We recently connected with Angela Harvey and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Angela, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My most meaningful project is the one I’m working on now, Black Rainbow a docuseries that tells the stories of black LGBTQ+ couples, individuals, clergy, community activist, and friends. The authentic and transparent stories of love, intimacy, friendship, spirituality, marriage, self-care, community, purpose, and were extracted from the 17 interviews of 28 lovers. The stories reflect the real lives of real people from a community whose culturally relevant stories aren’t being told, seen, shared, or discussed.

The idea came to me one night when I saw a program of couples sharing their stories and I didn’t see any representation of Black LGBTQ+ stories. I instantly felt the pull (a call from God) to create something. There was only one problem; I was not a filmmaker, director, or producer. Sure I’ve told and listened to thousands of stories in my lifetime but never in this capacity.

The project is meaningful because I’m doing things I didn’t know I had the talent to do, creating a project that will have a positive social impact in the LGBTQ+ community and beyond, and it

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I received my Masters degree in Social Work and set out to change the world by helping GROWN folks GROW up. I started Let’s T.A.L.K. (Together Acquire Lasting Knowledge) in 2003. It would be a decade later that I’d become known as a GROWTHologist due to my years of facilitating workshops, giving keynote speeches, hosting personal GROWTH retreats and working one on one through my Guided Journey program. I had enhanced my mission to include dispensing knowledge that was contagious and GROWTH that is immeasurable. At some point I began to see and understand how important it was for LGBTQ+ folks to speak their truth especially about their lives and experiences. In my lifetime I’ve been positively changed by folks sharing their stories of tragedies, triggers, temptations, and triumphs. I’d always believe this was yet another way for us to GROW and an opportunity to give and receive at the same time.

One of the things that I take great pride in is my outside the box thinking and believing. I often tell folks I no longer have to think outside the box; I live outside the box. I also have always used my transparency about my personal and professional journey as a superpower. It gives me “street credit” and makes the things I dispense to the world believable and digestible. Folks won’t eat what they don’t believe is digestible.

In 2012 I created Let’s T.A.L.K. University; this is where GROWN folks could come to GROW up. This became the umbrella where I would educate, encourage, expose, empower, enlighten, and entertain anyone that would show up to GROW up. I host workshops, retreats, book clubs, support groups, and educational classes. I’m a firm believer that we should only be GROWING because being GROWN has an e(N)d.

As I began to do more contracting work I created Angie Harvey Speaks which allows me to collaborate with companies, universities, and organization to provide team building, staff development, professional development, crisis intervention, and any other programs that assist people, employees and management to keep GROWING.

I guess at this point you’ve figured out that GROWING is the foundation of my mission and thus it’s always capitalized when I use it. I also always substitute the word go for GROW. It gives the sentence more action and the listener more accountability. This branding worked so well that my name is now synonymous with all versions of the word GROW.

In 2019 I walked in faith and in obedience and created Black Rainbow Love. It is a documentary (docu-series) that will tell the truth of the lives through stories of Black LGBTQ+ folks. I didn’t know it then but I’ve been GROWING in this direction the entire span of my professional speaking career. The relationships I’ve created, the friendships I’ve made, the clients I’ve had, and the connects I’ve nurtured ended up being the stories that will be told in the first season of Black Rainbow Love.

I created, directed, produced, and funded Black Rainbow Love with the mission to publicly display the truth, the lives, and the stories of Black LGBTQ+ couples, individuals, clergy, friends, and community activist. This mission when completed will give way to needed conversations, increased self-affirmation and validation, destruction of myths, changing of minds, promotion of acceptance, and foster greater understanding. Ultimately, Black Rainbow Love will do what I’ve set out to do 20 years ago (2022 marks my 20th speaking anniversary); to change the world by helping GROWN folks continue to GROW up.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For most of my adult life I’ve always been “doing something” to change and GROW the people in this world especially the people in the LGBTQ+ community. This wasn’t always easy mainly because of my recently discovered codependency traits which mandated that I practice extreme people pleasing and always seek approval, acknowledgement, and acceptance from others.  Always seeking these things made it very challenging to continue the purposeful work because the people I loved and cherished the most recorded a “who do you think you are?” track that I still hear and have only been successful at muting and not destroying. I’ve had to unlearn the thought that I needed to suppress who I was, what I was capable of doing, who I knew, what I knew, and the power and energy I could generate to accommodate those that I loved. I also had to unlearn the belief that I had to minimizing who I am was the only way to honor and show them respect and appreciation. This took decades to unlearn. I’m blessed that until I unlearned this bold face lie I didn’t waiver in my assignment nor did it destroy my passion for helping people. Once I was able to know, appreciate, and accept that being great and doing great work wasn’t done to slight anyone else I was set free and released from bondage. I finally had to learn that my gifts and talents may be seen as an adverse thing by some but ultimately how I used them was for the greater good of everyone and shouldn’t be minimized by me to maximize someone else.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

What I do in life helps me to understand the phrase “starving artist”. Let me explain. I don’t want to work and not be paid or not be seen as valuable however, the creative mandate on my spirit doesn’t allow me to withhold what I was assigned to dispense because I’m not getting paid thousands of dollars to do it. I change lives, I resuscitate life into relationships, I help people emotionally recover, mend families, free spirits from bondage, help people find their voices, passion and purpose, I help GROWN folks GROW up and for that I don’t mind staving. I don’t seek to be poor but I also don’t work to get rich. As a creative when I design a curriculum, facilitate a workshop, promote professional develop, give a keynote, write an article, host a retreat, or produce a documentary I’m not thinking about how much I can get paid but how many lives I can positively change. I know I just left folks shaking their heads. LOL

Contact Info:

• Website: http://angieharveyspeaks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/black_rainbow_love/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Black-Rainbow-Love-627368867714072
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angieharveyspeaks/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackRainbowLove
• Other: TicTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdS2HDf7/

Image Credits
Ken Branson, Mastermind Productions