Something to Talk AboutAlumnus Darius Northern builds his brand one word at a time.

Darius Northern didn’t know quite what he was getting into when he enrolled at OSU to complete his college education.

“I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in Duluth, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta,” said the 2019 graduate of the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

Northern founded and is main production worker at People of Colour Clothing, which makes and sells apparel bearing messages intended to turn racism, sexism and prejudice on their heads.

His story is similar to those of generations of Oregon State entrepreneurs who confronted a problem, were initially stymied by it and then, in a moment of inspiration, saw a possible solution that would evolve into a way to make a living.

“I moved to Corvallis in 2016,” Northern said. “I was experiencing the South becoming more overtly prejudiced and racist … and I decided I wanted to experience something different.”

He went on a cross-country trip to choose a college but never made it to Oregon.

“But when I was in Washington, I saw Oregon license plates and I was like, ‘Oh, Oregon exists.’” He did some research on OSU when he got home.

“I was like, ‘You know what? I think that’s going to be the move.’ Corvallis sits in the middle of everything, which I thought was really cool. I had never been this close to the coast before. I intended to study horticulture, and they have a great ag program here. Everything checked. I came out here sight unseen.”

He thought he would earn his Oregon State degree and return to the South to create green spaces in communities of color to encourage healthier lifestyles. After trying a few majors, he settled on public health.

As Generation Z, or Millennials, we’ve been trained to have a short attention span, so I want the content we use to be concise. I want you to see it, be aware of it, feel it and I want to plant a seed in your brain.

---

Meanwhile, he realized that he hadn’t left racism behind in Tennessee.

“Oregon has that perception of just being tree huggers. It’s like, you’ll come to Oregon and it’s super liberal and super free. You can come as you are. Transitioning from Nashville to Oregon, I think I thought I would have a break from being Black. I know — now, that sounds like ‘What was he thinking?!’ But I thought then that I would come to Oregon and feel a sense of freedom and relief. I did not know the history here.

“I get here and I’m like, ‘Where are the Black people?’ I’d never seen so many white people in my life. I didn’t anticipate the covert racism that exists here, and it sent me into a tumble.”

He felt isolated and alone.

“W. E. B. Du Bois talked about it in The Souls of Black Folk. He wrote about how we have to kind of dance between two worlds, and I was dancing in a world I was not used to, changing the way I shook hands, the way I talked, even the way I played basketball. Everything had to change.

“It really took a toll on me. I had depression. I had anxiety. I stopped going to class. I stopped going out to eat. I was just tired of being the only regular Black person in the room. People would ask, ‘Are you on the football team? Are you on the basketball team?

“There were definitely bits of overt racism — people saying outlandish stuff to me, or me seeing outlandish stuff being done to others. I was in Portland crossing the street and somebody yelled, ‘Cross the street, n-word!’ I was at a Starbucks in Salem, drinking coffee outside, and this lady stopped, thought about it and then just started telling me how Barack Obama and Black people ruined this country.

“On campus, I saw a person driving this big-ass truck, and there was a Black woman standing at the corner, and even though the truck had the green light, the driver stopped, put it in neutral and revved the engine so that all this smoke rolled out and covered her. She was coughing. That hurt my soul.

“Then, finally — and it wasn’t even that big of a deal — I was in a restaurant in Corvallis to pick up a to-go order and there was this white family in there, just staring at me. The wife was looking at me. The dad was trying not to look at me. The kid was all turned around in his chair staring at me, as if they had never seen a Black person before.

“In that moment, I was like, ‘I really wish I could give them something to look at. … I’m going to start putting thoughtful, thought-provoking statements and questions on my shirts. If they’re going to stare at me, they can learn something.’”

That was in September 2017. It turned out that wearing his messages on his back lifted Northern’s spirits right away. At first he kept the shirts’ origin secret.

“I would wear them in Dixon, playing basketball, and I would always lie about how I got them. I would be, ‘Naw, I didn’t make this, my friend from New York made it and sent it to me.’

“But this one guy, an OSU athlete, was like, ‘Yo! What’s your friend’s number? What’s his website?’ and I was like ‘Damn! He got me.’ I told him, ‘Look man, I lied. I make these in my room,’ and he was like, ‘You make these in your room?! Can I buy one? You got any extras? How much?’ I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to charge. I was like, ‘Uh, $30?’ and he said, ‘OK cool, I’ll be by tonight to pick it up.’

“I was excited when I got home. I made a video of me making it and walking it to his house. He wore it all weekend and put it on his Instagram.” The result was dozens of orders.

“It was cool. It was manageable,” Northern said. “I’d do it on the weekend. It kept on growing, and I got more serious about it and bought some good equipment.”

