Volunteers with Pro Parks Sign, November 5, 2003. Photo Credit: Beliz Brother. For over 50 years, the hill overlooking Rainier Valley was home to the Hitt Fireworks Company, whose fireworks illuminated displays at Green Lake and Ivar's Fourth of July celebrations and even appeared in the Oscar-winning film, Gone with the Wind (1939). When the Hitt Fireworks Company ceased production in 1974, however, the future of the property became uncertain. By 2000, development seemed inevitable. Powell Home Builders had purchased the 3.2-acre site and proposed building twenty-two high-end homes on the steep hillside. As Rainier Valley prepared for the arrival of the Link Light Rail and plans encouraged growth around future transit stations, many neighbors feared the wooded hillside would disappear beneath a dense housing development. Rather than accept that outcome, the community came together to protect the hill. Dennis Fitzgerald, “Residents Seeking to Preserve Hitt’s Hill,” The South District Journal, February 23, 2000. A small group of residents formed Friends of Hitt's Hill, with neighbor Vicky Lee helping to spearhead the effort. They believed that the highest point in Rainier Valley should remain a place where both nature and neighbors could thrive. Their vision was simple but ambitious: to preserve the hill as a community park filled with native plants, trees, wildlife, and walking paths for the neighborhood to enjoy. Cascade Land Conservancy, now known as Forterra, stepped in to help make preservation possible, securing an option agreement for the property and serving as the fiscal agent for its eventual transfer to Seattle Parks and Recreation. The community then faced the challenge of raising $985,000 to purchase the land and preserve Hitt’s Hill as an open space for the public. What followed was a remarkable example of grassroots organizing. Rainier Arts Center Committee Meeting, 2000-2001. Photo Credit: Beliz Brother. Neighbors knocked on doors, wrote fundraising letters, attended countless committee meetings, applied for grants, and rallied support throughout the community. Columbia City organizations quickly joined the effort. At the time, people living in the area had access to less than one-third of an acre of open space per 100 residents, making Hitt's Hill an increasingly valuable community resource. In September of 2000, the Columbia City Revitalization Committee endorsed the campaign, writing, “As Rainier Valley has a significant share of school-age children, low-income families and new immigrants in Seattle, we see preservation as a great opportunity to help Columbia City grow with the amenities its people deserve.” The campaign required more than enthusiasm; it required resources. Friends of Hitt's Hill worked alongside Cascade Land Conservancy, Seattle Parks and Recreation, King County, the City of Seattle, regional funding, and generous individual donors to raise the $985,000 needed to purchase the property before park restoration could begin. On June 1, 2001, their efforts paid off. The purchase was completed, and on September 8, 2001, neighbors gathered alongside Mayor Paul Schell to celebrate the preservation of Hitt's Hill as an open space to the public. What could have become another housing development instead became a neighborhood park. Park Dedication with Mayor Schell, September 8, 2001. Photo Credit: Beliz Brother. But saving the land was only the beginning; volunteers rolled up their sleeves for years afterward. Caring for Hitt’s Hill became a community effort, bringing together neighborhood residents, Seattle Parks and Recreation, and EarthCorps. Through ongoing work parties, volunteers cleared invasive plants and debris, preserved the hill’s existing trees, planted native trees and shrubs, and helped restore the overgrown former industrial site while preserving its character as an urban green space. That community stewardship continues today, with EarthCorps and local volunteers continuing to care for and maintain the park. Volunteers Needed Flyer, 2003. Photo Credit: Beliz Brother. City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, "Illustrative Site Plan," from Hitt’s Hill Park Vegetation Management Plan, June 2003. Perhaps most remarkably, many of the people who helped make this vision a reality—including Vicky Lee, Beliz Brother, Bonnie Taylor, Todd Paul, Liz Ford, and Sally Clark (former Seattle City Council Chair)—remain connected to the neighborhood, while a new generation of neighbors has taken up the work of caring for Hitt’s Hill Park. Their commitment reminds us that communities are shaped not only by the places we inherit, but by the places we choose to protect. Preparations Leading up to the Dedication of Hitt's Hill Park, 2001. Photo Credit: Beliz Brother. Friends of Hitt's Hill carefully preserved the story of their work by donating meeting notes, photographs, flyers, correspondence, and planning documents to Rainier Valley Historical Society. These records document far more than the creation of a park; they tell the story of neighbors who believed they could make a difference and proved that they could. Today, visitors walking beneath the trees are more likely to hear the chirping of birds than the crackle of fireworks. Hikers explore the trails where explosives were once manufactured, and native plants cover a hillside that could easily have become streets, driveways, and rooftops. This transformation did not happen by chance. It was made possible by neighbors who recognized the value of this place and came together through grassroots action to preserve it, allowing an overgrown former industrial site to blossom into the vibrant community park it is today. Hitt's Hill Park, 2020. Photo Credit: Mikala Woodward. As Hitt's Hill Park celebrates its 25th anniversary, it stands as a reminder that community stewardship is one of the most powerful forces shaping the future of our neighborhoods. Parks, gardens, and community gathering places rarely appear on their own; they exist because ordinary people decide they are worth protecting. That sentiment remains just as relevant today. As Seattle continues to grow and new housing is built to accommodate more residents, preserving public green spaces becomes increasingly important. Hitt's Hill Park demonstrates that growth and conservation can coexist when communities come together to advocate for both. To celebrate this remarkable milestone, Rainier Valley Historical Society invites the community to join us on Saturday, September 12, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, for a free celebration of the 25th anniversary of Hitt's Hill Park. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about the park's remarkable transformation, explore its history through photographs and archival materials, and hear the story of the neighbors whose dedication helped preserve one of Rainier Valley's most treasured green spaces. Whether you've walked the trails for years or are discovering Hitt's Hill for the first time, we hope you'll join us in celebrating the community spirit that made this park possible!

Founded in 1908, by a group of sports enthusiasts, Rainier Valley Athletic Club organized, sports teams for all ages. They competed against teams from other districts of Seattle, including baseball, football, basketball, boxing, and wrestling. In addition to the Athletic Club Teams, there were a mix of school teams and those sponsored by local small businesses and churches. This photo essay showcases a variety of teams from the early years of Rainier Valley development. Columbia Congregational Church sponsored this 1914 girls' basketball team. The Rainier Valley Athletic Club was founded in 1908, so this would've been one of their first baseball teams. Sidenote: the date may only represent when the team was founded and not the actual image date. The Rainier Valley Athletic Club football team. They won the 1910 Seattle football championship. The Whitworth School Boys Baseball Team, which won the city Championship in 1911. Photo of player Fred Hutchinson (middle) in the Rainiers Baseball team uniform. Hutchinson would go on to play for the Detroit Tigers and coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds. His brother Dr. William Hutchinson, founded the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and named it in his honor. Hawthorne School Soccer Team Circa 1917 A group of football players forms a line of scrimmage in 1920. Pierre Weiss, a Columbia Pioneer, is second from the left. 1924 Basketball Team sponsored by Columbia Congregational Church Harry Cole playing tennis at Seward Tennis Club, 1931. The courts were located near 39th and Angeline. The club was started by a group of tennis enthusiasts in the Columbia City area. They entered and won city-wide tournaments, and Cole won the club championship three times. The original Bethlehem Lutheran Church is visible in the background. Columbia City Softball Team 1934 Seattle Baseball Club official scorecard.

