<p>Closures, consolidations, and privatizations often characterize school reform in urban areas like Chicago. Such neoliberal reforms have disproportionately impacted Black communities. As part of a larger community-based research project memorializing some of the 200 Chicago schools that have been reconstituted, this qualitative study explores how community members affected by the closing of predominately Black schools describe their schools and the closures’ impact on their communities. The participants described schools as community hubs and the heartbeat of their neighborhoods, spaces where learning, social connection, and intergenerational bonds were nurtured. They described closures as a process of historical erasure where Black cultural memory was dismantled and a disruption of legacy where schools named after prominent Black figures were then renamed. Using critical race counterstorytelling as methodology, these findings are interpreted through the lens of <i>transformative</i> social and emotional learning (SEL) and institutional mourning, where the participants’ counternarratives disrupt the open/closed dichotomy. Participants’ resistance to erasure and their advocacy for the preservation of school names demonstrate agency and critical consciousness, exemplifying how social and emotional competencies were enacted within community and cultural contexts. This study underscores the broader social and emotional implications of school closures in Black communities, suggesting that effects of the loss of educational spaces extends beyond academics to collective identity, legacy, and community cohesion. Implications for centering Black community voices and engaging in culturally responsive SEL though community-based storytelling are discussed. The study concludes with a call to action for the research community, questioning the obligations of researchers to memorialize.</p>