How this Kansas Citian went from selling T-shirts out of his car to opening his store
As Donnell Jamison walks the floor of his newly opened Deep Rooted Clothing Co., he can’t help but think of the long road he has traveled.
Several years ago, he was on the streets, dealing drugs. He never served jail time, but he finally realized he needed to turn his life around. The problem was, he had no idea what would come next.
With no legitimate work history or practical skills, he was forced to work odd jobs to bring in a legal income. Instead of falling back into his old ways, Jamison began to plant the seeds which would turn into one of the Kansas City urban core’s most recognizable and celebrated clothing lines. Jamison sees the location, at 1112 E. 47th Terrace, as a physical representation of his life-changing journey.
“I was in the streets over half my life,” says Jamison. “I prayed to God for something better and I swore I would leave hustling alone. He ended up giving me clothing.”
In 2016, the Kansas City native began transitioning from a reformed criminal into a clothing designer. For the first time in his life, Jamison found a passion. He studied urban fashion history and drew on his own experience with street culture, hoping to shift the narrative of Black men as consumers to Black men as creators.
He was used to seeing money spent on clothing exit the community, and he wanted to make something homegrown.
“Fashion has always been a big part of Black culture,” says Jamison, 38. “So many other communities get rich off our fashion and culture because we make the trends, but we don’t make the clothing, so we don’t make money.”
In 2018 Jamison invested his own money, which was scarce already, to launch his first line of shirts. Living by the mantra of “You have to spend money to make money,” he did not sell these shirts. He gave them away.
“I started with 50 T-shirts and wrote down a list of influencers in the city who had a presence in the community and reached out and asked if I could give them a shirt,” he says.
This expensive promotion would pay off when people began to see local figures in the Black community like Terrell Ray, creator of the Kansas City Peoples Choice Awards, or Brian “Bizzy” Benton, creator of 816 Day, wearing a shirt with the Deep Rooted logo. Jamison’s clever idea made people look for him before he even had additional shirts for sale. The buzz built a foundation for what would become a fast favorite for many in the KC urban core.
Jamison started off selling his clothing out of the trunk of his car or setting up a table at local vendor events, and he began to see the economic power of a community ready to support Black creatives. In 2019, he moved into a kiosk selling at The Landing Shopping Center.
He won the Kansas City Peoples Choice award for Best Apparel Line in 2019 and 2020.
Jamison believes that his logo, depicting the bottom half of a tree with tangled roots curling down into the soil, resonated with people struggling to not only endure but grow.
“We all have a past and a deep history, and our past is also an indication of where you are going in life,” says Jamison. “People look at a tree and see the growth, but they don’t think of the work the roots had to do that you didn’t see before it even made it out the dirt.”
Jamison soon branched out from only T-shirts and now carries pants, hoodies, sweatsuits, hats and seasonal items.
Renauld Shelton, the owner of another Black-owned line, Material Opulence Clothing, says Jamison’s accomplishments inspire anyone starting with no idea how to make it in a an unfamiliar industry.
“Donnell is a really cool dude with a lot of passion behind what he does with his clothing,” says Shelton, who knows him from various vendor events. “His clothing is dope and unique because when you see that design and the name and that logo, it is easily recognizable and a symbol for people.”
And he hopes the public will continue to shop local.
“There is support from the community, especially in the past few years with people being serious about buying Black. But we definitely need more if we want more Black businesses with physical locations. It is expensive to keep the lights on, and a lot of clothing brands can’t handle that financial burden,” he says.
Jamison’s store, packed wall to wall with his vibrant colors, has already been visited by hundreds of customers since it opened last month. He looks forward to paving the way for the next clothing entrepreneurs.
“I thank God every day I walk through the door and I do the same thing when I lock up for the evening,” says Jamison. “I want to inspire people. I want people to know it is not how you start but how you finish. There will be hard times and struggles, but you have to push through.”
