(Image: Members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, marching through West Philadelphia in 1971. Photo courtesy of Stephen Shames)

The Second World War marked a shift for political messaging, with short, catchy slogans used to raise awareness and lift morale. It makes sense then, that it was in the years after the war that the T-shirt was first harnessed for explicit political messaging. In 1948, Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey capitalized on his name and the newfound appetite for simple slogans, emblazoning T-shirts with “Dew it with Dewey”, in what is considered to be the first use of the garment for political messaging. Dewey lost the ’48 election to Harry Truman and, consequently, the use of clothes as a vehicle for political messaging was not immediately enshrined in the canon of “best practices.”

But, slowly, thanks to the affordability of the T-shirt and its more widespread adoption, the garment came to be synonymous with political activism throughout the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War dominated America’s collective consciousness throughout the ’60s and ’70s, and, according to The New York Times, the T-shirt became the perfect medium for political messages.

In 1968, 20 years after Dewey first used a T-shirt for political messaging, students at Harvard wore anti-war T-shirts during sit-ins of the university’s administration buildings. Around the same time, the NAACP and Black Panther Party used simple T-shirts to promote its very existence in the 1960s. Kimberly Laverne McNair, Ph.D, has written extensively about the use of T-shirts within the Black protest tradition. By the end of the decade, members and supporters alike were wearing Black Panther Party T-shirts and by 1971, the Black Panther Party was producing T-shirts emblazoned with the portrait of incarcerated chairman and founder Bobby Seale.

(Image:
African National Congress and Anti-Apartheid supporters wearing Nelson Mandela solidarity T-shirts shortly after Mandela’s release from prison in 1990. Photo courtesy of Trevor Samson)

Around the same time, across the Atlantic, it was Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren who were harnessing the power of the graphic T-shirt, as the punk movement gained steam. Unlike in the U.S., where a few specific issues consumed most of the political energy, the U.K.’s punk movement was rooted in a general social malaise among British youth. Consequently, Westwood and McLaren’s T-shirts were fairly all-encompassing, tackling everything from religion to fascism—a popular design featured an inverted cross and a swastika under the word “DESTROY”.

Westwood and McLaren were not alone in pioneering vocally combative garments in the U.K. Katherine Hamnett—while less well-known in fashion circles than Westwood—arguably did more for popularizing protest through graphic clothing when she met then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 while wearing a T-shirt that read “58% Don’t Want Pershing”—a protest against Great Britain allowing the United States to place Pershing missiles on its territory during the Cold War. Hamnett’s contribution to the rise of protest clothing isn’t just limited to a single photo op, though. Using her signature style—oversized, bolded black font on white cotton T-shirts, she has created countless slogan designs from “Choose Life” to “Save The World” to “Worldwide Nuclear Ban Now” to, more recently, “Cancel Brexit”. Few have grasped the power of the slogan T-shirt better than her over the years. “It's on your body,” Hamnett told Refinery29, “so it becomes a part of you, there's no filter.”

By the mid-to-late-’80s, clothing had become a popular medium for political expression and activism, promoting everything from the Walk For Hunger to voting. It was also a medium that attracted more than just fashion and graphic designers, with the likes of Keith Haring providing artwork for T-shirts promoting AIDS awareness.

T-shirt activism and protest also began to defy borders in the late-’80s. One of the most striking examples is that of the African National Congress, designated by many of Apartheid-era South Africa’s allies as a terrorist organization. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, in countries like the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, local grassroots organizations—like the Anti-Apartheid Movement—sold T-shirts featuring the A.N.C’s logo, graphics calling to end Apartheid in South Africa, or portraits of then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela—which harkens back to how the Black Panther Party used T-shirts to spotlight unjustly persecuted leaders. For people in the aforementioned countries, it became a way of not only voicing support, but also contributing to grassroots organizations and, in some cases, the A.N.C., without making a formal donation to what their governments considered a terrorist organization.

This became one of the major developments in so-called T-shirt activism. Wearing a T-shirt to express solidarity is great in the early stages of a political movement, because it shows broad support—but, that’s often not enough. If, however, the T-shirt can be used to also raise funds, then it becomes an even more powerful tool in long-term political movements and protests.

By the 2000s, charitable organizations and political movements both large and small had clued into the fact that T-shirts were inexpensive to produce and could still be sold at reasonable prices, while still netting a profit. They also clued into the fact that T-shirts were something that everybody wore and, thus, something that people would be willing to buy. People who would previously balk at donating $50 to a cause might be willing to buy two T-shirts that would net the organization $50 in profit, akin to a donation.

