This essay addresses theories, research, and practices of promoting arts and social justice across the curriculum toward collaboration between schools and their surrounding communities. As secondary students grapple with challenging issues, they can extend their learning experience in meaningful ways with creative expressions in the visual, literary, dramatic, and musical arts. Inviting artists and activists into schools to perform and to interact with students can help students to see themselves as developing participants in the arts and activism. Social movements, in turn, can gain strength when youth in schools learn and organize with activists and artists in the community. Multicultural, multigenerational alliances between school and community can bring together opportunities to resist oppression and to build hope and solidarity through creative expressions with direct actions.