Have you ever wanted a safe space where you can just exist?

Where for a moment in time you can be you with all the intricacies and parts of you that people don't always understand.

Welcome to In The Deep, stories that shape us. I'm your host Zach Stafford and each

episode we create a space to be you, all of you, and all your messy and complicated glory.

Every story shares what it means to be a black and Latinx man living with different

hardships, whether it's the struggle of identity, discrimination, or health, and how they've managed to push forward despite the circumstance.

We hope to get closer, even if it's just a season it has been.

Over the last few weeks, we've spoken about identity,

community, trust, and healing.

And in this closing episode, we try to bring it all together,

what it means to be authentically us in all our complicated glory.

We've heard stories of hardship, forgiveness, and redemption,

ultimately ending in a place filled with acceptance and self-love.

And what better guests to help us bring this season to a close than Bishop

O.C. Allen the third, a religious trailblazer, human rights activist, and

founder of the Vision Church of Atlanta whose journey as a gay black man was defined by a number of places,

all juxtaposed in their definition of what a man looks like.

Bishop Allen's story largely begins in Atlanta, particularly at Morehouse College.

I was curious to hear about his first interactions here, the college where he became the

quintessential Morehouse man, a symbol of ultimate black masculinity, and a place filled with

contradictions of what he was meant to represent versus who he truly was inside.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, lived in New York, lived in Baltimore, and came to

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