John Hoole and I began our exploration of community activism in the Rainier Valley with a simple question: How do ordinary people affect positive change in their communities? The Rainier Valley has a long tradition of civic activism, dating back at least as far as the petition filed by the ladies of Columbia City in 1905, urging the Town Council to close the local pool room on Sundays and at 11 pm the rest of the week. We were particularly curious about the period from 1970 to 1990, when many of the issues facing the Rainier Valley today came to the force, and man of the people and organizations now at work in the community got their start. Our research began with a treasure trove of slides, minutes, correspondence, and other materials documenting the activists of SESCO, the South End Seattle Community Organization, which was founded in 1975. The materials were donated to the RVHS by Rodney Herold, one of SESCO’s founders. We knew SESCO represented a specific approach to community activism, inspired by the work of Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky, author of the classic “Rules for Radicals.” We were curious to understand SESCO’s philosophy, goals, and strategies, to compare them to the work done by other community activists during the same period, and to see what lessons we could glean from the mix. As we read through documents and conducted oral history interviews, we learned many interesting connections (and a few conflicts) among the people and groups that were at work in the Rainier Valley in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. We saw successes and failures, flashy media-savvy campaigns and long hard slogs behind the scenes. We saw people were empowered by small victories, and good intentions that lead to unintended consequences. The threads are complicated; it would take years of research to fully untangle them. We hope to continue our research in the future, and we encourage those of you with stories we failed to capture, to share them with RVHS. (2021 note: We would still love to hear your stories please email us at office@rainiervalleyhistory.org) Meanwhile, we would like to share a few of the lessons we drew from the various stories people told us over the course of the project. First of all, we learned that experts can be wrong. As the story of Greenwood Gardens shows, bureaucrats and planners do not always make decisions that benefit individual communities. They may have self-serving motives, like maintaining their jobs or perpetuating their organizations. Or they may have broader goals—from ending homelessness to balancing the state budget—that may not align with the priorities or needs of local residents. Or they may be under the say of a new trend in city planning or education reform that will prove to be deeply flawed. That large government entities often wield massive resources only make their blunders bigger. Second, social capital is powerful. People who live and work together over a long period of time—like the members of the Rainier Chamber in the 1970s —develop a network of mutual trust and reciprocal responsibility that can be called upon when they want to make a change in their community. Small acts of neighborly generosity can help build that network. Never underestimate the power of a shared lawnmower! Alinsky- style campaigns can be extremely effective. A narrowly defined issue with a clear target, and escalating tactics designed to hold that target accountable, will almost certainly produce action on that narrowly defined issue. The story of the Dunlap Dump demonstrates this, as does the tale of the Lucile Street Bridge. (The Lucile Street Bridge story also shows us the necessity of vigilance in the endgame!) Focusing on small, achievable goals, can prevent activists from seeing the bigger picture. Now, the bigger picture can be overwhelming, confusing, discouraging, and paralyzing; there generally isn’t a simple, obvious solution—this is why Alinksy advised organizers to focus on small, achievable goals. But sometimes the problems are bigger than that, and the solutions have to be bigger too. In the case of Whitworth School, there were systemic, fundamental problems underlying Whitworth’s situation—systemic problems that pitted school against school, parents against neighbors. What might have happened with everyone had worked together to address those systemic issues? Finally, and perhaps most importantly: ordinary people can change the world. Despite the cautionary principles listed above, we have found ourselves inspired again and again by the stories we heard and the people we talked to during this project. Kay Godefroy; the PTA President who went from founding an afternoon Kindergarten at Whitworth to heading up the Rainier Chamber’s anti-crime work in the 1980s, told us: “If you can organize a PTA spaghetti dinner, you can do anything. You don’t need professionals, you don’t need funding, you can make changes with the force of your will.” Many other people embodied this spirit, Pauline Wilson, Brighton resident, and mother of seven, whose talent and passion were brought out by SESCO organizers and who became a powerful voice in the fight to tear down Greenwood Gardens. Jean Vel Dwyk, whose tireless advocacy on behalf of Rainier Valley businesses and residents has wrong positive change out of the worst situations. B.J. Santos, who at the age of eleven organized a talent show at Whitworth that raised $135 to paint the boys' bathrooms, and who told the School Board that the students “could not take care of all such problems” without their help. Jim Diers, who started out as a SESCO organizer, and went on to take Saul Alinksy’s principles of community empowerment and build them into the city government, as the first director of the Department of Neighborhoods. It was an ironic idea, city hall training people to fight city hall, but the DON—particularly the Neighborhood Matching Fund—has been a powerful force for improvement and citizen empowerment in neighborhoods across the city. We see a lot of hope even in the most contentious arguments in the Rainier Valley—over density, light rail, school closures, and so on—even though they sometimes weaken the social capital that gives neighborhood activists their true power. These conflicts are the result of a necessary tension among different people, institutions, and perspectives in our community. Conflicts also show us that people here care what happens in their community. They know its past (thanks to the work for the RVHS) and they have a stake in its future. And time and again they have fought passionately for the kind of future they want to see. The 'Everybody In' project was completed in 2011 and was funded by a special project grant from King County 4Culture. Read more stories from this collection using the links below: Lessons In Civic Activism: Greenwood Gardens A Concrete Problem: SESCO and the Principle of Escalation Schoolyard Standoffs: The Tale of Whitworth Elementary How to Build a Bridge The Rainier Chamber’s Crime Fighting Spree: Harnessing Social Capital “Everybody In” packs it in SESCO Unity - South Seattle Emerald.

From the west slope of Beacon Hill, the Lucile Street Bridge runs under Interstate 5 and dives in a massive U over the railroad tracks at the base of the hull, delivering cars, bicycles, and pedestrians onto the streets of Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. Passing over it, the bridge registers as nothing more than infrastructure; interchangeable with any other stretch of cement that gets a person one place to another. But some thirty-five years ago, some people lived and worked nearby who were passionate about the bridge—they struggled, and against considerable odds, willed it into existence. This is the story of what they had to do. Lucile Street Bridge March | 2011.009.0217 In 1904 the Burlington Northern and Union Pacific Railroads built a temporary wooden structure over the railroad tracks on Lucile Street. Built with two ninety-degree turns to reduce the steepness of the span, the bridge was meant for car and pedestrian traffic. By the mid-1970s the bridge was nearing the end of its useful life. In August 1976, the city and two railroads commissioned a study to determine what should be done. Consistent with the railroads' desire to spend no more money on the bridge, the study concluded that it should remain intact, but closed to auto traffic. Georgetown residents seethed when they got the word that the railroads were going back on their decades-old promise to replace the temporary structure and they were ready for a fight. In 1975, Jim Diers, a recent college graduate from Ohio arrived in Seattle with a sense of purpose—to improve the lives of regular people. He joined up with a new group called the South end Seattle Community Organization (SESCO) which was organizing residents to take on the most important problems faced by their neglected neighborhoods. In his first report on the neighborhood he had been assigned, Diers wrote “Georgetown is going industrial, but nearly 2,500 people still live amidst new industrial structures. Except for some younger transients, the residents are primarily elderly homeowners who have spent their lives in the area and intend to die there.” (1) Of the issues that residents raised with Diers, the bridge was one of the most pressing as it was one of the few remaining links between Beacon Hill and Georgetown after Interstate 5 was completed in 1968. Save Our Bridge was the original name the residents gave their group. According to Diers, “because S.O.B. gave some the mistaken impression that we favored keeping the present structure,” they renamed it the Lucile Street Bridge Committee (LSBC).