I Hope They Fire Me highlights the central role that Black teachers played in transforming America's public education system. Using contemporary scholarship, legal records, manuscript collections, newspapers, and oral histories, Candace Cunningham centers case studies from South Carolina to argue that teachers were not merely behind-the-scenes supporters of the civil rights movement. Instead, they were full-fledged activists, and their contributions to the movement were integral to its success. Cunningham further illuminates how the NAACP deliberately radicalized the Black teachers' association, which enabled a nonunionized workforce to fight for labor rights such as equal pay and better facilities. She also delves into the often conflicted relationship that existed between local and national leaders, which reveals that Black Americans did not always agree on what the path to education equality would look like. I Hope They Fire Me offers a nuanced understanding of the movement for educational equality in the United States and provides historical background that illuminates America's current education struggles, especially as schoolteachers find themselves in the crossfire of the nation's anxieties.