Aralee Strange Lecture: Dare Dukes

“Banging against the Barrel: How Cultural Production Nurtures Healing and Power at the Intersection of Personal and Community Narratives”

Dare Dukes has worked as an artist, leader and community organizer in BIPOC communities in New York City and Savannah, Georgia. Working alongside families and youth of color, Dukes’ leadership at Deep Center in Savannah transformed a creative writing program into a social justice organization that disrupted the traditional bootstraps narrative in education and insisted on calling out white supremacy in the systems that served young people. In this context, Deep Center remained committed to its roots as an arts and learning organization while evolving to promote a roots-cause model of youth and community development that worked across three parallel tracks: direct service, systems change and narrative change. Deep lifted up youth and their village, advocated for just policies and disrupted dehumanizing narratives with firsthand stories about youth and their families healing, growing and thriving through individual growth and collective action.