(2) It was assembled from many existing groups that were active in the community including St. George’s Parish, Active Georgetown Seniors, Maple Hill Neighborhoods, and the Aeromechanic’s Union. (3) On November 6, the LSBC organized a march from Georgetown to Cleveland High School where a hearing on the fate of the bridge was scheduled. Led by an 82 year old grandma, they marched up the bridge carrying signs with slogans like “City Council, what are your RR ties?” and “No More Studies.” The spectacle of more an 400 people—children in soccer uniforms, elderly Georgetown residents, and local politicians—crossing a 72 year old wooden bridge that had been deemed unsafe for vehicles weighing more than 3 tons did not fail to make an impression. In the school auditorium, the Seattle Banjo Club entertained the crowd with their renditions of Lucile St. Bridge is Falling Down” and “We’ve been working on the Railroad” and residents and business owners of all stripes spoke out in favor of replacing the bridge. The collection taken up that night totaled $168.53; $100 of which was donated by real estate magnate Jack Benaroya. A month later, some 250 residents, including representatives from 23 different South Seattle community groups, overwhelmed a City Council Transportation subcommittee meeting with a well-orchestrated, two-hour presentation. Police and fire officials testified that the loss of the bridge would mean increased emergency response times and strongly endorsed the replacement option. (4) The LSBC presented George Benson, chair of the City Council;s Transportation Committee, with a petition supporting the rebuild signed by more than 2,300 residents. “I’ve never felt a though I stood at the end of a cannon barrel before, but I feel that way now," said the railroad’s consultant when he went before the crowd to present his firm’s findings. Amidst a chorus of catcalls, he explained to them that “The bridge is strongly needed from a sociological standpoint and a pedestrian and bicycle standpoint, but from a technical, cost-benefit standpoint, it’s not feasible to replace it.”(5) Bob Medina, an LSBC leader, read the railroad’s recommendation and asked the crowd to vote by show of hands whether they favored it. Not one hand went up. He then asked for a vote on the replacement proposal that his group had prepared. Every hand in the room was raised except those of representatives of the railroads, the Engineering Department, and Transportation. Medina turned to Councilman Benson and asked if he would support it. Benson struggled to answer and Medina was happy to help: “A simple ‘yes’ will do!” (6) That “yes” came less than a month later when in 1977 the City Council passed a resolution requiring the railroads to made federal money to build a new bridge built for vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The residents of Georgetown had won. The day before the council vote, the activists held a press conference in Councilman Benson’s office where they presented him with a rusty nail from the bridge and a note that read: “This paperweight was found lying under the bridge and testifies to the deteriorated condition of the 73 year old temporary structure. We hope that you will place it on top of the other issues on your desk.” (7) The estimated completion date was September 1979. The project was now in the hands of the city, state, and federal bureaucracies, each with its own interests and “proper channels.” By September, the city Engineering Department had not, as promised, signed agreements with the railroad and with the consultant for the preliminary design of the bridge. They said they needed more time. (8) On October 6, the Lucile Street Bridge Committee called the television stations down to South Seattle and staged an inspection of the old bridge. They sent a report detailing the needed repairs to the Engineering Department, which were made in a month. The Bridge Committee called its own unofficial public hearing on October 13, which was attended by 150 people along with councilman Benson and two city engineers. The program included a skit entitled “The Snails” about the pace of officials in the building of the new bridge. Organizers presented the city engineers with “The Fast Mover Award.” A ceramic snail mounted on a trophy pedestal, to take to their boss.”(9) As relentless as the residents could be, city officials saw in them a credible partner in the bridge project. Facing difficult choices during the design phase, the Engineering department put the decision to the LSBC, who ultimately voted to wait a little longer for their preferred design—a wider roadway with bigger sidewalks. (10) At the end of April, 1980, two weeks before the bridge project was to be sent out for bed, the city announced that, due to a cut in federal highway funds, construction would be delayed indefinitely. In May of 1980, the Seattle Times ran an Op Ed titled “City Hall Breaks Promise, Shuns South End (Again).”(11) Mayer Royer and several city council members responded with their own Op Ed, which closed with the emphatic statement: “The Lucille Street Bridge will be built.” (12) On the evening of July 16,1982, residents of Georgetown were joined by Mayor Royer and a delegation of city council members and residents for the ribbon cutting at the intersection of Airport Way South and Corson Avenue South. Echoing the original demonstration six years earlier that kicked off their campaign, the neighbors marched from the top to the bottom of their new bridge. The new Lucile Street Bridge was built for $2.8 million with the federal government paying 80 percent, the railroads paying the remainder, and the city responsible for ongoing maintenance costs. Fair from a piece of anonymous infrastructure, the residents of Georgetown viewed the bridge as a vital feature of their neighborhood and had taken a stand in deciding its future. If there is a lesson in the Lucille Street Bridge campaign, it is that petitioning powerful institutions is not enough. The vast majority of Lucile Street Bridge Committee’s work came after the emotional climax of the city and the railroads reversing their original plan and agreeing to replace the bridge. Were it not for the five years of vigilance that came after the original agreement to rebuild—letter-writing campaigns, meetings, press events, marches--- the Lucile Street Bridge would likely not exist today. This model of local initiative and government-citizen participation was institutionalized in Seattle when Jim Diers, who had stood with the residents of Georgetown, became the first Director of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods in 1988. The 'Everybody In' project was completed in 2011 and was funded by a special project grant from King County 4Culture. Read more stories from this project below: Lessons In Civic Activism: Greenwood Gardens A Concrete Problem: SESCO and the Principle of Escalation Schoolyard Standoffs: The Tale of Whitworth Elementary How to Build a Bridge The Rainier Chamber’s Crime Fighting Spree: Harnessing Social Capital “Everybody In” packs it in Jim Diers, SESCO Newsletter, Volume 1976 #7, pg4 Letter to supporters of the Lucile Street Bridge Committee, law Nov, 1976 Jim Diers, e-mail, 5/3/2011 Seattle Times, “Rally in Support of new Lucile St. Bridge set,” 11/3/76 “Community Turns out for Lucile St. Bridge,: SDJ 11/10/76 SESCO newsletter, 12/15/76 SESCO newsletter, January 27, Vol.1977 #1 SESCO newsletter, 9/16, 1977, volume 1977, Number 7 SESCO newsletter, Nov 3, 1977- Vol1977 Number 8 Seattle Times, "Community Panel Resolves Lucile Street span question,” 4/7/79 Seattle Times, "City Hall Breaks Promise, Suns South End (Again),” 5/2/1980 Seattle Times, “Lucile Street Bridge is Coming,” 6/6/1980

This project was completed in 2011 and was founded by a special project grant from King County 4Culture. One day in the fall of 1988 bulldozers arrived at the corner of 45th and Dawson, just west of the new Whitworth school building., and began raising seven houses in order to expand the school’s playfield to the west. The old Whitworth building had just been replaced and the school’s footprint had shifted to the west, all but eliminating the already cramped playground. The neighbors had known this was coming for months; indeed, some of them had been fighting it for years. Still, the demolition was shocking. “you know how you have to jump through all these hoops to get a permit for a ‘permanent structures’ on your property?” one neighbor said. “It took them half a day to raze those homes. Nothing is permanent.” The original Whitworth School opened in 1907. The land to the west of the school was empty at that time, though the area—close to burgeoning Columba City and Hillman city- was developing rapidly. Whitworth’s first principal, Emma Hart, was respected and beloved by parents and students alike. On a least one occasion, however, she drew the ire of her bosses: in April 1913, according to School Board Minutes, “the Principal of the Whitworth School closed said school for two days on account of diphtheria, without authority from the office.”[The Board considered docking Miss Hart’s pay as punishment, but in the end they voted “to allow the full salary for the month., the Superintendent to caution against the closing of any schools without proper authority.”] Miss Hart survived her little quarrel with the district and went on to serve another 25 years as principal of Whitworth. By the time she retired in 1938, the lots to the west of the school had houses sitting on them, and the children in them headed into Whitworth School every morning, just like all the other kids in the neighborhood. The principals who followed Miss Hart kept order, supervised teachers, and oversaw the steady growth of the school. One of them also wrote poetry: Frank Henderson’s verses reveal a gentle man with an eye for the long view. The general sentiment seems to be: “Nothing is permanent, and we’ll all be dead in the end, so the best we can do is live each day.” Which is probably the kind of attitude you have to have if you are a school principal—especially if you are a school principal on the eve of a world war. Rivers to the Sea I’m floating down a river that will take me to the sea; A swift and winding river that will not wait for me. Its banks are steep and rugged, its course beset with woe; I’m launched upon its waters and with them I must go. You’re launched upon a river that hurries to the sea, The great expansive ocean that will hide both you and me. ‘It’s the home of the forgotten and the home of those to be; So live and drink the sunshine as you travel to the sea. -- Frank Henderson, Whitworth Principal, 1940 The war years were full of tragedy and sacrifice, of course. Whitworth students practiced for air raids, worried about uncles and brothers fighting overseas, and are more than their fill of Victory Garden kale. But the expansion of Seattle’s defense industries during and after the war also brought thousands of jobs—and thousands of people—to