An artist from the southwestern part of the city, Damon estimated he had been stopped by CPD officers between seventy-five and a hundred times in his life. After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Missouri, Damon, his friend Xavier Ramey, and some others donated water bottles, first aid kits, and gas masks to protesters locked in deadly clashes with Missouri police. Together, they created the #LetUsBreathe Collective, named after a song they had been working on at the time. Since then, #LetUsBreathe had supported police brutality protests on a national level as well as in Chicago, where Damon believed City Hall’s generous financial support of the police was connected to the country’s heavy spending on the military.
“In the same way Chicago's budget is violated by 40% of our resources being invested in the Chicago Police Department, 40% of our federal discretionary budget is also going to militarism and violence globally.”
— Damon Williams, co-founder, #LetUsBreathe