Ja’Mal Green thought the phrase summed it up nicely — “Rahm Failed Us” — so he plastered the words on T-shirts and hoodies next to an image of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s smiling face.
“I was thinking that I want to make a shirt that really represents the movement and came up with these words because it’s a true statement,” Green said. “And people love it.”
While Green says he has printed and sold only about 100 of them, the shirts have become a familiar sight on news reports about protesters shutting down Michigan Avenue the day after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve.
Green, 20, is a leader of a protest movement calling for police reform and Emanuel’s ouster. The movement has blossomed since the Nov. 24 release of a police dashcam video of the deadly encounter in which Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke shot Laquan McDonald 16 times.
Green came up with the design. A friend prints the shirts out of his South Side apartment. T-shirts sell for $15 each on the website RahmFailedUs.com; hoodies cost $30.
Several community groups and neighborhood organizations placed small orders and distributed the garments to demonstrators, who later appeared in print and television news wearing the anti-Rahm apparel.
Janet Cooksey put on one of the T-shirts moments before holding a news conference Sunday to condemn the Chicago Police officers who fatally shot her son, 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier.
Green stood beside her wearing an anti-Rahm hoodie.
Green, again in signature apparel, stood behind Bernie Sanders as the Democratic presidential candidate recently spoke about criminal justice reform on the West Side.
And the message was on his chest Thursday while protesting downtown and outside Emanuel’s North Side home.
Green, who lives in the Gresham neighborhood and is pursuing a career as an R&B singer, said proceeds from T-shirt and hoodie sales are spent on protest signs and other ways to support the movement.
The anti-Emanuel effort is an about-face for Green, who in recent months worked with the city to promote the mayor’s “Put the Guns Down” campaign by visiting schools and speaking with students.
Green, along with Pete Retsos, his former history teacher at Wendell Phillips Academy in Bronzeville, founded Sky-Rocketing Teens Corp., which partnered with CPS to share an anti-bullying, anti-violence message.
Green says his relationship with the Emanuel camp soured the day the Laquan McDonald video was released and Emanuel met with Green and other black community leaders at City Hall.
“Rahm pulled us into a meeting to talk about keeping things peaceful before the video was released,” Green recalled.
“They brought us in and told us the facts of the case and how things would go forth, but really no good answers to our questions,” Green said. “Why didn’t they release the video much earlier? And how could Emanuel say he didn’t watch it? I just didn’t believe that.”
“After that day I figured out what side I wanted to be on and realized they have been covering this up. And I don’t want to be a part of it.”
