Traditional notions of learning, teaching, schooling, and leading, contribute to the inequity and injustice found in schools. In this study, autoethnography was used as a process and product to explore one leader's journey opening and leading a new "alternative" school as the school's principal. These experiences create the backdrop of a larger narrative about public schooling and leadership. The findings, expressed through narrative, demonstrate that schools do not have to beget oppression, and school practices, framed in social justice, can create the needed environment and culture to develop liberatory praxis.