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How Tallulah, Louisiana Barbeque Inspired a Quilt

How Tallulah, Louisiana Barbeque Inspired a Quilt
By Storme Webber

R&L Home Of Good Bar-B-Que – The End Of A BBQ Dynasty

“Home of Good: A Black Seattle Storyquilt”

A Voices Rising: LGBTQ of Color Arts & Culture Project
Curated by Storme Webber
Supported by the James W Ray Foundation, 4Culture, the Reopen Fund, Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture and Historic Seattle.
Installed at Washington Hall. February 2021-2022

About the Quilt

(Note italicized words are quotes from Storme, on behalf of Voices Rising & the Quilt Project)

“Home of Good: A Black Seattle Storyquilt” is a subjective and collective story quilt uplifting narratives of Seattle’s traditionally Black Central District, in Duwamish Territory. Inspired by the closing of the over 60 year old Home of Good Barbeque, in 2017 Voices Rising created a series of quilting circles at Washington Hall.

I curated and produced this project. My feeling was that the closing of this restaurant deserved honor and reflection. The decades of work and care given by this family deserved respect and gratitude. Their welcoming and loving spirit, their truly cultural and delicious food was something important to lose. I want to honor this change. I wanted to honor Ms. Barbara and her mother for their decades of service. There are so many stories to be told.

According to the article, the family brought their recipe from their hometown of Tallulah, Louisiana. My father’s family came here from Marshall, Texas. Home of Good was the abbreviated nickname of this beloved restaurant & I always brought my grandma a plate to critique while enjoying every bite. Wrapped up in this project is above all, Black love and kindness, along with culture, fearlessness and the struggle for justice. We remember that Dr. King came through here. That the restaurant forever and always looked and felt just like grandma’s kitchen. That there was comfort there.

As a BIPOC – led organization, with this work Voices Rising affirms traditional Indigenous roles of Two Spirits working for the people and bringing medicine. I’m the lead artist, working in curating and project management. The Lead Designer was Elizabeth Bete’ Morris, and the majority of the sewing was done by the NW African American Quilters. Community members also helped the project at various points, I intentionally invited in other people rooted in the community. The quilting circles took place at Washington Hall.

I am no expert, as the Black Sugpiaq Choctaw Two Spirit daughter of a lesbian mother and a bisexual father. I grew up on Capitol Hill and in Pioneer Square & Chinatown. My father and grandmother lived in the Central District since the early 1940s, their memories along with my own informed this work Since my exhibition at the Frye, “Casino: A Palimpsest”, I have continued to work on foregrounded marginalized and missing narratives, restoring the grand narratives of the city of my birth, the Duwamish homeland of Seattle. In this project I took care that the choices were not only mine but represented others.

Dr. Maxine Mimms led conversations that informed the project, sharing encouragement and her profound wisdom, along with Rev. Harriet Walden of Mothers Against Police Brutality, musician
Mona Terry and the personal remembrances of so many. Asun Bandanaz shared consistent, strong and encouraging support.

I was thinking of the loss of such spaces of comfort and culture, a taste of home known or imagined, the generational bonds that were felt by me each time I visited. Remembering my first barbeque at Hills Brothers called Dirty Brothers, remembering a community with loving connection and the sustenance that it brings. In this honoring they return to us. There are many stories and my work is always to gather them. So we began here at the Hall, with some of the spirits found in the finished work. This is a medicine piece.

I hope this quilt creates a place for honor, remembrance and learning just some of the stories born here.

For Black people and also for an older Seattle working class commons, for the butch Native lesbian cabdriver & vet, who asked for Home barbecue for her last birthday. For the hill up Yesler,  for what you passed through between Yesler Terrace and Ms. Barbara’s smlle. This is where my memories move and create more space for themselves. All the work that I do to remember Seattle must include the forgotten, the marginalized. So I say this quilt also remembers those people, in the Black & Tan, or hustling far from any camera. Family, you are a part of this story. Your story is part of what keeps us warm at night.

