ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vivett Dukes (nèe Hemans),is a classroom teacher, writer, humanitarian and social activist who cares deeply about those who are systematically disenfranchised. She is particularly dedicated to eradicating mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately plagues the Black community, as she is directly impacted by the devastation and decimation that incarceration inflicts on familial and community bonds. She petitions lawmakers to introduce and pass bills that respect and protect the human needs of those incarcerated and their loved ones as a member of the Osborne Association’s National Speaker’s Bureau.

To Vivett, education is and will always be the key to improvement in all areas of life for members of the African diaspora and that equity in education coupled with mass incarceration are two of the biggest civil rights assaults facing our society currently. She has been an English Language Arts teacher, literacy specialist, and teacher of English to speakers of other languages in her own classroom for twelve years and currently teaches in a middle and high school in Manhattan, New York where she teaches ninth-grade English. She also serves as an adjunct instructor in the Education and Literacy Acquisition Department at the City University of New York - LaGuardia Community College (CUNY).

As a writer and advocate, Vivett is an advisor for the New York Times’ Upfront and Scholastic Action and Scope magazines., blogger for New York School Talk, Co-CEO/Co-Founder of SpeakYaTruth.org and One Voice Blog Magazine, and host of the bi-weekly #SafeSpaceConvos Twitter chat in partnership with the non-profit educational organization, Sevenzo.

Lesson Plan Producers, POV

Courtney B. Cook, Education Manager

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and the MacArther Foundation.