The tenacity of the strikers inspired students at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) to form their own Third World Liberation Front in January 1969, who began a separate strike for Ethnic Studies at UCB (Delgado, 2016).

The introduction of colonial educational and epistemological frameworks led to the attempted erasure and genocide of Indigenous lifeways. Building on centuries of colonization, in 1869, the U.S. government and Christian churches began systematically kidnapping Native American children and trafficking students into government and church-run Boarding Schools, which were designed to forcefully strip students of their Native American heritage and impose the use of English, Christian religious customs, and colonized modes of dress.

It emerged out of struggles and the long histories of communities of color and Indigenous peoples who value education for its potential to transform lives, inspire change, raise awareness, and disrupt systems of power and exploitation.