they are attacking because that near to the shifted.

If you think about the sort of polls of the argument, one side is saying get rid of public education altogether, private eyes, everything parents, you know, we'll get vouchers and make decisions.

The alternative to that isn't something in the middle.

The alternative to that is fully fund public education as a right and a public good and that legacy that we got to that point where that is the common sense comes from this period and the work of Karen Lewis in the work of the many people that were part of that move As we mentioned, you served for 5 years on the Chicago Public Board of Education under Lori Lightfoot and then under Mayor Brandon Johnson.

>> How did writing this book while also serving in that position and then becoming vice president?

Of course, how did that serve or have that influence your work as a board member?

Yeah, I mean, it quite the experience.

And honestly, I feel very fortunate because I would go into my board work and then I would work on this book at the same time and constantly be able to have this dialogue with this amazingly educational leader.

And I think it really for me personally grounded me.

But the other thing is it that it did is remind me of what's important.

Wright, remind me of keeping, you know, principals intact to keep your eyes on the prize of what is best and what is most needed for young people and that that's not individual pursuit.

That's a collective pursuit that all of us have responsibility for.

And before we let you go is with the have to ask, what can you say about your exit from the board late last year?

You along with the other board members?

It was very public.

We all talked about it a lot.

Yeah.

I mean, here's what I'll Michelle's on the board for 5 and a half years.

And in that time on the board of 7, I serve with 16 different board members.

So in fact, my experience was one of transition frequently like that was not that was the norm rather than and anomaly as an appointee.

You serve at the pleasure of the mayor.

I'm grateful that I, you know, was entrusted to serve for the time I did.

And I don't have a problem passing the baton to whoever comes next.

It's a hard job and I have such great empathy for everyone who commits to step up into that role.

And I think, you know, there's so much opportunity with democracy now and again, that's another legacy of the movement that Karen Lewis led.

The fact that we have finally a partially and eventually democratically elected fully elected school board.

That's part of this legacy.

So this transition is one that I think that we need to continue to, you know, move through and push through, but also have hope in the power of people in the city of Chicago to fight for a public education that has the CTU.

And Carlos would say our children That's where we'll have to leave.

It was the country.

thank you so much for joining us.

Thank congrats on the Thank you.

Again, the book is called.

I didn't come