An epistemological crisis underlies the abysmal state of literacy education for African American students who are disproportionately racialized, marginalized, and isolated in schools and society. A cultural deficit paradigm perpetuates traditional pedagogies that highlight students 'presumed weaknesses. Transformative Black Education and Critical Race Theory in Education provide a reconceptualized conceptual framework for transforming hegemonic oppressive social structures in literacy education with African American students. This heuristic research study explores the experience of isolation in alternative education for a White teacher with African American students as it relates to transforming teacher mindsets about teaching reading and eradicating the literacy/illiteracy social divide through transformative literacy arts-based inquiry.