In this chapter, we presented Black youth’s reflections on summer 2020 and the powerful protest movement for Black lives that reverberated about the globe. Young Black changemakers saw summer 2020 as a watershed moment in which real changes toward racial justice were happening. Summer 2020 connected Black youth’s personal experiences of racism to a historic movement for racial justice, continuing a legacy of fighting for racial justice. Alongside profound joy, inspiration, and hope, Black youth experienced sadness, frustration, numbness, anger, and fear. We captured these youth’s feelings while they were living through this momentous time, and they were still in the midst of processing the moment, their feelings, and their role in the movement. Summer 2020 activated agency, critical knowledge, and action for some, and for others, the movement advanced and solidified their purposeful commitments to racial justice for now and into the future.

In this chapter, young Black changemakers offer words of hope and calls to action for researchers, educators, organizers, and the public. Black youth envision a world without racism, and it is imperative to follow Black youth’s leads to eliminate racism. To help Black youth sustain their changemaking, it is valuable to invest in Black youth, including youth-led initiatives and Black-centered spaces. As a call to action, it is urgent to root out anti-Blackness in schools, on social media, and in broader public narratives. Each author reflects on major lessons learned from the study. We underscore how Black youth bring society hope for the future and point the way forward on the road to racial justice.

Black youth who attend school in non-Black spaces do not always feel welcomed or comfortable, and they regularly experience everyday racism that is interpersonal and institutional. Young Black changemakers use multiple strategies to resist racism. Resistance involved creating safe spaces in schools they could claim as their own, holding administrators accountable, and raising awareness of Black culture and experiences. Black youth noted the importance of authentic allies in non-Black spaces, and also shared the burdens that arise from the emotional labor of being in non-Black spaces and engaging in racial justice work.

Dismantling systems of racial oppression requires that people from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds become critically conscious in challenging racial injustices. Youth’s pathways to critical consciousness may be very different depending on youth’s experiences with racial oppression and privilege. This chapter brings together relational developmental systems and critical race and intersectionality theories and existing research that can offer insights into different underpinnings and processes related to youth of color and white youth’s critical consciousness development. We also show how mapping complex variations in critical reflection, motivation, and action and situating these processes within contexts of oppression and privilege can advance understanding of critical consciousness development. We conclude by summarizing promising future directions for theory and research.