the city. South End schools soon overflowed with the children of these new arrivals. The district moved Whithworth’s 7th and 8th graders to Sharples Junior High when it opened in 1952, and in 1957 it opened Graham Hill Elementary in portables a mile south. Still, Whitworth’s enrollment continued to climb, peaking at 853 in 1958. A new wing was added that year, with six classrooms and a gym. In the 1970s the enrollment trend reversed as the “Boeing Bust” plunged the area into a deep recession. White middle-class families moved away, and more African American families moved into the neighborhood. Whitworth’s population went from 89% white to and 1% black in 1964 to 39% white and 45% black in 1975. (Asian enrollment also increased during this period, but only slightly.) Still, Whitworth retained enough white students that it was not included in the district’s desegregation plan in 1978. Any school whose “minority” population exceeded the district’s average by 20% was paired with a mostly white school in the north end for mandatory bussing. This was a fairly straightforward standard in the mostly black Central Area, but in the South End where racial balance hovered closer to the qualifying line, the policy pitted schools against each other in an effort to keep their white populations high enough to avoid bussing. Parents at neighboring schools complained that Whitworth parent used their gifted program to “poach” white kids away from their schools and as a result the “minority” percentage at schools like Graham Hill edged just over the trigger point for bussing. Whether this perception was true or not, the district was quite clear that it was using gifted magnet programs as a tool to attract white kids to “minority” schools: the cynical assumptions behind this desegregation strategy were not lost on the parents of gifted children of color who lived in the Whitworth neighborhood, but were told they would be bussed to magnet programs at schools in the North End where their presence would improve “racial balance.” The principal at Whitworth during this period was Al Cohen, reportedly an idealistic, charismatic leader who led his staff in committing to “go the extra mile and support each other” in improving the school. The desegregation plan allowed parents from all over the city to choose Whitworth, and as Cohen’s vision came to fruition, they did, in droves. By the mid-‘80s, Al Cohen was long gone but the school received an award for excellence from the federal government. It was the first urban school in the nation to receive this honor. There were issues, of course. The PTA had to work to bridge the (real and imagined) socioeconomic gap between the gifted program and the neighborhood families –figuring out, for instance, how to distribute holiday food baskets donated by wealthier parents to the school’s needier families, without causing embarrassment on either side. More general concerns about overcrowding and understaffing surfaced again and again. At the time the district gave all elementary schools the same allotment of administrative staff regardless of the school’s size. Whitworth parents and teachers argued, reasonably enough, that with 647 students, many of whom had intense emotional and social needs, their school should get more support staff than an elementary school with 250 children. Even basic playground supervision was a challenge: at a School Board hearing student Costa Singer testified that, due to budget cuts, “there no longer [were[ teacher aids on the playground to prevent fighting and injuries. When he broke his arm on the playground there was no adult to walk him to the office.” Whitworth parents also worried about the safety of their aging building. In July of 1984, the PI reported that “Whitworth’s overcrowding is exacerbated by its old, outdated building… classrooms are tiny, children must troop downstairs to use the bathroom, and the plumbing and wiring systems are on the kids.” A district study had noted that the building’s masonry would not withstand a major earthquake. “The main building is on the critical list of potentially unsafe structures to be remodeled or replaced if the Sept 18 bond issue is approved,” The PI article continued. This was good news—but many parents balked at the idea of sending their kids to school in an unsafe building every day for another three years, crossing their fingers that the Big One wouldn’t strike before the reconstruction could take place. The 1984 seismic safety report pushed Whitworth parents from frustrated advocacy to focused action, and that summer they threatened a boycott of the school in September, if the district failed to meet with PTSA member Monica Wooten called “non-negotiable demands”: More staff, seismic retrofitting of the existing building, and emergency supplies for every classroom. Parent volunteers polled Whitworth families and found “overwhelming support for taking this action to et the things we felt we needed, to make Whitworth safe this year.” The PTA worked with staff to present a unified front of the district and make new principal John Morefield support their efforts. “Look,’ I said to my boss, ‘I’ve got to side with them, it's my first year here. Besides, you know the district is wrong anyway. There are 700 kids in that building!’” (Morefield, like Emma Hart, knew when to put the needs of his students above his duty to the authorities downtown.) Other parents coordinated a letter writing campaign, provided legal advice, organized pickets, and planned for daycare should the threatened boycott become a reality. School Board hearings were packed with Whitworth staff, parents, and students testifying passionately about the needs of their school. Sixth grader B.J. Santos told the Board that Whitworth students “had presented a talent show which had grossed over $135. That money was used to repaint the boys' lavatories. He said they could not take care of all such problems without help from the School Board.” In August the district proposed a compromise: Whitworth would get a counselor, an additional part-time teacher, and two aides. Money would be allocated to reinforce the building’s masonry, and to provide emergency supplies. The PI reported that the district’s offer was unanimously accepted by an auditorium full of many of the same parents who earlier this summer had vowed to keep their youngsters away from classes.” In September Whitworth teachers and families returned to school in triumph. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the staff additions that were a direct result of our negotiations with the district over the summer,” crowed PTSA presidents Kay Godefroy & Eileen Berlin in the first school newsletter of the ear. “This is the way staffing standards should be. I hope we can convince the School District and the School Board to concentrate more money on teachers and support personnel in the future.: “What a difference a non-boycott can make,” commented principal John Morefield, who masterfully channeled all this energy and excitement into support of the school’s academic and community-building programs. Monica Wooten chided the school board for its failure to respond to ears of polite requests and encouraged the district to adopt a more inclusive process so disruptive confrontations could be avoided in the future. Alas, it was not to be. Whitworth’s active PTA continued to work on facilities concerns after their triumphant non-boycott in the summer of 1984. The school newsletter from the 1984-1985 school year documents the activities of an Overcrowding Committee, a School Size Committee, and an ed Spec Committee, charged with developing a list of criteria for the new school building. The result of all this committee work—“hours and hours and hours and hours of meetings,” according to Kay Godefroy—was a determination by the district that Whitworth needed more space, and a larger playground in particular. A number of options were presented for expanding the site; the district eventually decided to annex land to the west. The plan required the acquisition and demolition of twelve homes. Now, in the case of the threatened boycott, advocacy by Whitworth parents had been fueled by the certain knowledge that they were standing up for what was right—their kids needed a safe building, and adequate adult supervision and support. They must have been aware at some level that the extra resources Whitworth got that year had to come out of some other part of the district’s budget, but they didn’t have to confront the effects of those cuts directly. When it came to the expansion of the school site, however, the people who stood to lose were right there on the other side of the fence, and they were not happy about the sacrifice they were being forced to make. Some of the people living in those houses had attended Whitworth when there were 850 kids there, and they couldn’t see the need to tear down their homes in order to give a mere 650 kids more room to run around. They didn’t trust the district’s public process, which one neighbor referred to as a “dog and pony show” designed to disguise the decision that had already been made. They banded together as CAWSE (Citizens Affected by the Whitworth Site Expansion) and came up with an alternative plan for a new school that did not require the district to tear down their homes. In April of 1986, the organizing group SESCO (South End Seattle Community Organization) held a community forum at Whitworth, where parents and neighbors agreed to a “statement of unity,” challenging the School Board to “forward a plan for a new building that meets educational specifications and city codes, on the existing site.” They urged the district to consider the CAWSE proposal as a starting point. By June this fragile unity ad evaporated. Whitworth parents and staff were not unanimous regarding the need for a larger site, but those advocating for the expansion spoke loudly and eloquently. “Whitworth has been outmoded, outdated, seismically unsafe, too small and generally unacceptable for 25-30 years.” Wrote Kay Godefroy in a letter to the district’s facilities department. “We cannot continue in the present facility.” Godefroy also cautioned against any plan that extended the construction period for longer than 12 months, because an extended sojourn at the temporary school in distant Ballard would “seriously jeopardize the