ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The executive director for St. Louis’ Teach for America corps is playing a key role in the Black Lives Matter movement that’s sparked race riots in cities across the country.

Brittany Packnett, a 30-year-old who grew up near Ferguson, Missouri, serves as executive director of St. Louis’ Teach for America program, which is aimed at helping inner city schools recruit talented college graduates for teaching positions.

But Packnett has taken on another role over the last year organizing protests of high-profile cases involving white police officers killing black criminals and serving on Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s Ferguson Commission, National Public Radio reports.

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She’s a former Teach for America recruit who started a TFA alumni organization for minority members, and now works with high school students to engage them in Black Lives Matter activism.

“For me, personally, the function of the classroom is to create not only strong learners but strong leaders,” Packnett told NPR. “We need great learners and critical thinkers, deeply engaged and pushing back on the status quo.”

It’s an odd situation considering criticism from TFA alumni about a program that has traditionally placed mostly white college graduates in inner-city, predominantly minority public schools.

“I think the way that TFA has responded (to #BlackLivesMatter) quite frankly has surprised a lot of people,” said Packnett, who often works with reform-minded education leaders who may typically not align with #BlackLivesMatter protestors.

“I think I often find myself in common cause with people who, if we dug into the weeds, we might not agree on everything and that’s OK,” she told NPR. “As long as I am aligned with people who act on the belief that all children are great and all children are meant to be great, then we can get together.”

Packnett was among several community leaders, law enforcement, and elected officials who visited with President Barack Obama in December to talk about race in America, and the violent riots that spilled into the streets following decisions by grand juries not to indict white officers involved in fatal shootings, according to USA Today.

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But she’s also among a growing number of young, black race activists who “have more in common with the Occupy movement than with the NAACP or (Martin Luther) King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” according to the news site.

Many in this new generation of young civil rights “leaders” weren’t even born when King was assassinated, and are picking up on some of his less passive attributes to carry the cause into the streets.

“Packnett says King’s willingness to confront, coerce and consequently enrage opponents has been downplayed, and King (is) often made to seem like a passive dreamer ‘singing Kumbaya,’” according to USA Today.

Others in the Black Lives Matter movement also have strong ties to public education, including fellow TFA alum DeRay McKesson, a 29-year-old human relations executive with Minneapolis schools who helped to organize recent protests in Baltimore.

McKesson and Packyetti co-founded the #Ferguson Protester Newsletter, and work with several others from social service organizations and the Ferguson community who communicate primarily through Twitter to organize race protests through the website WeTheProtesters.org.

WeTheProtesters provides visitors with names of alleged victims of police violence, a national “Police Violence Map,” police violence reports and a police accountability tool, as well as signs, chants, and demands for protests nationwide.