I was inspired by yet another Black person being killed and felt that I needed to honor all of their memories. The front of the shirt is designed like the rays of the sun and consists of the names of mostly Black men who were killed, mostly by on-duty police officers. beginning with Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012 and ending with George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Each ray is the name of a soul, the city and state where they were killed and the date of their death. Additionally, their age appears in red if they were 19 years old or younger. Surrounding the rays are six names that appear to float like clouds around the sun.

The back panel of the shirt chronicles those who died between the years of 1882 and 1968, ending with the assassination of Doctor Martin Luther King. The bottom of the shirt honors all those un-named souls, approximately 3,446, who were lynched, mostly Black, in the United States between the years 1882 and 1968. It starts with the words “Strange Fruit” the title of a song written at the beginnings of the 20th Century and made famous by Black singer Billie Holiday. It must indeed be strange fruit to see a body swinging from a tree.

The youngest of these martyrs was little Denise McNair, age eleven, who died with her three friends Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, all three girls only fourteen years old when, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed by members of the KKK.