March 7, 2018 is the date that ended West Virginia’s nine-day long wildcat strike of educators and school service personnel, the longest such strike in the state’s history.

It is also the date that, twenty-eight years ago, marked its precursor. On March 7, 1990, educators in forty-seven counties formed picket lines in front of their schools, refusing to re-enter until a compromise had been met.

To those outside West Virginia, the 1990 teacher strike holds little significance. There are no compendiums on the strike, no memorials to commemorate it, few videos that catalogue it, and only a handful of national articles that described it contemporaneously. Yet to adequately understand the 2018 West Virginia strike, one must understand this history.