Abstract
Over the past 20 years, the percentage of Teachers of Color (ToC) has risen. ToC bring numerous benefits to educational settings, often motivated by their own socialization as students in under-resourced contexts. This study contributes to the literature on community teachers and homegrown educators by examining the motivations and benefits unique to community-homegrown ToC, offering insights into their communities' sociocultural realities. Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education, this qualitative study investigates the motivations driving participants to return to teach in their urban home communities and their distinctive approaches to student engagement and support. Through narratives from eight community-homegrown ToC, findings reveal that experiential knowledge fosters these teachers' commitment to social justice, which emerges as experiential and shared knowledge praxis. This commitment supports their efforts to establish systems that actively promote student success.