We have a serious problem with the image of teaching in this country. In the eyes of many, teaching is not truly a profession akin to other professions. In the popular imagination, it is not on a par with medicine, law or accountancy, engineering, architecture or business. It is not held in the same esteem as careers which are of equivalent importance to society. Must do better challenges this damaging and pernicious status quo. It examines the origins of our problem with teaching, it shines a light on the exciting reality of teaching in the 21st century, and it charts a new course for the image of the modern teaching profession. The book is written to be easily read by the general reader, because ultimately it is with the general reader - the parent, the employer, the politician - that lies the power to effect the change that society needs. We can and we must change the image of teaching for the better.

When I went to work for Lockheed-Georgia Company in September of 1952 I had no idea that this would end up being my life's work." With these words, Harry Hudson, the first African American supervisor at Lockheed Aircraft's Georgia facility, begins his account of a thirty-six-year career that spanned the postwar civil rights movement and the Cold War. Hudson was not a civil rights activist, yet he knew he was helping to break down racial barriers that had long confined African Americans to lower-skilled, nonsupervisory jobs. His previously unpublished memoir is an inside account of both the racial integration of corporate America and the struggles common to anyone climbing the postwar corporate ladder. At Lockheed-Georgia, Hudson went on to become the first black supervisor to manage an integrated crew and then the first black purchasing agent. There were other "firsts" along the path to these achievements, and Working for Equality is rich in details of Hudson's work on the assembly line and in the back office. In both circumstances, he contended with being not only a black man but a light-skinned black man as he dealt with production goals, personnel disputes, and other workday challenges. Randall Patton's introduction places Hudson's story within the broader struggle of workplace desegregation in America. Although Hudson is frank about his experiences in a predominantly white workforce, Patton notes that he remained "an organization man" who "expressed pride in his contributions to Lockheed [and] the nation's defense effort.