Whitworth program as we know it. Staff, students and parents will not stick it out.” Meanwhile the neighbors were equally articulate in expressing their side. Josephine Baldwin, a 30 year resident of the neighborhood whose house was slated for demolition wrote: “I truly feel like a tree being uprooted and wondering where I am going to put my roots where I can feel just as safe there as I do there.” SESCO member Oscar Hearde lived across the street from the threatened homes; he described the plan as “the most cruel and devastating act any government agency could ever impose on a community of some of the most disadvantaged people of the city of Seattle.” Hearde, the Baldwins, and others were tireless in their efforts to push the School Board to reconsider its decision—which it declined to do. CAWSE finally sued the district to stop the plan from going through. In the end the neighbors suceeded in saving five of the twelve homes under threat, including Josephine Baldwin’s. Seven homes were demolished and replaced with a grass playfield. We Face the Unknown Today, tomorrow and always we face the unknown; In spite of seers, prophets, and the wise we met it alone; With joy, sadness, jewels, or gold, our lot is the same; We bring nothing and leave nothing, but a shriveling name. Monuments erected, tombs carved crumble and fall; Nature loans for our building, and then takes all. The scars we make on earth’s grey and mottled face, The waves of time, undaunted , soon will erase. --Frank Henderson, Whitworth Principal 1940 So Whitworth got its larger site. But the ugly struggle over land acquisition sapped energy and time from the design of the new building. Whether due to budget or space constraints or because angry neighbors had been so outraged by what they perceived as “luxuries” on the Ed Spec Committee’s wish list, the architects stripped the new building of many of the features the school community had requested, such as a PTA meeting room and other common spaces. All available square footage was devoted to classrooms, with hallways and entry areas minimized. The resulting building was so barren and forbidding, some neighbors suspected that the district was trying to punish them by putting the ugliest possible structure in their midst. Others, still furious with the district and its “PTA lackeys” described the structure as “poetic justice.” Even today, a common myth about the building is that it was designed by prison architects (It is true that WMFL Architects did some prison work, by they had also successfully designed schools, libraries, and other public buildings.) Whitworth’s new building opened in 1989 with only 450 kids. This drop in enrollment was probably the result of two years at Monroe School in Ballard; as Kay Godefroy had predicted, it was difficult to maintain the school’s high level of parental involvement with the school so far away. Even after Whitworth returned to its neighborhood, it was difficult to rebuild the community. Many people felt that the new building’s forbidding appearance, along with the awkward entryways, constricted hallways, and death of common space, undermined the school’s tradition of parental participation. Kay Godefroy and Monica Wooten both lamented that “the school never recovered its spirit” after this disruptive period. At least one student who attended Whitworth when the new building first opened reports that it was still a great school then, but acknowledges that by the time her younger brother went there eight years later, things had changed. Many of the talented, committed teachers who had served under Al Cohen and John Morefield moved on in the early ‘90s. Whitworth, like many South End schools, lost nearly all of its white kids in the wake of the district's 1995 “Choice” assignment plan, which essentially ended the proactive desegregation policy. By 2001 the school had 370 students, and only 5% were white. (the presence of white kids is not necessarily an indicator of a school’s success or failure, of course. But in this instance it shows that the neighborhood, which was 50% white in 2000, had largely abandoned the school.) Changes in the gifted program, attractive options at nearby schools, and the evolution of the neighborhood itself also played a role in Whitworth’s decline. The school was closed in 2007, and the building has since become home to Orca K-8, an alternative school. Note: In 2010, a group of Orca middle school students researched the history of the seven hours that were torn down in 1988, and resurrected them on the playfield for an evening. For more information about the “No Place Like Home” project, winner of the 2011 Heritage Education Award from the Association of King County Heritage Organizations, visit. www.sevenhouses.blogspt.com. See more stories from this project below: Lessons In Civic Activism: Greenwood Gardens A Concrete Problem: SESCO and the Principle of Escalation Schoolyard Standoffs: The Tale of Whitworth Elementary How to Build a Bridge The Rainier Chamber’s Crime Fighting Spree: Harnessing Social Capital “Everybody In” packs it in

Greenwood Gardens Protest | South Seattle Emerald In the 1970s, people had all kinds of ideas about what should go in at 38th and Othello—a police station, a bible college, a Native American cultural center staffed with armed guards and encircled by an electrified fence—but what mattered most to those who lived in the surrounding South Seattle neighborhoods was what shouldn’t be there: the Greenwood Gardens apartment complex. Rising up from a sea of empty parking lots, the olive drab, two, three, and four-story buildings were arrayed over seven acres between the Holly Park housing project and what was then Empire Way. Squares of blue, gray, green or unpainted plywood had been fastened over all the windows, which had been systematically smashed out, diving the facades into peculiar geometric grid suggesting some purpose other than human habitation. From the day it was built in 1970, Greenwood Gardens appeared with alarming regularity in the police paper’s police blotter as the location of a lurid catalog of urban dysfunction: vandalism, prostitution, child neglect, drugs, robbery. Built to accommodate four times the density of living units as the adjacent Holly Park housing project, Greenwood Gardens seemed a crystallization of anxieties about a crowded, desperate, dangerous future for the Rainier Valley. The project had been born in 1968 as a charitable initiative of the Central Aera’s first African Methodist Episcopal church, which had been at the forefront of black Seattle’s fight against segregation. But before the permits for low-income housing were approved, the church backed out. Sound Lakeview, a California firm which envisioned Greenwood Gardens as a middle class rather than low-income development, took over and, in August of 1969, secured a 4.6 million dollar federal loan. The shift in emphasis came at just the time when the desired middle income renters were fleeing the Rainier Valley in droves. Developments in the late 1960s, such as the construction of Interstate 5 and South Center malled, served to isolate Rainier Valley from the economic life of the Seattle metropolitan core. When Boeing laid off almost two thirds of its workforce in 1970 and 1971, the pain was especially sharp in the Rainier Valley, which had served as a dormitory for prospective and actual Boeing employees. Between 1960 and 1970, southeast Seattle lost 11,962 or 20% of its white residents. During the same period, in the area where Greenwood Gardens would be built, more than 40% of the white population moved away. Vacant housing jumped from 5% to 17% over the course of the decade(1) and by 1976, the apartment vacancy rate in the Rainier Valley was 20%- twice the race of the rest of Seattle. (2) Sound Lakeview, the developer took advantage of Section 236 of the National Housing Code, which had been adopted by Congress in 1968 to stimulate construction by private developers of modestly-priced multi-family housing. The bargain was that, in exchange for a 40 year loan with an interest rate of 1%, rents would be limited to no more than 25% of a tenant’s income. Also, 59 of Greenwood Gardens 294 units were to be eligible for direct rent subsidies for low income tenants who couldn’t afford even the capped rental rate. Greenwood Gardens opened in April of 1971 and over the next several months renters trickled in more slowly than anticipated, culminating in a peak occupancy rate of between 60 and 70 percent in July of 1972. By the end of 1972, of the roughly 100 families at the complex then, 59 of them lived in the low income subsidized units. Most of the full price apartments went vacant or had tenants who didn’t regularly pay their rent. Having failed to build the middle class rental community it envisioned, Sound Lakeview defaulted on its loan. In March of 1973, Greenwood Gardens came under new ownership. Instead of seeking to remedy the low occupancy problem by attracting new renters, the new owners abandoned successive buildings as vacancies increased and herded the remaining tenants into buildings at one corner of the development. Three months later, city inspectors shut down two thirds of the units for fire code and safety violations. On July 13, 1973, the Seattle Times published a front page story about Greenwood Gardens under the headline “Housing Project Quickly Becomes a Slum. (3) Despite having acquired Greenwood Gardens on very favorable terms—a reduction of the mortgage payments to interest only and tax deductions that would offset their investment in less than a year—in August of 1973, after having failed to make a single portage payment, the new owners defaulted on their purchase agreement and the property came under the ownership of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the second time in less than a year. Section 236 was created to encourage private developers, to meet the demand for low income housing and reward prudent management of the projects. Instead, as was the case at Greenwood Gardens, many took the program as an opportunity for a guaranteed short term windfall. As a Seattle Department of Planning and Development memo put it, “ownership has no incentive to add cash in any sizable amount of physically improved Greenwood. From an investment point of view it would be throwing money down the drain, since they