Damien Durr is a native of Cleveland, Ohio he attended American Baptist College (B.A.), and Vanderbilt University (M.DIV). As a Presidential Scholar at ABC, and Kelly Miller Smith Fellow at Vanderbilt. He helped facilitate various initiatives, discussions and community engagement activities involving childhood education, the juvenile justice system, the prison industrial complex, the cradle to prison pipeline and the role of Black Church and hip-hop culture.

 

He served in the Metro Nashville Public School System as a social and emotional specialist & mentor to multiple African American boys. His undergraduate and graduate work has been incorporated through programs and published works via: The Haynes Middle School Mentoring Program, The Bishop Michael Lee Graves Leadership Academy, Abington Press. He has also co-produced numerous documentaries addressing the role of the church and intellectual in the Black community.

 

He served as a former community engagement facilitator with the Children's Defense Fund Nashville Team and served as the former Executive Director of Faith Formula Human Services and Executive Pastor of Community Development at Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. He is currently the President of the Gus Newport Project and Chief Operating Officer of the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference in Chicago, IL and founder of DCD Empowerment LLC.