Let's Build Something Worth Glorifying 

by Derek Rhodes, Founder & Executive Director (April 2023)

In 2019, I started Durham Success Summit with a roadmap but without a view of the roadblocks that were to come. Just as much as this has been a journey for the teens and young men that we have been able to help find their ways, it has been a journey for me as well. At the close of last year, as I reflected on where DSS has been and where it is going, I re-read my initial story of how this organization came to be and three words stuck out to me; I wanted to build “something worth glorifying."

As we look at popular culture and how it affects Black youth, we often glorify the wrong things. In a city where 33% of the population is Black, the fact that only 3% of the businesses were Black-owned as of 2014 would be confusing… but it doesn’t confuse me for 2 reasons:

1) I am a Black man who was born and raised in this city and 2) we’ve done the research to better understand what can be done to offset the impact of the damage that has been done over 400 years-worth of barriers.

In a city that once housed one of the nation’s most noteworthy Black Wall Streets, the Black poverty rate is almost three times that of the non-Hispanic white rate. There is a $28,924 difference in median household income. How, does this happen in less than a century? This is certainly a worthwhile study and I’m certain that history books in years to come will investigate that. But my job, the job of DSS, is to figure out how to fix it now.

I genuinely believe that placing lofty, but realistically attainable, goals in front of our Scholars and Founders is the key. Giving them access to quality mentors, a network of professionals, peers, and potential funding helps them realize their goals and makes them actionable. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be an athlete or an entertainer. I love a good concert and basketball game as much as anyone but I knew that I had a better chance of being elected to represent NC in Congress than winning a Grammy.

I don’t want to take dreams from our teens and young men. I want to give them more to dream and reach toward. I want to give them another avenue to reach the financial freedom that closes Durham’s racial wealth gap. I want to give them something to talk about at lunch tables across Durham’s high schools and colleges. But, most importantly, I want to give them something to glorify to those kids who are under our target age range. I want the little brothers to look at the big brothers and understand that they can. Whether that “can” is graduating from college, transitioning their LLC to an S-Corp, or being an executive at a Fortune 100 company, there is more to glorify in our community than quick money and shortsighted decisions. 

DSS is not just a mentoring program. It is not just tradition of creating a strong workforce that will be exploited so that the wealth gap can continue to widen. DSS is a paradigm shifting mindset that will work to make itself obsolete in Durham and then multiply its model across our country? Why? Because, when we glorify gainful goals as opposed to detrimental ones, we pivot from surviving to thriving. That is Success.