This article relies on Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the development of a critical consciousness necessary to understand the contradictions between the post‐civil rights notion of abstract equality and the reality of structurally entrenched inequality. The authors’ ground their analysis in narratives on the development of their own critical consciousness and how it informs their pedagogy around teaching about the American Civil Rights Movement (CRM). The relationship between their own positionality and the pedagogical tools relevant in accessing their own critical consciousness serves as exemplar for understanding the impact of CRT on a critical education.