Influenced by older siblings who were teen activists, Curtis Everette Gatewood became actively involved in justice and civil rights issues at the early age of ten, where he grew up in the rural and small town of Wadesboro, North Carolina, 50 miles East of Charlotte.
While Gatewood is a self-educator in areas of civil rights, U.S. Constitution, poetry-writing, and Black History, his formal education includes Degrees in Theology, Early Childhood Education, and studies at Livingstone College in the area of Business Administration.
During 2022, Curtis was inducted into the Livingstone College and United Negro College Fund Leadership Hall of Fame.
In 2025, an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humanitarianism comes after decades of activism, street ministry, community organizing, coalition building, local and “global” community service in the area of human and civil rights.
The Global International Alliance (GIA), an accredited university based in Atlanta, GA, has awarded Gatewood with the highest honor for community service. The actual ceremony is to be held August 23, 2025, in Atlanta. Some have said, “Finally, a ‘march’ that honors a little-known man who has led, coordinated, or participated in marches throughout the country on behalf of Black, poor, and other oppressed people.
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Curtis is the 12th child of 14 children born through the Holy Union of his late Christian parents, Rev. Dr. Wade and Mrs. Geneva Gatewood. Curtis was the 5th of 7 children among his siblings to attend Livingstone College. Therefore, half of the 14 Gatewood children became Livingstonians.
At Livingstone, Curtis arrived while 2 older siblings were already in attendance and was given the nickname “Gate 3” by his peers. Curtis would later become an award-winning campus DJ (i.e., winner of the campus’ Groove Phi Groove Battle of the DJs Competition, etc.) under the name “Gate III (3),” and continues his work as a poetic DJ and “Inspirational Emcee.” DJ Gate 3 plays only clean dance songs, line dances, and uplifting genres laced with original poetic messages, while pushing back against today’s violent, demeaning, and racially degrading lyrics found in today’s music and “entertainment.”
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Under the distant tutelage of his father, the late Rev. Dr. Wade H. Gatewood, in 1993, Curtis would be called into the Baptist Ministry. While at his watch-care church in Durham, Curtis insisted upon preaching his trial sermon in the most violent and drug-infested neighborhood in Durham at the time.
Gatewood’s ministry was ultimately ordained by the County Line Baptist Association, in connection with the Penn Avenue Missionary Baptist Church in Oxford, NC, in 2006.
Curtis and his beautiful wife Odessa were married in Durham in 1988. The matrimonial couple is blessed with exemplary children – a daughter and a son.
In Durham, NC during 1992, Gatewood founded The Establishment for Economic Equality (EEE) which provided free EEE Financial Seminars for struggling families; awarded Savings Bonds for children who won Writing Competitions; was first to Bring Juneteenth Celebrations to Durham, NC (beginning in 1992), which Involved the Homeless Community; organized a “March to Save Somalia” which sent thousands of dollars overseas to Africa, to Fight Hunger (1992); in response to little Shaquanna’s killing, Gatewood and EEE would spearhead the largest march against street violence by Black men, in Durham’s history during March 1995, referred to as “The 1,000 Man March Against Violence & Self-Hatred,” where an estimated “more than 1,000 Black men and others” actually showed up despite forecast warnings of inclement weather.
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In 1995, Gatewood was elected as one of the youngest NAACP Branch Presidents in Durham, NC’s history. This did not stop Gatewood from ultimately emerging as the state’s NAACP Branch President of the Year by 1996, as the Durham Branch simultaneously was awarded “NAACP Branch of the Year.” Gatewood would subsequently serve in several leadership and historic roles over the next two decades within the local and state NAACP.
For example, Gatewood initiated “Boycott Santa’s Cost” (1995) to protest the over-commercialization of Christmas, the costly diversion from the season’s true meaning, and its pressure to drive struggling parents to overspend in a way that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. The local Durham NAACP initiative became a global inspiration. The initiative was featured on “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, ABC, and other world news, while sparking support in Canada, Australia, and other foreign nations.
Gatewood is one of the first Americans to Publicly Protest and be punished for His Stances Against the Planned Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 911 Attacks (Before boots hit the ground – 9/15/01). In 2001, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BCC) would come to North Carolina to feature Gatewood as part of a documentary called “What’s Going On!” The stance would cause Gatewood to be sought out as an anti-war speaker and peace advocate at war protests throughout the country.
Gatewood has been arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience during civil rights protests approximately 30 times. He has served as an organizer and leading representative at the local and state levels of “the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization.”
As the State NAACP’s HKonJ Coalition Coordinator (2011 to 2017), Gatewood served as a coalition builder for the organization, and coordinator for some of North Carolina’s largest mobilizations in the state’s history, including Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ), where upward 90,000 attendees flooded the streets of Raleigh, NC in 2014. HKonJ also served as the foundation for Moral Monday and other historic civil rights initiatives/victories which came out of North Carolina between 2005 and 2017.
During 2015, Gatewood served as State Coordinator for the National NAACP “America’s Journey for Justice” March (from Selma, AL to Washington, DC). Once the marchers reached North Carolina, Gatewood would serve as the leader of chants, the coordinator would personally march 110 miles, and was picked by the National NAACP coordinator to lead chants into DC.
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Gatewood is the founder of Jesus Uniting Souls To Increase Community Engagement (JUSTICE) Ministration, founded in 2017. On August 28, 2017, Gatewood and JUSTICE Ministration gave birth to the Stop Killing Us (SKU) Solutions Campaign (SKUproject.com) during a kickoff rally, which was held outside the U.S. Department of Justice Headquarters in Washington, DC, as part of the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington.
As part of its 2017 kickoff, SKU provided its SKU Universal Standards for Law Enforcement, an extensive 18 point outline of ways in which law enforcement officers throughout the nation should “universally” conduct themselves to remain consistent with the U.S. Constitution, and eliminate police brutality and excessive/deadly force which violate the rights and/or fatally injure countless Black citizens disproportionately.
Gatewood and SKU have also led rallies in several cities to demand an end to street violence and to bring attention to its root causes.
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In short, while Gatewood has sacrificed, led, organized, or participated in as many civil/human rights arrests, initiatives, advocacy, and victories as anyone alive today, he remains little known in most parts of the nation and world. Much of this is due to how his ministerial work has, for the most part, come without mainstream media coverage, without philanthropic grant-funding, without book sales, or even a pastoral salary. Gatewood sees no problem with this as his blessings continue to flow through faith.
His work and stances on behalf of African descendants and others who are systematically oppressed worldwide have been met with much controversy, character assassination, and clear attempts to neutralize and marginalize his abilities and visibility. His ability to endure is constantly tested, as much has been done to discredit his work and his uncompromising faith-driven purpose. Yet, like ashes burnt from the flames of injustice, with God and a supportive wife of nearly 40 years by his side – “And Still He Rises!”
