David (age 26) and Tonya Harvey Completed the flag in November 1991
After high school, David dated his future wife while she attended Morgan, and he pursued undergraduate studies at Coppin State College. Following their marriage, they purchased a home right next to Morgan’s campus, and David attended Morgan to earn a master’s degree in international studies. And when David and Tonya Harvey created the African-American flag, Morgan State University proudly installed it in front of the Clarence Mitchell Engineering Building and hired the couple’s company to create the small flags that Morgan seniors wave during graduation ceremonies.
t the Harvey home in Morgan Park, Morgan alumnus David Harvey was overflowing with ideas for promoting the first-ever African-American flag that he and his wife, Tonya, had created. It was a hectic Tuesday morning like many others: David's two-year-old daughter, Chloe, seemed to be running a temperature. He also was anxious for the birth of his second daughter, Kaylah, in a few months, and he was concerned about the well-being of some of his neighbors. After making a few calls to check on his business and the neighbors, David complained of a stomachache and collapsed to the floor. In an instant, he was gone.
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Four days later, on January 26, 2002, scores of well-wishers filled Morgan’s Carl Murphy Auditorium and participated in a salute to David’s life.
SPRING 2002
Despite the shock of losing such a young man to a sudden heart attack, they were committed to fulfilling David’s wish to honor his memory through celebration. With clapping hands and misty eyes, 1,000 of David’s friends and family members found comfort in a soloist’s rendition of "Oh, Happy Day," one of his favorite songs. Morgan State University seemed an especially fitting place to remember David, as its presence was woven throughout the story of his life. David grew up in Lauraville, the neighborhood adjacent to Morgan Park. While neither of his parents is a Morgan graduate, they feel a great affinity toward the school. "My husband, Carl, began college there," explains David’s mother, Delores Smith Harvey. "And Morgan gave me my first opportunity to be an adjunct professor."
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"The idea for the African-American flag just came to us," says Tonya. "It was one of those ideas that was so simple and so clear that it was hard to believe that it wasn’t already out there." In November 1991, Tonya and David attended a banquet together. At one point, everyone stood up to sing "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the black national anthem. Tonya remembers, "Everyone was singing, and they were just kind of looking around -- at the ground, at each other, at the room. There was no place to focus. David and I looked at each other, and both had the same thought at the same time – that there needed to be a flag. When we got home, we were so excited about the project. We started research immediately." They found that there was no flag known as the African-American flag. "We found just a few flags related to African-Americans," Tonya says, "flags like the African liberation flag and African heritage flag. But these flags were all created out of various movements. We wanted to create a