We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful De’ane Kennedy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with De’Ane below.

Alright, De’Ane thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Picture it. London. October 2023. You’ve just entered your Julia Roberts “Eat.Pray.Love” and wherever you go you carry a tiny notebook with you with your alma mater’s logo on the front in big, purple, collegiate lettering. You carry this tiny notebook with you and whenever you feel the urge, you write down ideas. Event ideas, Christmas card ideas, business ideas, digital project ideas, friend date ideas, etc. You know you’re returning back home in the next few months and one thing you notice in your travels that you feel is not very prominent back home is spaces and events for the black queer folks outside of the clerb.

That’s pretty much how I got the very initial inkling to start DBQC and create community events (or partner with other community orgs) where black queer folks felt safe and empowered to be themselves. I jotted a couple of social media account names and kind of just left that for a while until the end of my “Eat.Pray.Love’ journey lol where I was invite to a Black Queer collectives’ event which was a discussion forum and the topic was anger. It was very intimate event and it was so nice to be in a space that was so loving and intentional and allowed for everyone to show up as themselves and share what they had been feeling, sharing helpful advice, and even just sharing condolences and collective feelings of grief. It was so beautiful and when I left I knew that Dallas needed something like it. A space outside of night life and partying and clubs to come and share in collective joy and woes and sit with each other and most importantly build with each other.

Upon my return to Dallas the idea kind of sat on paper for a little while longer until one night I was bored, I had been going through it with some personal things and decided to write a 3 month plan to bring the collective to life. I felt the easiest would be a social mixer at a bar (an idea I got from another Julia Roberts movie lol) and went to some of my favorite bars to pitch the idea. I was super nervous and shaking and stumbling over my words lol but the idea was so well received and we’ve hosting monthly mixers at LadyLove ever since (on top of a PLETHORA of other events outside of LadyLove!)

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Ummm I kind of just stumbled into it? A while back I had an idea to do a music festival for the Dallas community highlighting local Dallas bands. Initially I just did it for family and friends in my uncle’s backyard haha but it was so well received I did it a few more times and word spread around so much that at one point the backyard festival had 150+ people in attendance. And even prior to that I put on a mini Oktoberfest for my family and friends one year and went full out, we had 10+ types of beers, an educational portion, about 30+ people in attendance, and again word spread so much after that I had non-family members asking me to do it again. From there I realized I really enjoyed doing events for my community with the intention of highlighting, celebrating, and educating my community.

My current goal is to keep doing that and maybe even doing some larger scale events that are community focused. I’m a big traveler and no matter where I go some of the most of Dallas people I’ve met tend to be from Dallas. There’s so much local talent and culture here but I feel it’s not platformed enough and my goal is and will always be to platform the parts of the local community that I feel aren’t getting the flowers and recognition they deserve

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Daily/consistent posting and educational series. DBQC launched in February of this year, I intentionally picked Black history month because I wanted to be clear that we are a black organization. I created a social media series titled “Black History Un-erased” where everyday our Instagram highlighted a significant black historical figure that you may or not have known was queer or that you may not have known about in general. The consistent posting paired with the right hashtags helped a lot. As well as telling people that I met in person about our social and what I was trying to do.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

In a surprising way, a lot of books about how to show up for friends, how to be a better friend and community member are help me in my endeavors. I feel like everything we do is based on people and how we can benefit the community.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @dallasblackqueercollective