I think it’s so important because it’s saying the things we are all thinking and won’t verbalize.

---

His fellow students took notice. A fundamentally quiet person, he was modest about the growing brand when Jada Krening ’20 of The Daily Barometer wrote a feature story about him in 2018.

“A lot of people think that it’s this big, extravagant process,” he told her. “I tell people, as I’m making your shirt, I’m probably watching Netflix, just chilling in front of the TV.”

Caleb Michael ’19, then a senior majoring in speech communication, told Krening of growing excitement for the brand among Northern’s fellow students, especially those of color.

“I think it’s so important because it’s saying the things we are all thinking and won’t verbalize,” Michael said.

Christopher Wilson ’20, then a junior studying supply chain and logistics management, was involved in Northern’s early photo shoots. He too talked to Krening about the brand’s local impact:

“It’s important because it empowers students not only through their identities, but through a clothing brand where we can support each other as well as our demographic here at Oregon State.”

Here, from the firm’s website, peopleofcolourclothing.com, is a sampling of what one might read on the back of a current People of Colour shirt:

“I reside in the type of city that’ll gentrify an entire community of African Americans and proceed to replace them with Black Lives Matter signs.”

“End rape culture. Stand firmly against all acts of sexual harassment & assault.”

“I acknowledge my inherited privilege based on the construct of whiteness. I am fully committed to educating myself on social inequality and advocating in white spaces.”

“They’re all inspired from people living life,” Northern said. “I write a lot of stuff down … on napkins, envelopes, miscellaneous pieces of paper and on my phone. I’ll marinate on an idea for a while and see if something sparks.

“I stay in my lane. Other people contribute a lot. Say it’s something about the empowerment of women who wear hijabs. I don’t know anything about that lifestyle. If I want to do something with that, I might take two women who wear hijabs out to lunch, and ask them to write the caption.”

He maintains tight control over the exact wording.

“As Generation Z, or Millennials, we’ve been trained to have a short attention span, so I want the content we use to be concise. I want you to see it, be aware of it, feel it and I want to plant a seed in your brain.

“Three of the things I look for are creating awareness, generating productive discourse and ultimately providing the opportunity for people to examine their conscious behavior. If it checks all of those boxes, it’s a go.”

Northern relies on graphic designers and photographers to make the shirts and other apparel look right, always with the focus on the words.

“As long as the logo’s on the front and the message is captured, I’m good,” he said.

“Let’s say we’re in line at American Dream Pizza here in Corvallis. I’m ordering my meal and you’re standing behind me. I want you, during that 30-second transaction, to read what’s on the back of my shirt, feel it, marinate on it, actually forget for a moment that you’re in American Dream Pizza, and think, ‘Wow, he’s talking about this? On a shirt?’

“I want you to tap the person with you on the shoulder and say, ‘This shirt right here is making me uncomfortable, but it’s a discussion I’m willing to have.’ You might go home and tell your wife about it. You might take a picture.”

As enthusiasm grew for People of Colour and its messages, so did Northern’s confidence. That’s what he wants for all who wear the brand.

“On every shirt I make, it says somewhere on it, ‘Confidence, Community, Culture.’ When you put on a POC shirt, even if you’re the only person in the room who talks like you, looks like you, has the hair you have, I want you to feel confident. When I put on a POC shirt, I walk differently, with a little more gusto.”

He seeks to alienate no one, he said. The goal is to spur productive conversations.

“I want to include allies who are about the cause, white people who are woke, so I have an ally edition shirt. But it’s not like I want you to get the shirt and run to your Black friend or your Hispanic friend or your Asian friend and say, ‘Hey, look what I learned!’

“I want you to advocate at the Thanksgiving table, I want you to advocate at Christmas, I want you to advocate when you have a family member who says something outlandish.

“You can activate your allyship and say, ‘I don’t think that’s right. I’ve educated myself, and I want to have some discourse about this.’”

When he was getting started, Northern raised about $2,500 through crowdfunding to buy what he needed to meet early demand. By the time he graduated in mid-2019, he was ready to bet his economic future on People of Colour. Now he runs a small but well-outfitted apparel-printing and order fulfillment operation in the basement of a house in Corvallis.

The business has steadily grown, he said. The COVID-19 quarantine didn’t make much of a dent in his sales. Then came a resurgence of awareness after the George Floyd killing, and orders quadrupled.

Northern lives upstairs from the shirt-making operation, which makes for an easy commute. “I try to come down here between eight and nine every morning,” he said. “I love it. I play music, and I have my lights, everything I need. I don’t leave until 11, 12 or maybe one in the morning. And I’m excited to wake up, come down here and do it all over again.”