CHAPTER THIRTY-THREEPublic school teachers finally went on strike for better pay and formed picket lines at entrances to Fort Wayne schools in September 1975.
Carrying homemade signs and huddled beneath umbrellas in a chilling rain, small bands of teachers hardly looked like they had the power to close schools attended by nearly forty thousand children. But by midmorning, more than sixty picketing groups merged into a foot-stomping force of two thousand defiant strikers at a rally inside the huge sanctuary of St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Jesse was amazed by the contrast. He’d been interviewing teachers on the lines all morning. They’d been mostly grim and determined. Now, they were screaming their lungs out and raising their hands over their heads. Teachers who looked vulnerable on the pi
