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ADA Updates
Send Amy Isaacs off with a fond farewell! Amy is retiring this month after 20 years as ADA National Director. Amy began her career at ADA as an intern in 1969 and has moved through the ranks serving as Deputy National Director (1980-1989), Executive Assistant to the Director (1975-1980) and Director of Organization (1970-1974). Former ADA President, Representative Jim McDermott: For 20 years Amy has led ADA, the nation’s most experienced organization dedicated to liberal policies, liberal politics and a liberal future. ADA was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Reuther, Arthur Schlesinger, and Reinhold Niebuhr shortly after FDR died. Its goal then was to keep the New Deal dream--its vision and its values of an America that works fairly for all--alive for generations to come. Under Amy’s leadership, ADA has never forgotten its long history and never wavered from those core liberal values. She began her career at ADA as an intern in 1969 and has moved through the ranks serving as Director of Organization, Executive Assistant to the Director and Deputy National Director, before becoming National Director in 1989. Amy brought to ADA a strong sense that protecting and enhancing the rights of working men and women was a critical ingredient in maintaining a healthy democratic society. Allying ADA with the labor movement’s efforts to improve wages and working conditions for America’s workers became a key part of ADA’s mission under Amy’s direction. She recognized that the efforts to increase the federal minimum wage needed non-labor allies. And she enthusiastically threw ADA into the forefront of that fight, by directing the formation of the Coalition for a Fair Minimum Wage which brought together progressive groups of all stripes: religious, economic, social, youth, labor, business and others. Amy’s belief that a strong labor movement united with strong allied organizations not only led to an increase in the minimum wage in 2007 but to countless other victories for working men and women. Amy’s work did not stop with the fight to end income inequality. Her career is defined by her commitment to erase the evils of discrimination so that everyone can be truly free to pursue their dreams. Not only is she a trailblazer in her own right, but she worked tirelessly as an advocate for all women. From fair pay to reproductive choice, from education to the workplace, Amy never tolerated an injustice against women or any other group striving for equal treatment. It is a rare thing to find someone willing to devote their life to advancing the causes in which they believe. I commend Amy for her dedication and service and wish her all the best as she starts the next chapter of her life. Amy once said to me, “I’ve walked with giants” when I asked for her thoughts about the extraordinary people associated with ADA’s history. I say today, she is one of them. Comments
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