Before the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) decision, African American students enjoyed access to music education during the regular school day. Following the Brown decision, co-curricular music instruction was greatly diminished for African American students (Brown, 2008; Early, 2013; Hancock, 1977). Today, nearly seven decades after the Brown decision, their participation rates have not begun to match pre-desegregation numbers (DeLorenzo & Silverman, 2016; Elpus & Abril, 2019; Johnson & Litka, 2019). Since Brown v. Board, limited studies exist that examine options for access to out-of-school music education for Black students. Of those, few investigate music education as a core component in African American students' intellectual, personal, cultural, spiritual, and social growth and development. This dissertation critically analyzes the formation and development of the youth programs at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, a successful community-based music school in Oakland, California. Through critical autoethnography and case study methods, this study demonstrates how a thriving music program that recruits and retains African American students functions and thrives despite neoliberal education reforms and gentrification. Two questions guided the study: 1) How have the lived experiences of OPC's founder influenced the design of its youth programs? 2) What is the OPC Youth Program, and what concepts influenced its formation and development? Analysis of the autoethnography revealed how my life experiences informed the design decisions of OPC's youth programs. A conceptual framework comprised of Racial Contract Theory, culturally sustaining and humanist pedagogies, and informed by Black feminist epistemology revealed attributes of OPC’s curriculum and pedagogy that engender self-efficacy and belonging for Black students at OPC: 1) seeing Black children, 2) refuge, 3) ritual, and 4) cultural congruence.