Equal Pay for a Classroom Day - History Lecture

Equal Pay for a Classroom Day: The Florida State Teachers Association's Struggle
to Level the 'Paying' Field, 1938 - 1948.

Under Florida's 1885 state constitution, provisions were made for separate educational
facilities based upon race. White and non-white students attended segregated schools
and their teachers also were limited to serving in schools of their own race. Although these separate facilities were supposed to be "equal," wide discrepancies existed between the physical facilities, length of school terms, and the funding of educational activities. Under the law, even unions acted as segregated bodies.

While the Florida Education Association supported white teachers, African Americans
instead belonged to the Florida State Teachers Association (FSTA). By the mid-1930s, FSTA leaders began to press state officials to remedy large pay disparities that its members faced in comparison with their white counterparts.

Guest lecturer Jonathan Tallon, a graduate from the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, describes the decade-long struggle to achieve equal pay and places this battle within the context of the Civil Rights Movement in Florida.

"Speaking of History" lecture series http://www.pinellascounty.org/Heritage

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