The quilt is in alignment with the work of Historic Seattle: Saving meaningful places to foster lively communities. What makes a place meaningful but memory? Memories that join us with community and land and history. The specificity of the quilt’s subjects also give it resonance, as Seattle continues to grapple with ideas around history, gentrification, extreme redevelopment and income inequality. The visual narrative gives a storyline and presence to Seattle’s Black community, from the early 20th century to recent past. This knowledge of the past fully strengthens us to vision our present and future calls to act. It will always be meaningful to reflect on how our ancestors struggled and rose above constraints to imagine futures. It is not a zero sum gain. When we rise together, we all rise.

We face history ourselves.

This gathering of histories includes De Charlene Williams, Buddy Catlett, the Holden Family, Kabby Mitchell III, The Black Panther Party, Washington Hall, a night at the Black & Tan and many more. It’s a working class snapshot of time and culture.

Let me try and tell you a story that plays and meters these days like a song.

Imagine a weekend impossibly time traveling these memoryscapes. At the top the brilliant Dr. Maxine Mimms gives Black cultural chapter and magnificent educators verse. Kabby Mitchell III leaps through something as fragile as time into early Black Republican newspaper editorials about the struggle for justice. We find ourselves at The Black & Tan and “After Hours” enters with its unmistakable piano riff. Dr. Mimms said everyone knew what that meant! Then here’s Oscar Holden playing piano as his sister Grace angles her head and begins to sing from the Ballroom, with a rainbow of light crowning her, at Washington Hall.

We’re in the Hall as we witness this quilt and we are in the Hall in memory as Billie pauses her eyebrow arched just so and Buddy Catlett smiles that Only for Lady Day smile. Another passing glimpse as Jimi stands backstage nervous, a young master, not knowing what was coming but knowing the future was cosmic. De Charlene Williams bought her land on Madison St in the days when she had to have a man front for her. She wasn’t allowed to buy property as a single woman, but she had a will and she made a way. Rev Samuel McKinney is preaching and his voice is ringing through the march as Black people walk down Pine Street moving for equality. Witness this quilt and travel.

In gathering photos I talked with the community, considered representation and also gathered images of people and their places, from the working class culture of the time.

I thought of my folks and I invited others to think of theirs. & the ones who didn’t have kin left, I tried to think of them, too.

So many profound people have been left out of Seattle’s official narrative. This is a work of restoration. Because we honor these lives we lift them. We praise their courage, their perseverance, the way they shaped this world. In that way this is a medicine object. It is meant to do good work, healing restorative work, in this world.

Three years ago something said: make a quilt. Thankful for that. Through the turmoil and hard times the image of the quilt still comforts.

A Voices Rising: LGBTQ of Color Arts & Culture Project.
Curated by Storme Webber.
Supported by the James W Ray Foundation, 4Culture, the Reopen Fund, Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture and Historic Seattle.

Photo credit: Jenny Tucker 2020
Pictured with quilt: Storme Webber/Voices Rising & Asun Bandanaz

I love this image, taken in the Main Ballroom [of Washington Hall]. Asun was an amazing support in the creation of this work, too. The quilt looks like stained glass here, Jenny Tucker is an excellent photographer.

If you are not familiar with these images, here are a few links with more details.
More to come from our upcoming podcast!

Remembering DeCharlene Williams, Central District celebrates Juneteenth ‘freedom day’

In Memoriam: Kabby Mitchell III

Buddy Catlett’s Biography, by Eugene Chadbourne 

Eddie Lockjaw Davis – Night and Day 1962

Grace Holden: Living with a Legend

Dr. Maxine Mimms: ‘My Life is Education’

Digital content and bimonthly podcasts centering these stories, as well as conversations about Black history and its challenges from gentrification, will be upcoming on the Voices Rising socials in early March. We’ll be welcoming storytellers and others to create a repository of oral histories. More details as this unfolds.

We need to wrap ourselves up in some good stories, some strong stories, some crying when we need to cry and more than anything some love and laughter stories. Some when we did that magic thing songs. To glory in our own stories. & they are without end and waiting.