bought a shelter for taxes, not people.” (4) There was marked neighborhood opposition to Greenwood Gardens from the start, but the decisive moment came in 1975 when two Jesuit priests arrived in South Seattle and founded the South End Seattle Community Organization (SESCO). Under the leadership of SESCO, area churches, community councils, and residents joined together, gathering signatures for petitions, lobbying politicians, and picketing government offices. With programs like Section 236, they argued, federal agencies, with the complicity of local officials, were segregating the poor in Rainier Valley. At a public meeting in 1976, Rainier Valley resident Lynn Taylor rendered the verdict of the neighborhood activists: “They have been putting low income housing here for years, where areas such as Queen Anne Hill and Magnolia are almost totally free of low income housing… It is time that southeast Seattle stand up for itself. No more low inkling housing. Demolish Greenwood Gardens.” (5)HUD for its part was determined not to write off the $5 million already invested in the project. For the Seattle Housing Authority, the organization HUD tasked with managing the redevelopment of Greenwood Gardens, the highest priority was finding housing for the city’s growing low income elderly population. Backed by a coalition of local businesses and nonprofits, the plan they settled on was to demolish the worst of the buildings and revamp the rest as low income senior housing. On September 20th 1977, after having exhausted the avenues of the official process and protest, SESCO filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against HUD, and the SHA which sought to “enjoin the Seattle Housing Authority from permitting, or approving further design or architectural or construction or demolition work” at the site. (6).. But as the lawsuit worked its way through the court, the SHA went about its plants, demolishing more than half the units in preparation for redeveloping what remained. On June 21,1978, the judge sided with SESCO, ruling that the SHA’s Environmental Impact Statement had been conducted improperly, but contrary to their hopes, the court affirmed that the “SHA will continue to own and operate the facility to provide housing for low-income elderly persons.” And with that decision, a decade of meetings, studies, petitions, marches, all bound up in the fate of Greenwood Gardens, drew to a close. With new vinyl siding, and a new name—Holy Court—starting in 1980, the three remaining buildings have housed low income disabled and elderly residents. With the redevelopment of the Holly Park housing project in the mid-1990s, new state-of-the-art senior housing was built on the remainder of Greenwood’s footprint. Though today the name Greenwood Gardens is largely forgotten, the fight that began forty years ago over what should occupy that spot on the make was decisive in forming the Rainier Valley’s identity as a district place. It defined a fault line that has persisted in local politics between residents and outsiders, neighborhood activists and government, and provided a vocabulary for struggles with residential density and crime that redounds to this day. Read more stories from this project below: Lessons In Civic Activism: Greenwood Gardens A Concrete Problem: SESCO and the Principle of Escalation Schoolyard Standoffs: The Tale of Whitworth Elementary How to Build a Bridge The Rainier Chamber’s Crime Fighting Spree: Harnessing Social Capital “Everybody In” packs it in U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1960, Selected Population and Housing Characteristics: Seattle, WA. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1962. US Census of Population and Housing, 1970: Selected Population and Housing Characteristics Seattle-Everett, WA. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1972. Letter/Report titled: “Greenwood Gardens”: to Lee Pasquarella from Al Levine (SHA) and Jennifer Silver (DCD) Subj: “Preliminary Report on the conversion of Greenwood gardens as the site for the Southeast Multi-Service Center and related activists dated 9/19/72 Ross Anderson, :Housing Project Quickly Becomes a Slum” Seattle Times, 7/13/73 Document titled” Greenwood Apartments” to Jim Braman, Mike Hansen, dated 8/20/73 Seattle Housing Authority, Greenwood Gardens Redevelopment Environmental Impact Statement, 1976 King County Superior Court civil appearance docket- Hans P. Petersen, et. al., vs. Luther J, Carr, Chairman, Seattle Housing Authority et al., 9/20/77

We have completed a project researching and documenting the history of community activism in the Rainier Valley. We were interested in tracing the roots of our current community issues and organizations back to the 1970s. Mikala Woodward and John Hoole dug through information at Municipal Archives, the Seattle Public Library, and in a marvelous collection of documents and slides donated by Rodney Herold, co-founder of SESCO (South End Seattle Community Organization). They recorded oral history interviews with activists, government officials, and other participants in the events of the era. These interviews, along with any photos and documents they uncover, will be added to the RVHS’s collection for future researchers. See stories from this project below: Lessons In Civic Activism: Greenwood Gardens A Concrete Problem: SESCO and the Principle of Escalation Schoolyard Standoffs: The Tale of Whitworth Elementary How to Build a Bridge The Rainier Chamber’s Crime Fighting Spree: Harnessing Social Capital “Everybody In” packs it in

Princess Angeline/Kikisoblu, daughter of Chief Seattle/Seeathl, pictured here in a rare photograph tending to clothing. It is said she was born around 1820 near today’s Pritchard Island in Rainier Beach along Lake Washington. RVHS Photograph August means many different things to Seattlites — some may find the dusk of summer bittersweet, some may celebrate the traffic-stopping spectacle of Seafair, while still others may celebrate one of the many independence days that fall in the American holiday lull of August. One thing we can probably all agree on, however, is the wonderful explosion of berries across the city. These berries have been sustaining and bringing joy to residents of the Seattle area for hundreds of years, so this month, we’re highlighting a Duwamish recipe for Blackberry dumplings to explore how the Xacua’bs (pronounced hah-chu-ABSH), a band of the Duwamish tribe who lived on the shores along Lake Washington, have and continue to use the rich natural resources of the Rainier Valley. A band of the Duwamish tribe whose name aptly means “Lake People,” historians estimate that the Southern Xacua’bs people, who lived in the area we now call Rainier Valley, numbered three to four hundred at any given time. There were groups of longhouses at the outlet of Lake Washington (where the Renton Airport is today) and at Bryn Mawr, Brighton Beach, Pritchard Island, and Leschi Park. Similar to the practices of many Native Americans on the Northwest Coast, the Xacua’bs wintered in small villages and spent the warmer months moving around the area in their canoes, staying at temporary camps as they gathered and preserved food for the winter. Fish from the lake was a primary source of food—sockeye salmon and longfin smelt, as well as peamouth, whitefish, and suckers—which they caught with weirs, spears, and dip nets along the streams feeding the lake. The Xacua’bs diet was quite diverse, with their sources of food including crayfish, freshwater mussels, duck, geese (if you commute down the Boulevard often, you’ll know the amount of geese we have!), deer, elk, bear, beaver, muskrat, raccoon, weasel, otter, and, of course, plants. The most abundant of these plants were berries, for Seward Park alone boasts thimbleberries, salal, currants, black caps, salmonberries, huckleberries, blackberries, strawberries, serviceberries, and others. As Seattle residents today might be able to guess, of the plant foods gathered by the “Lake People,” blackberries are by far the most persistent these days. The Xacua’bs historically enjoyed Seattle’s smaller, sweeter native blackberries known as trailing blackberry (rubus ursinus) until Californian experimental farmer Luther Burbank began selling the invasive Himalayan blackberry to the Puget Sound in the late 19th century. Since then, the Himalayan blackberry has taken over the city, which comes both with serious issues and an extremely abundant source of blackberries for people to pick on a hot August day. Whether you make Mary Lou Slaughter’s blackberry dumpling recipe below (originally sourced from the wonderful Native American Delicacies: the Duwamish Cookbook) with native or Himalayan blackberries this August, we encourage you to enjoy your dumplings while thinking deeply about the historic and continued Indigenous presence in Rainier Valley. Since August also includes Washington’s annual Museum Day on Saturday, August 8th, consider checking out a local museum exhibit to engage with the city and state’s history, whether it is attending one of RVHS’s office hours, visiting one of the many tribal cultural centers across the state, or checking out the rich Indigenous artwork featured across our city’s many art museums! Blackberry Dumplings Mary Lou Slaughter, from Native American Delicacies: the Duwamish Cookbook Sauce: 3 pints ripe blackberries ¾ cup water 1 cup sugar 1½ Tbsp. butter Combine ingredients in a pan and set aside while fixing dumplings. Dumplings: 2 cups flour 3 Tbsp. sugar 3 ½ tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 1 egg milk Sift flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add egg, mix well. Add enough milk to make a stiff batter. Put sauce on the stove and bring to boil. Drop dumpling batter, a spoonful at a time, into the boiling mixture. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Serve with cream, ice cream, or whipped cream. Rachel Perry, photograph of blackberry dumplings, Bushel and Berry, March 8, 2024. Recipe from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook, available for purchase here. Individual's stories sourced from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook, with supplementary information sourced from "The Strange, Twisted Story Behind Seattle's Blackberries"

