Did you know that there is an African American Flag? Well I didn’t either until performing in the show 20|02 written by Chloe and Kaylah Harvey, two sisters from Baltimore, Maryland. Chloe is an alumni of Towson University while Kaylah will be entering her junior year next semester. When asked to describe the show Chloe responded, “20|02 is about two sisters who discover their father’s legacy. It's kind of like a coming of age tale about us and our personal story of learning our family legacy and the amazing work our parents did for the African American community in the 90s.”

Amazing work it is indeed. In 1991, Chloe and Kaylah’s parents, Tonya and David, had the idea to create the African American flag as they were singing the Black National Anthem during a banquet. They decided that there needed to be a flag to symbolize the meaning of the anthem and represent the African American community. They created a company to produce and sell the flags and patented it in 1993. The flag was hung at Morgan State University, Coppin State College, NAACP Headquarters, and even Checkers at one point! In January of 2002, when Chloe was two and Tonya was pregnant with Kaylah, David shockingly died of a sudden heart attack. Kaylah and Chloe grew up with the African American flag, their grandmother “Doc” displayed it proudly on her mantel. However, it wasn’t until Chloe saw the flag at the Reginald F Lewis Museum when she was 16 years old when she understood the impact of their legacy and their role in keeping it alive.

You must be thinking why create this show now? What was the inspiration behind this? Well Kaylah explained, “We always knew we wanted to talk about the flag and we wanted to bring it back and the only way we thought we could do that was through theatre.” Based on the reaction of the audiences, that was the best choice. Though there were only two performances, each show had a full house filled with tears, joy and a lot of laughter!

As an actor in the show I would describe the experience as family-like. This was the first all black cast I have personally been a part of and the first all black cast at Towson University with over ten cast members in history. The experience was like no other. Instead of calling each other ensemble, Chloe and Kaylah referred to everyone as cousins because we were made family during those short two weeks of rehearsals. Despite the show being over, even today we still hang out  because of the environment Chloe and Kaylah created for us. 

Photography by Katie Simmons Barth

As you have read so far, the play focuses around the Harvey family. All the characters are based on real people! There are even lines from the show that are directly from the family. That can be quite surprising to some to know there will be a show based on their life. So I asked the sisters, “How did your family respond to this news?” Chloe answered, “Hm…the play talks about how our family doesn't have a lot of conversations so this was kinda the first big conversation regarding our dad and family history in a really long time…they were a little bit stunned but mostly supportive.” The Harvey family seems to be very loving but If you have siblings you know that arguments can be heated! I love my sister to death but we would have had to make some ground rules before writing an entire play together! Knowing this I was curious how working together to co-write this piece came to be, and what it was like. Kaylah commented, “We're on the same page for a lot of things, we work together very well.” Chloe added, “but we decided to work together because I was working on this project for school, this started off as just a research project, I needed one credit to graduate…I started doing this research that was all about Kaylah’s life as well so she was like ‘I might as well join in.’” And that is how history was made!

I asked the two how people can support their mission, Chloe starts, “We are working on getting the flag back out there for people to purchase so if you want to stay updated follow us on instagram @africanamericanflags. I think it is very important to know we are the only group of people without a flag. Along with the flag comes the mindset ‘Black stars can shine too’ which is our motto. It comes with this mindset that we have so much potential to be positive forces in our community.” Kaylah adds, “We would love the Black community to adapt this mindset that we can do anything we put our minds to and be anything we want to be if we put effort towards our goals…Why not be the light in the dark?”

To learn more about the flag, Chloe and Kaylah, be sure to visit their website, theafricanamericanflag.org and follow them on social media:

IG @africanamericanflags
TiKTok @africanamericanflag

Thank you for reading!

MEET THE AUTHOR

Tia Thomas is a Design Intern at Wide Angle. She is also an aspiring actress and alumni of Baltimore School for the Arts. She is currently attending Towson University as an acting major. She hopes that the work she creates in theatre will impact peoples lives along with inspiring them.