Biography

Ofield Dukes, APR, Fellow PRSA President, Ofield Dukes & Associates
Capping glittering careers as journalist, public relations executive and public relations educator, Ofield Dukes was named the 2001 PRSA Gold Anvil Award recipient. He also was inducted into the PRSA College of Fellows at the 2001 International Conference. In 2005, PRWeek, the major publication of the public relations industry, named him one of the five most effective communicators of the year.

A journalism graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit in l958, Dukes captured three National Newspaper Publishers Association awards for editorial, column and feature writing for the Michigan Chronicle in l964. He relocated to Washington, DC in l964 to join the Johnson-Humphrey administration as Deputy Director of Information for the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, chaired by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In l966, he was appointed to the staff of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, serving through l968. Dukes started his own public relations firm in l969 with an office at the National Press Building. Motown Records was his first client and Lever Brothers his second. He won PRSA's Silver Anvil Award in l975 and that same year was described by the Washington Post as one of the top public relations persuaders in the city.

Dukes helped organize the first Congressional Black Caucus dinner and served on the boards of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change. He has also been a communications consultant for every Democratic presidential campaign since l972. In l993, he founded the Black Public Relations Society of Washington.

At Howard University, where he taught as an adjunct professor for l7 years, he was instrumental in formulating the public relations curriculum. Dukes also served as an adjunct professor in the School of Communications at The American University for eight years. Wherever he has taught, he is credited with training and influencing hundreds of his students to enter public relations.

Other public relations awards include being among the first in 1999 to be inducted into the Washington, DC/National Capital PRSA Hall of Fame, being inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame in 2003, and receiving Ball State University's National Public Relations Achievement Award for 2003.

Dukes is presently serving as co-chairman of the 35th Anniversary of the Howard University School of Communications, now the John H. Johnson School of Communications, and was recently named to replace the late Dr. C. Delores Tucker as president of the Bethune-DuBois Institute, based in Washington, DC.

This year marks the 37th anniversary of Ofield Dukes & Associates.