Dave Madison prepares his entry in the Columbia City Barbecue Cookoff, August 2001. Youth in Focus Photograph by Joshua Reese Hello, Seattle in July! A time when the city seems to be shining with little memory of the months of rain—the skies full of fireworks, lake shores full of bathing suit-clad swimmers, and hands full of iced coffees or quickly melting ice cream cones. One signature smell often found wafting through the July air is that of barbecue, whether it is meat, vegetable skewers, or even pineapple roasting on the grill. In the barbecue spirit, it feels appropriate to highlight our 2002 interview with local barbecue master Dave Madison about his journey to becoming a virtuoso on the grill, which began long before his 1980s move to Seattle during his childhood in Louisiana. “When I was a young man, I wanted something to leave my children…So I started selling fish, which we captured in the bayous, and we would process. I started selling them to the guys at the plywood plants and stuff like that. So, I was selling fish. Someone said, ‘Well, man, you know, in Louisiana on Fridays everybody eat fish. Why don’t you open up a café?’ Well, there’s an old gambling shack up there, used to be a café in it.” I went up there and I told Mr. Alfred, I said, ‘I’ll clean this kitchen up and I’ll make it like new, if you rent it to me for $50 a month.’...He said, ‘Yeah.’ So, for $50 a month and all the fish I could catch out of the King River, I had a business. Didn’t have a name for it, right? Didn’t need a name. It [was in] this old gambling shack in the gutter part of the city. I saw beauty in that, because if I could get those people to buy my fish, I’m in. So me and my girlfriend, we started cooking. Guess what we would sell? Two slices of bread, fish, and just a basic lettuce, tomato, pepper salad. Later on we started throwing in baked beans. For a dollar and a half, you could get three fish and that. That took off. It looked like overnight it become a job. Because there was such a demand — it went from Fridays to Saturdays to Sundays after people got out of church. To, ‘When you guys gonna open up during the week?’ Right? This snowballed. I’m getting ready to get big, real fast. But it takes time. I advertised for three months all over Alexander, Shreveport and Monroe and all points in between, you know, the little small towns. No. Nothing. Just the same old little fish-eating crowd. My old lady done told me, “Give this place up.” [Then] they have this big humongous parade with the glamorous bands and stuff, and all the tourists come in there. We’re sitting in the club and people start walking in. Tourists, college kids and all of a sudden—I made $1,500 that night, clear profit. Sold all my stock, everything. Now, I’m known in three cities. Okay. Then I got that army crowd — this is during the Vietnam War. Fort Polk, that’s where you go to get your advanced infantry training before they send you to Vietnam. And man! I was like, “Oh god! This is work.” Because now you’ve got the kitchen, you got the drinks, you got the beer, you got the music, you got all this stuff to keep together. But it’s my first true taste of freedom. Ain’t that something” Dave Madison’s story is one that reminds us of how food changes people’s lives, brings communities together, and brings us closer to that sense of freedom we’re meant to celebrate this time every year. This July, try to get out and connect with your local community! Check out the Columbia City farmer’s market Wednesday evenings if you’re in the area, and if you want to tap into Madison’s spirit, try making his famous Chicken Andouille-Gumbo below! Chicken Andouille Gumbo Dave Madison, originally from Southern Living Ingredients: 1½ gallons water 1 4 lb. chicken, cut up 5 bay leaves 5 parsley sprigs 3 whole garlic cloves 1 lb. andouille or smoked sausage, diced 2 medium onions, chopped 1 large green bell pepper, chopped 1 large celery rib, chopped 3 Tbsp. minced garlic 4 chicken bouillon cubes 1¼ cups vegetable oil 1½ cups all-purpose flour 1 Tbsp. salt 1 tsp. ground red pepper 1 tsp. ground black pepper 1 bunch green onions, chopped ½ cup chopped fresh parsley Filé powder Hot cooked rice Bring first 5 ingredients to a boil in a large stockpot; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour. Remove chicken, reserving broth. Skin, bone, and coarsely chop chicken; set aside. Strain broth into a large bowl, discarding solids. Return 1 gallon broth to stockpot. Add sausage and next 5 ingredients; simmer, stirring occasionally, 1 hour. Heat oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat; gradually whisk in flour, and cook, whisking constantly, until flour is a dark caramel color (about 20 minutes). Stir into sausage mixture, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 1 hour. Stir in chicken, salt, and red and black pepper; simmer, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes. Skim off fat. Stir in green onions and parsley; simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in filé powder. Serve over hot cooked rice with hot sauce, if desired. Recipe from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook, available for purchase here. Individual's stories sourced from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook.

Commemorative plaque at corner of Strand Street and 22nd Street in Galveston, Texas honoring June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas with the news that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free. Wikimedia Commons, William C Teller. Happy first month of that legendary season many Seattleites endure overcast skies all year waiting for: Seattle summer! Seattle seems to spring to life in June; it is a season of neighborhood block parties, pride celebrations, and jumping into the still a bit chilly lakes. Though next month marks the much anticipated 250th anniversary of the nation, another crucial historical holiday (itself considered a sort of independence day) falls on June 19th, aptly known as Juneteenth. In the midst of the Civil War, president Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, however, word of the Proclamation didn’t reach many slaves until much later. It wasn’t until June 19, 1865, two months after the Civil War ended, that slaves in Texas learned that they were free. On that day in Galveston, Texas, General Granger of the Union Army read General Order #3, announcing that “all slaves are free.” The crowd of ex-slaves immediately began “leaping, swaying, and whirling in unrehearsed glee.” People sang, laughed, cried, and jumped up and down with joy. In Texas, former slaves and their descendants continued to celebrate the anniversary of their freedom every year on June 19th, earning the holiday the name “Juneteenth.” Though the holiday began in Texas, African Americans migrating to other parts of the country took the holiday with them, with the first documented Juneteenth celebration in Seattle taking place in 1890. In our Food Stories cookbook, Dora Abney shared her relationship to Juneteenth from her childhood in Texas to her adult life after moving to Seattle in the early 1960s, recounting: “What I can remember about Juneteenth in Texas is mostly my dad; my dad died when I was about eleven. We used to celebrate it every summer, and to me it was a joyful thing. It was hot. I just remember how my dad used to say, you know, ‘Juneteenth, that’s a big thing for us,’ and by being born in the South, I kinda understood what he was saying. [I saw] what was going on, but didn’t really understand why…When we came to Washington State it kind of faded out of the family, people didn’t celebrate it…Then about four years ago, when I started at the daycare center, I brought it up again. I said, “We need to celebrate Juneteenth. The kids don’t know what it’s about.” So in 2000 we had a Juneteenth celebration at Twinks [Early Childhood Education Center and Preschool in Columbia City], where we blocked off the street, we sold barbecue, and the kids played, and it was exciting. I says “Juneteenth,” and then to me, everybody blossomed. And all of a sudden everybody did know about it. You know, you don’t hear about it and then all of a sudden, “Yeah, I heard about that, what is it about?” So we started digging up information so we could put it out, so people understand what it is.” Dora Abney sadly passed away in 2015, but one hopes she would feel joy at the coining of Juneteenth as a federal holiday in 2021 and the ways more and more organizations in Seattle have begun hosting Juneteenth celebrations that foster joy, education, reflection, and community building, with King County itself sponsoring the Northwest African American Museum’s annual Juneteenth event. To celebrate Juneteenth, Abney shared a recipe for red velvet cake, noting that red foods were a Juneteenth tradition because “red represented the blood that was shed during slavery. [We had red pop], red velvet cake, ice cream. Watermelon. And chicken barbecue, barbecued ribs. The blood was really flowing!” This Juneteenth, use the federal holiday to engage in both celebration and intentional self-education, and perhaps even spend an hour or two making Abney’s delicious red velvet cake. If you’re interested in hearing more from Abney, check out this oral interview with her where she discusses her relationship to Juneteenth in more depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPIaMzcbUZ8. Red Velvet Cake Dora Abney For the cake: ½ cup shortening 1½ cups sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. butter flavoring 1½ oz. bottle of red color 3 Tbsp. cocoa 2½ cups sifted cake flour 1 cup buttermilk 1 tsp. salt 1 Tbsp. vinegar 1 tsp. baking soda Cream together the shortening and sugar. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and butter flavor. Make a paste of cocoa and food coloring and add it to the first mixture of shortening and sugar. Alternately add sifted flour and buttermilk. Mix baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl; add to batter. Bake in three 9” or 10” pans for 20-25 minutes at 350° . Let cool completely before frosting. For the frosting: 6 oz. cream cheese, softened 6 Tbsp. butter, softened 1 tsp. vanilla 2 cups sifted powdered sugar Blend all ingredients until smooth. Recipe from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook, available for purchase here. Individual's stories sourced from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook.