This is no “official” story. It is one of many, and welcoming more.

Seattle’s Full Story | October 2020

Wa Na Wari

“This dream is our home.

Our home is the ember.

The ember is the idea.

The idea is endurance.

The endurance of

Black dreaming

Black family

Black song

Black stories

Black embraces

Black smiles

Black memories

Black tears

Black imagination

Black solution

Black logic

Black love

Black futures.

Wa Na Wari is the home built on a foundation of red clay dreams.

It is the living whisper of our ancestors,

the surviving ember of a watery dream,

an overture of the living for the unborn.”

In this film (originally recorded at Ampersand Live in 2019), Wa Na Wari’s co-founder Inye Wokoma shares its origin story. Wa Na Wari recently received Historic Seattle’s 2020 Community Advocacy Award.

To support the organization’s work to create space for Black ownership, possibility, and belonging through art, historic preservation, and connection, join the WA NA WARI VIRTUAL HOUSE PARTY on Wednesday, October 28. This fundraiser features a cooking tutorial with Chef Tarik Abdullah, an art activity with Perri Rhoden, DJ sets with Jusmoni and Larry Mizell, music by Pink Lotion, and curated films by Amir George. Register here: https://www.wanawari.org/house-party-2020.html

Seattle’s Full Story | September 2020

An Interview with Georgio Brown, conducted by 206 Zulu’s Kitty Wu

“I am happy to share with Historic Seattle readers an interview with one of our beloved community members, Georgio Brown. Georgio is a documentary filmmaker born in Harlem and has been in Seattle since 1990 documenting the Northwest’s Hip Hop scene. He currently sits on the board of 206 Zulu, a non-profit Hip Hop organization located at Washington Hall, as well as SeaDoc – Seattle’s Documentary Association. His seminal work, The Coolout Network, was a weekly television program originally seen on Seattle’s Public Access channel 29/77. The 30-minute weekly program was focused primarily on regional artists and is one of the longest-running Hip-Hop television programs in the nation capturing the rich musical history that the Pacific Northwest has to offer for nearly 30 years.

As an elder in the Hip Hop community, Georgio Brown is many things. He is a leader, a motivator, an empath that feels deeply the importance of artists and their contributions to the world. He is a listener that asks the important questions. He is the butterfly on the wall capturing what would otherwise be a memory.

Since 1991, Georgio Brown, creator and director of Coolout has created more than 700 episodes. Over the years he has filmed artists at their start, from Mary J. Blige, Busta Rhymes, Mix-a-Lot, to Specs, Laura Piece Kelly, Jonathan Moore, Macklemore and hundreds more. This video vault, along with more than 70 hours of new interviews comprise his most recent project, The Coolout Legacy, a historic retrospective of the first decade of the Coolout Network 1991-2001 and was the featured presentation at the inaugural Seattle Hip Hop Film Festival in 2019.” – Kitty Wu

Kitty: Georgio, take us back to 1991. When you started Coolout the internet did not exist. You had a television show on SCAN that was a platform to show folks what was going on in the city. Can you talk a little bit about what the Seattle Hip Hop community was like back then.

Georgio Brown: What the hip hop community was like back then was really organic.  It was a mixture of the era that came before, that had the bands and the live instrumentation and it was combined with the turntable. It had more of the live element. I like the way it felt, I like how people was doing it from the heart and I remember the first time I heard Seattle Hip-Hop was on KFOX with Nasty Nes when I first got here. I remember hearing a track called Union Street Hustlers by this guy named Ice Cold Mode who ended up being an emcee named Merciful. When I came up here was after the Mix-A-Lot era. There was a time when NastyMix records in the 80s was the Seattle record company in Seattle and Mix was the representation, the only one I heard about when I was in New York. Shows were polished man, they used to do shows at the Langston and that’s where I got a chance to meet people like Isaiah Anderson Jr. and Felicia Loud, Rico Bembry and Steve Sneed who used to put on shows there and they used to create a space for the community to come together. That’s where I got a chance to meet the black community one on one. Ghetto Children, Sensimilla, Tribal, all of those were the hot groups that I was seeing. I met Roc Phizzle and Funk Daddy up in Renton. It was a different mix of music and musical styles coming out of Seattle at the time. Some of it had an East Coast influence, some of it had a West Coast influence but it seemed like people in Seattle, they would take a little bit of each area and create their own sound. It was thought provoking, it was very musical, it was a different organic feel.

