Streetwear Takes An Authentic Stand Against Racism. Will Brands Like Nike And Adidas Follow?

For more than a year, Los Angeles-based streetwear designer Tremaine Emory had been working with Converse on a red, green and black sneaker inspired by Jamaican political activist and Black nationalist Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African flag and artist David Hammons’ 1990 work “African-American Flag,” an original of which was acquired by the Broad museum in Los Angeles last year. Emory’s brand, Denim Tears, tells the story of Black people in the United States starting in 1619, when the first documented enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia; according to the designer, the brand’s logo, a cotton plant, is a direct reference to slavery. That’s why the proposed packaging for his Converse sneaker collaboration depicts a coffin covered with Hammons’ flag and a cotton wreath, as a tribute to Black Americans who have died under unjust conditions. The image is based on an art installation, “A Proper Burial, Thanks America,” that Emory debuted in London last year. Read more at Los Angeles Times.