OUR STORY
The Talented Ten, LLC is pleased to announce the launch of our new company, which started in the spring of 2020 during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ten male first cousins started Zoom meetings to touch base and talk about everyday life during the pandemic and also what they experienced during their lifetime. In the week after the George Floyd murder during our weekly meeting, the conversation of voting in the 2020 presidential election came up. We took a survey of who is registered to vote, and every cousin is registered and have voted in past elections. We also asked ourselves what we can do to make sure that everyone is registered to vote and understands the importance of voting, not only in this election but also in any election. This led to the development of a t-shirt design created that stated “ I Need to Breathe, Vote” with the image of a heartbeat and man lying on the ground with someone's knee on his neck.
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These shirts promote how one’s vote does count and the importance of voting in all elections. Our t-shirts are available in 60 colors, 100% cotton, pre-shrunk, and come in sizes from youth-small to Adult 5X.
Our goal is to donate a portion of our t-shirt sales to organizations that help in getting people registered to vote and fighting against voter suppression in our country.
We are hoping to partner with larger corporations to provide our t-shirts to get the message out to vote, one person at a time. We ask for support of The Talented Ten in our extremely important message of voting by purchasing one of our “I Need to Breathe, Vote” t-shirts.
The company’s president, Willis Drake Jr. states, “These t-shirts represent the fabric of our family’s roots since the Talented Ten are connected by our grandparent’s Kermit & Wylor Drake Sr. love of family and faith in God. Our family fought in the struggle for the right to vote during the civil rights movement and we The Talented Ten, Charles Drake Jr., Flarzell Harris Jr., Wayne Gooch, Richard gill, DeAndre Harris, Stephone Cody, Willis Drake Jr., Marco Harris, Apollos Harris and Kermit Matthew Drake will continue on with the fight today as we cannot let what has been fought for over the last 60 years be taken away.