Koontz, Elizabeth Duncan, 1919-1989

Elizabeth Duncan Koontz served as president of the National Education Association (NEA) 1968-69.

Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, on June 3, 1919, to Samuel and Lean Duncan, Elizabeth Duncan attended the Salisbury public schools and Livingstone College. She received a Bachelor's degree in English and elementary education in 1938, and Master's degree in elementary education from Atlanta University in 1941, and did further study at both Columbia University and Indiana University. She pursued additional training in education for the mentally retarded at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). On November 26, 1947, she married Harry Lee Koontz.

Devoting her life to the field of education, Koontz teaching career included positions at the following North Carolina schools: Harnett County Training School, 1938-40; Aggrey Memorial School, Landis, 1940-41; Fourteenth Street School, Winston-Salem, 1941-1945; Price High School, Salisbury, 1949-1965; and Price Junior-Senior High School, Salisbury, 1965-68.

Her involvement in teaching led her to become active in the local and state teachers' organizations for African-Americans and the North Carolina Teachers Association. Koontz was president of the North Carolina Association of Classroom Teachers (NCACT) from 1959-1963. While under her leadership NCACT published its first edition of Guidelines for Local Associations of Classroom Teachers in 1961. Other accomplishments during her tenure included passage of a resolution against segregated accommodations at NEA-DCT (Department of Classroom Teachers) regional meetings of the Southeastern Region; the resolution was cosponsored by the Florida Teachers Association. Other firsts for this African-American woman included being the first North Carolina Teachers Association member appointed to the NEA Commission. Her participation at NEA-DCT meetings led to her appointment to the advisory committee by Margaret Stevenson, executive secretary of NEA-DCT.

In 1960, she was elected secretary of the NEA-DCT, a position she held for two years. Then, after serving one year as vice-president and one year as president- elect, Koontz served as president of NEA-DCT from 1965 to 1966. She represented 825,000 teachers nationwide. She was the first African-American to serve in each of these national offices.

In 1968, she was elected president of the NEA. She was the first African American to hold this position. As NEA president, she developed a nine-point program for her tenure in which she called for a unified, secure, respected, informed, and socially aware profession; a profession that also ensured adequate income after retirement, protected against unjust attacks, had teacher-leaders, and was undivided by artificial differences.

Koontz was one of the sixteen Americans who visited the Soviet Union at the request of Saturday Review in 1964. She held membership in the North Carolina Council of Human Relations and the North Carolina Governor's Commission on the Status of Women, and in 1965 was a member of the President's Advisory Council on education of Disadvantaged Children. Koontz was also a member of the Board of Directors for Girls Scouts of the U.S.A, Board of Trustees of Atlanta University, Board of Trustees of Spelman College, and Board of Trustees of Virginia College. She was an Honorary Member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., National Council of Parents & Teachers, American Home Economics Association, International Association of Personnel Women, and the National Advisory Board, for R.I.F. (Reading is Fundamental).

During the Nixon Administration, Koontz headed the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor and served as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1970. Her final career appointment was as assistant superintendent for the Department of Public Instruction. She retired from this position in 1982. Koontz not only served the educational system in North Carolina, but she also served the nation and the world. Throughout her storied career she received many awards, citations, honors, and honorary degrees that speak to the regard in which she was held. Elizabeth Duncan Koontz died in 1989.