Just as the name suggests, Students at the Center is an organization that decentralizes the traditional teacher role in the classroom and submits that power to the pupils (Buras, 2009, p. 429). This organization was created in 1996 by Jim Randels, a former public school teacher and teacher unionist, accompanied by producer and poet, Kalamu ya Salaam, and two of Randels former students, Erica DeCuir and Kenyatta Johnson (Buras, 2009, p. 429). Kristen Buras, a New Orleans research scholar, has witnessed SAC first-hand. Buras connects the work of the students in SAC to the “griot,” a west-African story-teller (Buras, 2009, p. 429). The organization is an outlet for students to congregate to identify the oppression they face and organize against it (Buras, 2009, p. 429).