Image via MTV.com
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Last Sunday, Forever 21 became an unlikely platform of protest when a group of activist took over its Union Square location as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
As most of you now know, the anonymous group, which goes by Never 21, posed as store employees to get past security so they could quickly place slogan T-shirts on window-display mannequins. The shirts read “Black Lives Matter/Never 21.” The brave stunt went viral and was met with both praise and criticism; but members of the Never 21 group told Swagger New Yorkthey had nothing but good intentions.
“We think that there will always be people who are upset by any action for Black lives, no matter how positive they are,” an unnamed member said. “Our action directed people to our website, Never21.com, which highlights four young Black children who have been unjustly murdered by authority figures in the past few years. What exactly is misdirected about that?”
Members went on to explain that the protest wasn’t an attack on Forever 21; it was basically a request for the fast-fashion giant to get behind the movement and to remember the black children who were killed by police—children who “were never given the chance to see age 21.”
It was a pretty honorable, but very risky, move. Members say it took months of preparation before the actual protest took place—most of that time was spent practicing changing mannequins as quickly as possible and visiting the location multiple times to figure out group positioning. But all that time, effort, and guts paid off.
“I think most people were kind of confused,” an anonymous member said. “A lot of passerby who saw us putting the shirts on the mannequins thought that this was a campaign by Forever 21 – that they were standing up for the Black Lives Matter movement. A lot of these same people were really excited and wanted to purchase a shirt for themselves. It was kind of funny actually, here we are trying to not get caught and people are approaching us asking how much the T-shirts were.”