The topic of social justice in U.S. teacher education has a long and protracted history that harkens back to the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, with its attendant legal rulings and constitutional amendments that sought to undo the legacy of discrimination against communities of color, women, and the poor. What is lost, unfortunately, within the discourse of social justice education is the memory of how the struggles for desegregation and for allocating resources to schools were waged from the soulful stewardship of women and men who, in denouncing injustice, announced a more humane vision of the future. Social justice education is more than a protection of one's "civil" rights; it is ultimately about what it means to be human, what the famed Brazilian educator Paulo Freire referred to as a "being-with" the world, the cultivation of an active and sensuous subject who is intimately connected with her or his surroundings. It so follows that social justice in teacher education needs to be concerned with human development and the capabilities that youth can and should foster to claim their presence in and of society. Here, it is important to distinguish the link between capabilities and human development, or what is often considered in terms of "opportunities." In the latter case, the work of teacher educators within a socially just framework seeks to remove the social and institutional barriers that have historically kept students from acquiring the basic skills, or "capacities," to pursue opportunities in work and education. (Contains 1 note.)