Donté Clark- Talks Finding Success In His Own City and Creating Opportunites for Himself & Others In His Community

Instagram- @donblak  Donté Clark, born February 27  1990, a native of Richmond California, reigns as one of the most  prolific writers and voices out of the Bay Area arts community. Donté  is not only eclectic in the art of storytelling through the spoken  word, his body language and musical presence in performance is poetry in  itself. He captures the complexities of what  it feels and looks like to be vulnerable within black masculinity while  governed by a society of white supremacy and hyper violence amongst  black youth. Graduating high school in 2008 he  co-founded an arts collective called RAW Talent (Richmond Artist With  Talent). Based in his hometown, Donté engaged young people in writing  and performance workshops. Securing space for the youth to process their  trauma and rewrite the narrative that has surrounded their community.   In 2013, RAW Talent led by Donté Clark and his co-director Molly Raynor,  published a written play titled, Té’s Harmony. Which  documents the shared experiences of Richmond youth while making  parallels to the narrative of Romeo and Juliet. The writing process for  Té's Harmony was published in the documentary Romeo Is Bleeding,  executively produced by Russell Simmons on All Def Digital in 2017.  Winning over 30 awards in film festivals all across United States, Donté  has been able to travel the states speaking at high schools,  college/universities and community forums about Romeo Is Bleeding and  his experience with aiding young people to excel in the art community. Donté  is featured in film titled Kicks, 2016,  which is a tale of urban youth  and the rights of passage to manhood. He has co-starred in two seasons  of The North Pole show,  a political comedy on docu-series about  gentrification and its effects on communities of color in North Oakland  Ca. October 2018 Donté published his first  collection of poetry “KNOWFREEDOM” which is now available on Amazon. In  this collection of original song lyrics, and short poems, Donté  illustrates the struggles he experiences and observe as the black  community journeys through America to Know freedom.