Deep Center’s Inaugural Youth Summit, How We Show Up, Show Out: Illuminating Critical Hope, was a free leadership summit for young people between the ages of 13-18 in Chatham County. Youth Summits are sites often used for young people to organize, network, and learn from each other about effective ways to make change in their communities. Curated by adult allies at Deep in collaboration with a Youth Steering Committee— made up of members of Deep Center’s Action Research Team (ART)—the Summit was open to any young person as a joint project of ART and Deep Center’s Youth Community Organizing. Reflecting on Deep Center’s belief in the power of arts and culture for healing-centered transformative justice, How We Show Up, Show Out assembled a collective of student voices to illustrate young people practicing their critical reading of the world for identifying and advocating for systems-change.
