ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways Ms. Nieto and her colleagues organized themselves during the 2012– 2013 academic year to create a teacher-led space for learning that served as a place where teachers received support with navigating their classrooms, schools, and the larger teaching profession. Developing a critical analysis of larger systemic issues fostered a willingness to work toward creating classrooms that speak to the realities of students and their communities. The people's led inquiry (PLI) participants illustrate the importance of preparing teachers to understand teaching as a political act. As a group of critical educators, they believe education must work toward the liberation of communities of Color. The survival programs created by the Black Panther Party (BPP) worked to address the immediate needs of the Black community and other oppressed peoples through free breakfast programs, health clinics, and services for prisoners and their families, to name a few, in order to engage communities in the larger struggle for justice.
