My name is Chieca Phillips, I am the Executive Director of BlackPast which is a
non-profit. Our main output is a website of global African and African
American history. We are focused on universal access of this information
that is traditionally not found outside of the college classroom, so making sure
that folks have access to that outside of traditional education. My name is
Downi Abe, I'm a lifelong Seattle resident except for four years of
undergraduate work in California. I'm currently a writer, professor, historian,
speaker, those kinds of things around issues of culture and race and
education and sports and hip-hop and a few other things. The general narrative of
African American history in urban cities, like there are these trends, right, that
you can see that happen in all cities. I think something about Seattle is, for a
lot of reasons, people think that those overall trends don't exist here. You
couldn't move out the city because real estate ages literally were not showing
houses to black people anywhere outside that area. And so when I think about what
makes Seattle a Central District African American history different is that
there's just so much that's left to be uncovered.
I took an internship when I was in school at the University of Washington. I was an
internship at the Northwest African American Museum that was created specifically
for a student from the Museology program. The Northwest African American Museum is
located in the Central District. My family, my mother, father, and brother and I
moved to Madrid in 1979. If we're just speaking specifically about the
Central District, I'd say that history and culture are the same. They're both
transmitted kind of in the same way. But if you don't have it, then you have no
idea what's happening here. So if I'm talking about the history of black
people in Seattle or of black Seattle, I'm talking about stuff like the fact that
that's different that distinguishes this area. I'm talking about the fact that
African Americans in the 1880s voted, men and women voted in the Washington
Territory. I mean you talk about in the South, that wouldn't be really happening
into the 60s and maybe into the 70s in some places. I also think there's so
many conversations going on about equity. The issues of equity and
inequities and I think a lot of times that word is so broad and it's such a
buzzword that a lot of times there's not a lot of effort put into why is it that
we actually have these inequities and that history is the narrative of that.
And so if you can expose, we can expose through history what has gone into
creating these inequities and understand that it has been happening for
centuries. Like everyone will get a little bit closer to understanding that
it's gonna take a pretty significant amount of work to move past them.
I always, you always start with technology. I always start with technology. Doing research.
I mean the internet for that is amazing. So there's the background work that has
to happen and then when it comes to sharing the information that comes from
whatever that project is, technology is normally the vehicle for that as well.
What I do appreciate are the more grassroots stuff. DeHarris doing hack
the CD, Zistri doing his work, you know, with TAF and people like Trish and trying
to bring that idea. I love David's whole approach because of just giving young
people an opportunity to have access to these materials and then letting their
creativity take over. You know what I'm saying? That's that I love that approach
because that's allowing access and encouraging, you know, independent
kind of critical thought.
When we say preserving the history of the Central District, it's a neighborhood with
a lot of history to be preserved, including, you know, the Jewish community
that was there before the African Americans, the Japanese American community
that was there before, the native folks who actually, you know, lived on the land
before. There's so much history to be preserved. I mean the sheer volume of
information. There's a park over there on 30th, there's like a lot 30th in how
William Gross Park and I'd be interested in how many people actually know who the
guy is and the fact that, you know, so he was the second black resident here and
when he settled, he settled in what was then Northeast Seattle, but at the
time was the 23rd Union area. In fact, that was considered Northeast Seattle at
the time kind of gives you a sense for, you know, how early he was there and how
much more growth the city had ahead of him. And you know, I didn't know who, to be
honest, I didn't know who William Gross was until I started doing this research
and I felt the same. I felt that there was this park here all this time, you know,
I was thinking about the second black resident, but actually the first black
settler really kind of settled down all this time. And A, I don't know who, I
didn't know the park was even here and B, if I would have even three, four, five
years ago, I wouldn't know who he was. That matters. I mean, I think that that,
you know what I'm saying? I think those, even though they seem small, you mean, you
know, ain't that makes a difference now? Every time I go by that park, I look at it
and I think of it and I at least take a moment to reflect on what was it like for
him when he lived around here. You know what I'm saying? And so I think that just the
connection and understanding to what and who has come before is a highly key
thing when we're talking about younger people and their kind of connections to
what has already happened and how that can help inform them as they move
forward themselves.
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