RVHS Photo 2002.036.0244 -- Ngoc-Phuong Nguyen and Hanh Phan pictured here at the Refugee Women’s Alliance on MLK May has officially arrived in Seattle—many in our communities are graduating or tearfully watching their loved ones do so while the long-awaited Seattle summer sits on the horizon. For our more seafaring friends, however, May is known as the breakout month of the boating season! Across our wonderful water-filled state, events like the University of Washington’s historic Windermere Cup, countless boat shows, and Ski to Sea race will take place this month to commemorate a return to the water. Taking a historic perspective, boating emerges as a Seattle tradition which predates Seattle itself, its regional origins in the long-standing practices of Indigenous peoples across Washington. A much later moment in history that comes to mind in this discussion of boating are the “boat people” of Vietnam, a term used primarily to refer to the nearly two million refugees and asylum seekers who fled Vietnam by boats after the fall of Saigon in 1975. A large wave of these refugees settled in Seattle, many choosing Rainier Valley for the cheap housing and empty retail space available at that time. Hanh Phan, a Seattle resident who belonged to this wave of refugees, describes how when the communists took over South Vietnam “many people were scared. They had to run and run.” A fellow Seattle resident who was part of this wave and studied English with Hanh at the Central District’s Refugee Women’s Alliance Ngoc-Phuong Nguyen echoes this sentiment, recalling “many people were hungry, dying. They wanted to come to America. They dreamed about freedom. Many died in the ocean, trying to escape.” Today, King County has the sixth highest population of Vietnamese immigrants per county in the country, and many of the Southeast Asian businesses established during this first wave can still be seen today along Martin Luther King Jr. Way S and Rainier Avenue. Mural done on the side of Rainier Ave's Mekong Market by Craig Cundiff in 2023—learn more about Mekong market and why this mural was added here: https://www.beaconbusinessalliance.org/index.php/craig-cundiff-artist/ Though brought here by harrowing circumstances, the “boat people” of Seattle have formed a rich Vietnamese Community that adds to the incredible diversity of our city. Like the Italian immigrants of Garlic Gulch that came before them, Vietnamese refugees brought many delicious recipes with them to the streets of Seattle, whether being cooked in their homes or in now iconic restaurants like Phở Bắc in Little Saigon. Below is a recipe provided by Ngoc-Phuong Nguyen and Hanh Phan for Cha Gio Tom, a delicious traditional Vietnamese crispy egg roll filled with vegetables and shrimp, deep fried, and served with lettuce, mint, and cilantro. This dish isn’t a particularly difficult one, but it does make sixty egg rolls, so you might want to invite some friends over to share! CHA GIO TOM (Shrimp egg rolls from South Vietnam) Ngoc-Phuong Nguyen and Hanh Phan Basic ingredients from your pantry: Black pepper MSG Sugar To buy: One bunch of green onions 1 large red onion One bunch of mint 4 lbs. jumbo shrimp or big tiger shrimp 2 lbs. carrots 6 eggs 2 heads of lettuce 60 spring roll wrappers 1 garlic bulb Lettuce, mint, and cilantro for serving Peel and wash the shrimp and mash it. Cut the red and green onions. Put them together and add your basic ingredients. Mix it really well. Take the spring roll wrapper and place it on the plate. Put the mixture on the roll and roll it. Heat enough oil to fully cover the egg rolls. Add the egg rolls to the hot oil and cook with medium heat until the egg rolls turn dark yellow. Take them out and put them on a plate covered with paper towels, for the oil to dry. Serve the egg rolls with lettuce, mint, and cilantro! Recipe from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook, available for purchase here. Individual's stories sourced from the Rainier Valley Food Stories Cookbook, with additional information sourced from King County Demographics.

We are grateful to a student researcher, L.S., for bringing the Dixon family to our attention. We have gleaned much from archival documents, census records, newspapers, and local books. We present here a story about the Dixon family who were among the first Black property owners and residents in Rainier Valley. Portrait of Roscoe Dixon, circa 1881, Oregon Historical Society Research Library. Roscoe Dixon is credited with being the first Black business owner in Astoria, Oregon. One hundred years later his youngest daughter, Theresa Dixon Flowers, donated Dixon and Flowers family photos to the Oregon Historical Society in 1984. The Biographical Notes included with the collection reference his birth in Virginia in the 1840s. After time in Portland and Astoria, Oregon; Victoria, B.C.; Dyea, Alaska and additional unknown elsewhere in between, the Roscoe Dixon family lived in the Brighton Beach neighborhood as early as 1908. Roscoe Dixon and his younger brother Robert’s birthplace was Richmond, Virginia. By 1850 they, with their mother Agnes and George Lee, had escaped slavery there via the Underground Railroad to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where whaling ships fed the economy. Roscoe was seven and Robert was four years old. The Fugitive Slave Act, recently passed by the U.S Congress, threatened runaways with arrest and return to their enslavers in the South and the family was subject to this Act. Agnes Lee was still in residence in New Bedford when she wrote her last will and testament in 1885, though she had by then lost George to death. At some point in time, Robert and Roscoe Dixon had both headed west. Portrait of Theresa Dixon, circa 1870. Oregon Historical Society Research Library. Roscoe worked in Portland, Oregon, as a “col., [colored] cook” (Polk’s Portland, Oregon, City Directory, 1874) and “oysterman” at the Gem Saloon at First and Stark. Roscoe soon established an oyster saloon in Astoria, where he offered “Fancy Roasts and Fried Oysters” for 35 cents and Boston Crystal Ice Cream. In 1880, Roscoe Dixon married Theresa Brown, a young woman originally from Macon, Georgia. The 1870 U.S. Census has 12-year old Theresa Brown as part of the household of a cooper (barrel maker) and his wife, in their 30s and white, living about 20 miles east of Astoria on the Columbia River. The Biographical Notes mention a sea captain that brought Theresa to Astoria around Cape Horn. She received training as a nurse in the area and provided private duty care and midwifery services into the 1920s. Her daughter Theresa was interviewed by Seattle historian Esther Hall Mumford in August 1979, when she recalled of her mother, “She worked for many years. I know times when she wouldn’t get home to stay for a year. She’d go from one case to another.” (Seattle’s Black Victorians 1852-1901, p. 130). Roscoe’s brother, Robert Dixon had first arrived in Seattle in 1865; he gave cuts and shaves downtown on Columbia Street for nearly 50 years. In 1883 Robert, then in his 40s, married Rebecca Grose, daughter of well-known and successful Black entrepreneurs William and Sarah Grose. William Grose had purchased some 12 acres of land from Henry Yesler at East Madison and became the first Black property owner in the area. Over the years parcels were sold to other Black families ready to build their homes. This area formed the north end of today’s Central District. The Daily Astorian 2/24/1881 Back in Astoria, Roscoe Dixon lost his oyster house business in about 1885. Daughter Theresa later attributed the failure to the railroad collapse—the transcontinental railroad had fallen short of reaching Astoria by a mere 58 miles. The town’s big dreams of expanding into a major port town to rival Portland had to be put on hold. The Dixon family was growing and the children’s birthplaces trace their travels. Roscoe and Theresa’s son Chester Ingersoll Dixon was born in Astoria in November of 1882. First daughter, Christine Mabel, was born in Victoria, B.C. in November of 1885 and Theresa Virginia, in Seattle in December of 1894. The Black population of Seattle’s four wards in 1890 was 286 of the nearly 43,000 total residents in the city (U.S. Census). Roscoe found work as janitor, conductor, grocer, waiter, cook, and steward that decade. In October of 1891, he was considered for a position as city hall janitor, but political concerns involving race were raised and the motion for the appointment failed (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer). This is the first mention of Roscoe Dixon in Seattle newspapers. He did eventually work for Seattle City Hall. Other opportunities presented themselves. Robert Dixon and his brother-in-law George Grose became investors in the Seattle Klondike Grubstake and Trading Company in 1897. In a letter published in The Seattle Republican in June of 1898, the column “Alaskaites Write” mentions Roscoe Dixon’s plans to stay in Dyea for the summer and, if times got better, to move his family up. How this venture ultimately fared as the gold rush in Dyea soon fizzled is unknown. Since arriving in Seattle, the Dixons had lived on 10th and 17th Avenues, on Washington Street, and various other locations. Mrs. Theresa Dixon signed the real estate contract for two lots in the Palace Garden replat of Tract 32 of Kelsey’s Brighton Beach Acre Tracts with a purchase price of $1,600 to be paid in $20 monthly increments in 1908. By the time Roscoe and Theresa Dixon settled in their Rainier Valley home with their daughters, their son Chester had been in the U.S. Navy for 11 years. As a teenager in Seattle, he had enlisted as apprentice boy and eventually served 37 years, a veteran of three wars. In 1920 Mr. Dixon was noted to be the only Black Chief torpedo man with permanent appointment (The Northwest Enterprise, 4/25/1945). During an unusually cold and snowy January of 1916, Roscoe Dixon succumbed to heart disease at 72 years of age. Mrs. Dixon remained in the family home with daughter, Theresa, who was working as a nurse. After Mrs. Dixon’s death in 1927, Theresa Dixon remained living on 43rd Avenue South until about 1938, when she left for California to work at the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis Hospital. Sister Mabel returned to the family home until the 1940s while working at the King County Tuberculosis Hospital. Early Black residents of the Pacific Northwest, the Dixons called Rainier Valley “home” for some 30 years. This family contributed to the health and well-being of Seattle residents from their arrival just prior to the financial panic of 1893 up until the Second World War with Chester’s military service and the women’s work in public and private health.