KW: Why was it so important for you to film these shows? 

GB: The feeling that you get when you go to a live show is like no other because you are doing this energy exchange with an artist and they are sharing a special part of their creative energy with us. So I wanted to share that with people that wasn’t in the room and I wanted to show it to the artist to show them what they were giving us. So when I say that I’m saying the artists are up there on stage and they are performing and they may get the applause, we are exchanging energy, but they don’t have any idea of what we felt when they were there, so I started filming them and showing them what we saw and showing them what we felt by showing them doing their art. That was always special to me because it was my way of showing them that we appreciated them.  A lot of artists go unnoticed. So as long as Coolout was there, there’s a chance that more people could see you. That was my mission, show the artist how dope they were, give them fuel to keep going and share something that I saw that felt good. 

KW: You talked about Langston Hughes, what other places were in Seattle at the time?

GB: Langston Hughes was the space, there was no other place that was really open to Hip-Hop because remember at that time gangster rap was making its signature on Hip Hop. So the city was hesitant as far as letting Hip Hop into the public venues. That’s when the Langston staff, Steve Sneed and Reco Bembry created a musical program that gave kids a creative option to gangs and crime. That was the heart of what ended up to be the Seattle hip-hop scene. 

KW: Over the years you’ve used a wide range of analog and digital technology to produce your programs, can you tell the people your ethos about filmmaking? 

GB: (laughs) My ethos, right. It’s never the camera, it’s the eye.  It’s not the device, it’s the story.  It’s taking what you have to tell a story. Using what you have to capture it. I say this because I’m 30 years in, so I remember cameras with big VHS tapes.  It was the content and the feeling I was choosing to showcase. I wanted to share this feeling that I was having with the world. It’s all about what you capture…the technology just makes it a lot easier.

KW: You and I, the whole world, have been dealing with COVID-19. As an artist, what is it like for you working in the midst of all of this?

GB: In a time of COVID, who knows how long it’s gonna be before we get to be in one room vibing together. See right now we’re in this new-new.  We are figuring out what that is and how we can still stay connected because the world works on energy, we are energy. We need a way to exchange that with each other, you know, exchange that and share it in the form of  positive affirmations, mutual admiration and self respect.

I miss the energy exchange. I miss being around creatives together in one space sharing creative ideas and building together. Right now in COVID we are stuck in the house or glued to  our phones and stuck on our screens. There was a time when we were interacting with each other face to face looking in people’s eyes. I mean, that’s a really important thing, COVID just pushed our isolation to a whole new level. As far as what I miss most, I miss feeling the energy of an artist performing, I miss the energy exchange of the applause, dancing and the interaction between the community. COVID has us all in boxes. We got to figure out a way to think Outside the Box to create a safe way for us to gather and enjoy the energy exchange while still social distancing. So the new-new is the future. That’s what we have to figure out. 

KW:  Speaking of the future, talk a little about the Coolout Academy.

GB: The Coolout Academy is an after-school program that we have been wanting to do for years, man. It’s taking the knowledge that we have gained over the past three decades and sharing that with the young people we work with at 206 Zulu. Right now more than ever, with the issues we all are facing this is an outlet for them to talk about the stories that matter to them. Captivating stories. I want to know about all of the students’ ideas and help them make videos that display their life and what’s special, I want to see things, what’s special about people. 

KW: Congratulations G, that is really exciting and a testament to your lovework. Any last words?

