Reprinted from the Detroit Free Press February 4, 2007

Five Things About A T-shirt Entrepreneur

By Emiliana Sandoval / Free Press Staff Writer

BRIEF BIO

Harvey, 41, was born and raised in Detroit and graduated from University of Detroit Jesuit High School. He began working in corporate computer support for the last 20 years and is doing a contract job for Ford Motor Co. He works the midnight shift and runs hiss T-shirt business, Urban Profile, during the day.

GETTING STARTED

Harvey made his first T-shirt unintentionally when he was working a contract job he didn't like. "I drew a stick figure of a guy sitting and it said 'New Jack Slavery', but instead of picking cotton, he was sitting at a desk. I showed it to a coworker and she laughed. I thought I should make it a T-shirt."

He began selling T-shirts in 1994 out of his Econoline van at 7 Mile and Outer Drive in Detroit. "I sold to everyone from Wayne State profs to pimps. Even the police would stop by and buy from me."

He also would work festivals such as the Dally in the Alley and the African World Fest, where he met other vendors. In 2005 he spent the summer at festivals in the Midwest and the South.

He went online in 2004 at www.urbanprofile.com.

HIS STOCK

Harvey sells more than 200 T-shirt designs, some from other vendors. He refuses to sell obscene or gratuitous shirts.

"The message has to be political, meaningful, cultural or historical. It's about presenting all aspects of the black experience."

The more politically charged shirts, such as one showing a battered Emmett Till, have quotes or historical facts on the back to give context. Harvey also offers lighthearted shirts, such as a Mr. T model and a brown smiley face with deadlocked hair that says: "Have a Nappy Day!

HIS BUYERS

"Because I'm dealing with the more historical or political stuff, the majority of my customers are over 25. I once had a college student buy a shirt and then his teacher bought one."

Almost all his sales are in the United States. "My first international order was from a guy from the African continent who had relocated to Sweden. I've shipped to military in Guam, Iraq, Afghanistan. I just had my first order from Japan. A friend told me that black culture is really big in Japan."

STANDARDS

He won't sell anything that isn't licensed. "Malcolm X is the most bootlegged image after Che Guevara. I had some Ray Charles I found out were unlicensed, and I stopped selling them. I'd love to sell Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King shirts, but their estates are all tied up in litigation."

He can spot a bootleg shirt a mile away, and yes, his personal T-shirt collection is sizeable.

Reprinted from the Michigan Chronicle June 28 – July 4, 1995.

Word Wear – Knowledge that can break the chains of economic inequality.

By Mark Christian Tilles, Chronicle Staff

Like many small business owners, Steve Harvey’s move into entrepreneurship came from a sense of anger and frustration stemmed not from a lack of job opportunities, but from what he saw going on around him. Tired of seeing African Americans wearing shirts warning what not to ask for ("Don’t Ask Me 4 Shit"), Harvey created Urban Assault T-shirts and Sweats (later changed to Urban Profile), a company specializing in what he calls "political, social, racial commentary on the front of a T-shirt".

Urban Assault itself represents the fact that we’re almost being assaulted mentally", the 29-year-old told the Chronicle. "Our minds are inundated with all sorts of hype and values that may or may not reflect what is true for us. The only way to shake things up is to assault the ideas right back. That’s the motivation behind doing these shirts."
Harvey says that he hopes his products, which will expand soon to include baseball caps and sweats, serve to educate and provoke questions that Blacks will seek serious answers to.

"The ideas that I’m expressing are not new", he stressed. "Folks smarter than me who have been around a lot longer have expressed these views in a much more succinct and educated way than I have. I‘m basically taking a lot of the so-called complicated ideas and simplifying them the best way I can, so that instead of reading eight or nine paragraphs out of a book, you can look at a picture and know exactly what’s going on."

Urban Assault has been financed out of Harvey’s own pocket and distributed through Black owned record stores including Justin’s Music and Sportswear, and Music Outlet. Harvey has also peddled the shirts out of a van parked on street corners. "It’s proven to be profitable for the stores that carry them", admitted Harvey. "At the same time, however, the owners have a personal interest in the subject matter." Ron Stringer of Justin’s says that the Urban Assault T-shirts are strong sellers. "They sell excellently" he said. "I like them because they plant seeds of history in the minds of these young kids out here. They’re literally walking billboards of knowledge."

The subject matter of the shirts ranges from Black on Black* crime to comparing working for a major corporation with working on the plantation (Slave Master trains newly acquired African). One T-shirt encourages that Black men hugged for all that they go through on a daily basis. (Have You Hugged a Black Man Today?)

One particularly provocative shirt compares the selling of African women at slave auctions with topless dancing.** Harvey says that the idea grew out of a real life experience. "I ran into an old girlfriend a while back, and we started catching up on what we were doing now. She explained that she was dancing at a topless bar, and it really blew my mind. She explained that she had been working two jobs and still wasn’t making enough to support her new child and help her boyfriend maintain their household. She was able to make a lot more dancing for a shorter period of time than when she was working a "legitimate" job."

"I think that represents the state of our society. She’s one of the more intelligent sisters I know, but society values more of what she is on the outside than on the inside", continued Harvey. "Women were commodities 400 years ago. They were nothing more than items to be used. Today, they’re the same thing. Instead of physical chains, they’re bound by economic chains."

Harvey began printing the T-shirts in July of 1994, and plans to print as many designs as time and money will allow. He says that in a sense, Urban Assault is his form of therapy.

"This is my way of screaming without having to use my voice", he explained.

* Black on Black crime T-shirt referenced above is being revised, and will appear on the website once the updates are complete.

** African women at slave auctions VS. topless dancing T-shirt referenced above is also being revised, and will appear on the website once updates are complete.