Purpose: This study aims to examine how teacher candidates of Color (TCoCs) experienced and perceived culturally responsive teaching across three teacher education programs at a predominately White institution in the USA. At the time of the study, the campus was reeling from a series of racist incidents on- and off-campus, and the teacher education programs were attempting to recruit more TCoCs. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on a critical race theory counternarrative approach and qualitative research focus-group interviews, the authors centered the voices of seven TCoCs and their experiences with culturally responsive teaching in their coursework. Findings: The TCoCs experienced and perceived culturally responsive teaching as promising yet fleeting, missing the mark, and a misuse of culture and language that resulted in harm. The TCoCs urge teacher education to hire racially-ethnically-linguistically diverse faculty, provide affirming spaces for TCoCs, and curricular transformation. Originality/value: Study findings contribute to recent calls for teacher education programs to attend to the lived experiences, concerns and expectations of future teachers of color.