Teacher unions offered white women a form of sisterhood through labor solidarity, but it often occurred at the expense or exclusion of Black teachers, especially Black women. Through the 1930s and 1940s, New Orleans teacher and union leader Sarah Towles Reed fought hard alongside Black women unionists like  Veronica Hill for equal pay for all teachers, regardless of gender or race. Reed also ended the prohibition against married women teachers. She stood up for teachers’ academic freedom, twice facing down accusations of anti-Americanism with support from colleagues and former students.

However, she did not succeed in integrating New Orleans’ two separate locals for white and Black teachers. Though she continued to facilitate cooperation between the two locals after her retirement in 1951, AFT national forced the issue in 1957, in the wake of the Brown decision. While the Black local voted to permit white teachers to join, despite local segregation laws, the white local Towles Reed founded did not, and AFT national revoked its charter.