Via Josh Burch.

As the people who represent D.C. work to figure out a way to keep the city open if the federal government shuts down, average citizens can show their support for this effort by wearing a t-shirt that declares they are “essential.”

The shirt is the creation of Create DC and statehood activist Josh Burch, who said yesterday on his blog, Neighbors United for D.C. Statehood, that Mayor Vince Gray’s “move to declare all District government workers as ‘essential’ is not just a reflection on them and their work but it’s a statement about all of us.”

All District citizens are essential, all District citizens have value, and all District citizens should be treated equally with our neighbors in the 50 states and the only path to full and permanent equality is as a state. This is an opportune time to tell the nation that we’re tired of being the unfinished business of American democracy and we want full participation in it.

Burch is calling for those who purchase the shirts, which read “I Am Essential And So Is Statehood,” to wear them on Tuesday, when the federal government may shutdown and some elected D.C. officials may get arrested.

The shirts are $15 and can be purchased by emailing Burch at unitedforstatehood@gmail.com. Burch said a few smalls and some extra large and extra-extra large shirts are still available.

Update: The original order of t-shirts is sold out. But there’s now a Cafepress store where you can buy the slogan on a number of different products.