This dissertation illuminates the critical role of Black teachers in driving academic achievement and social-emotional growth for Black and Brown students. Focused on six highly effective Black middle school teachers within an urban charter school network, the study delves into their culturally responsive mindsets, techniques, and practices. Through qualitative methods of observations and interviews, this study investigates the following questions: How do highly effective Black teachers at a NYC Urban Charter School impact student academic achievement and social-emotional competencies? In what ways do these teachers implement culturally responsive mindsets, techniques, and practices? How does their Blackness contribute to their effectiveness? The findings of this research unveil profound insights into the culturally responsive mindsets, techniques, and practices of highly effective Black teachers. Ultimately revealing that these teachers embody culturally responsive practices by ensuring students can access rigorous academic content regardless of their proficiency level, designing lessons that require students to productively struggle alongside their peers and taking on a warm-demanding stance that internalizes discipline as an expression of love. Furthermore, this study unpacks the role of each participants’ Black identity in driving their effectiveness, introducing a new framework that elucidates the nuanced ways Blackness serves as a catalyst for student achievement and social-emotional growth in the classroom. Within this framework Blackness serves as the bedrock for the extraordinary student outcomes in academic achievement and social-emotional growth with Love emerging as a foundational construct that permeates the key concepts of collectivism, affirmations, resilience, and excellence that were evident in each teacher’s mindset and practices. This framework contributes significantly to the field of education as it positions a teacher’s Blackness as the pivotal driver of their effectiveness. It underscores the irreplaceable impact that only Black teachers can have on our nation’s most vulnerable Black and Brown youth and invites educational leaders, researchers, and policymakers to strategically prioritize the recruitment, retention, and professional development of Black teachers.