(Image: An archive collection of Martin Margiela’s ongoing AIDS charity T-shirts. Image courtesy of LN-CC/Hypebeast)

Maison Margiela was one of the first fashion brands to try its hand at using its garments to raise funds and awareness, when, as part of the Fall/Winter 1994 collection, the brand released a T-shirt with proceeds going to AIDES, a French organization fighting AIDS, HIV and hepatitis. The shirt has been re-released every year since and has become one of Margiela’s most iconic pieces.

Eventually, a quasi-cottage industry emerged that saw brands, more outspoken about politics and social justice than ever before, selling specific pieces to benefit various charities and organizations.

In 2001, rather than simply chalking profits up as activism—as President Bush and Anna Wintour had encouraged, Supreme released T-shirts whose profits would be directed towards aid in the wake of 9/11. A decade later, in 2011, the New York brand released T-shirts to raise funds for the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan. In 2020, it joined forces with Takashi Murakami to raise money for COVID-19 relief.

Supreme has not been alone over the last two decades, though. Since 2004, Nike and Jordan’s partnership with the OHSU Doernbecher Foundation has seen dozens of limited-edition sneakers released—designed by patients!—and more than $25 million raised. That’s to say nothing of Nike’s ongoing “BeTrue” campaign, yielding a combination of clothing and sneakers—including T-shirts—to show support with the LGBTQ+ community. Starting in 2006, Marc Jacobs released a series of T-shirts featuring various celebrities posing naked to raise awareness and funds for skin cancer. Missoni’s Fall/Winter 2017 collection, which featured the instantaneously infamous “pussy hats”, saw a portion of proceeds donated to the ACLU and the UN Refugee Agency. The list goes on.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that whatever funds are raised through the sales of politically-charged garments are always donated to charities or organizations that further the cause. In 2011, during the Occupy Wall Street movement, Jay-Z sold T-shirts that read “Occupy All Streets” through his streetwear brand, Rocawear, but the money wasn’t being funnelled towards the movement in any meaningful way. The T-shirts were eventually pulled. More recently, as part of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first womenswear collection at Dior, for Spring/Summer 2017, a T-shirt reading “We Should All Be Feminists”, a quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, was sold for more than $700. Dior and Chiuri faced backlash for co-opting the feminist movement and essentially selling the quote at an outlandish price… for profit, no less! Eventually, Dior announced that proceeds would be donated to the Clara Lionel Foundation. Nike has promoted Earth Day sneaker drops, but rather than donating proceeds, the brand has used it as an opportunity to push what it views as sustainable footwear—read, made from recycled materials, though not entirely—while giving customers a chance to show their support for the environment.

(Image: Fear of God’s multibrand benefit T-shirt for the Gianna Floyd Fund, created following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police in 2020.)

But beyond the rightfully-decried profiteering, the practice of creating political merch has gained so much traction in recent years that it’s become common for even small, independent brands to join in. There are even brands whose entire identity is predicated on political activism—hello, Election Reform!!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen countless examples of how merch can serve as a powerful political tool. Brain Dead—a relatively small, still-growing, independent brand—alongside Blood Orange, raised over $500,000 for The Movement For Black Lives and the LGBTQ Freedom Fund. Tremaine Emory’s Denim Tears released a T-shirt with proceeds going to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, while also joining forces with Jerry Lorenzo—and a handful of other notable brands—on a pair of T-shirts benefiting Gianna Floyd.

As one of Cam Wolf’s GQ colleagues put it, what we are witnessing is an extremely effective form of wealth redistribution. In an era of crowd-funded bail funds, and matching donations via retweet, it’s no surprise that people have responded positively to clothes that are—for once—conscionable.

Unfortunately, the era we are living in is also incredibly polarized and, as some have pointed out, the fact that protest clothing is now so readily available allows people in precarious positions—kids whose parents still see their bank accounts or credit cards, say—to make a contribution more subversively. Mom and dad might not want to see a $54 charge to Act Blue on their credit card statement… but they won’t blink twice at one for Brain Dead.

What we’re witnessing now is rooted in a long history of clothing as a form of political activism, and, admittedly, it’s not perfect. As always, there are people seeking to capitalize on movements—like the absurd number of people selling Greta Thunberg merch in a show of support for her climate change activism—without donating to organizations actualizing that change. Nor is selling political merch exclusive to people who will end up on the right side of history.

But what we’re witnessing right now seems undeniably different—like the pinnacle of clothing, a democratized tool that everybody has access to and that can change the world. It’s happening right now—one $54 donation and family member forced to read “End Racism Now” on your chest at a time.