GB: I’m probably going to have a lot more to say when this is done, it always happens that way.  Coolout Network is 30 Years in April 2021. I still can’t believe that I’m still sitting in a place like Washington Hall where my original Coolout banner is on display. You know?  That is real special to me. I got to see the evolution of the music scene from Sir Mix-A-Lot to Grammy award winning Macklemore and all the groups in between. I got a chance to see the Seahawks win the Super Bowl. I got a chance to see a whole bunch of cool stuff that happened over 30 years in Seattle. This is the land of Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks. We start worldwide trends here. The world is watching our growth and evolution looking at what we are gonna be doing moving forward. Last words…I love the music scene here. Everyone that I film, I call them Coolout Fam for Life because we all shared in this evolution and their talent didn’t go unnoticed and was appreciated. Coolout Fam for Life.”

Video Link: The Coolout Legacy Episode 1

Coolout aired weekly for 16 years on Seattle’s Public Access before going digital.  In April 2021, The Coolout Network celebrates 30 years of music and art in Seattle.

Photo by Shooter in the Town

Seattle’s Full Story | August 2020

Will the Last…Black Woman Leaving Seattle, Tell Seattle’s Full Story?

Written by Anonymous

“It is a difficult place to live (for a Black person),” said a Black person to me in response to hearing me, a Black person, say that I recently moved from Seattle. Side note: Weeks before the current pandemic shut down my new “hometown,” I arrived to start my next chapter, which is a whole other story!

Another think piece about Seattle’s problem with race, you say? Yes, I say! And, a few disclaimers before we get started …

Disclaimer 1: “If it doesn’t apply, let it fly.” Hi! To the White people reading this blog post, before continuing on this literary journey with me, if at any point you are offended by the words I transmit, if the words do not describe the way you live your life, then they do not apply to you – let it fly. However, perhaps evaluate why you felt judged by the lived experience of a Black person, a Seattle expatriate. Observe what comes up for you, if you feel pain in your body as you read and identify where it is, and find a way to move it out of your body through movement. Find a way to process this discomfort, for we cannot move forward until we face the full story of our lives, all the parts, not just the warm and fuzzies. A great resource is My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem. 

Disclaimer 2: In an effort to enlighten White people that they are a race – White – thus supporting the dismantling of white supremacy and our collective healing, I capitalize “White” in the phrase “White people.” We cannot transcend race until we all, especially White people, talk about race and acknowledge that being White is a thing … it’s been a very popular thing for centuries. The denial of its existence is especially problematic in a White majority city like Seattle. In particular, we need more White people to actually admit they are White and to understand what it means to be a White person, and how the idea of being a White person has caused, and continues to cause harm and trauma, for White people and people of color, especially Black people. We can’t solve a problem without understanding it – basic math word problem solving 101. And, step one of a 12-step recovery program – acknowledge that the problem / addiction exists.

Disclaimer 3: With the emotional pain of writing / speaking about race in the US as a Black person, comes the joy of release, of not intentionally silencing myself, as is customary to make White people feel comfortable, which is especially the case in a predominantly White city like Seattle. Yet, with the release, comes a bit of risk. In order to protect my life and livelihood, I am writing under “Anonymous.” I, unlike a White woman, do not have the same freedom and protection to speak freely about race and be awarded as an “ally.” Instead, I risk potential condemnation for being an “angry, Black woman,” risk employment, and my financial health. Every Black person in the US needs more grace than we receive in the world. Thanks to race, our relationships with White people can be complicated, for there is a tendency for White people to exorcise their anti-Blackness through our Black bodies, to prove they are a “good person,” not a “racist.” This anti-Black exorcism is especially in Seattle, where the chances of being the only Black person in a setting makes this racial complex inevitable and difficult to create trusting relationships with White people. Seattle is a difficult place to live, for a Black person.

What is Seattle’s full story? Well, it’s not one of a progressive, liberal city. It is the county seat of King County, the first namesake being William Rufus de Vane King, a pro-slavery U.S. Senator from Alabama and former U.S. Vice President.* In 1986, the King County Council changed the full name of the County to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. But, progressive Seattle? That moniker, at times, feels like a myth, an aspiration, good marketing, though, just like the supremacy of White people: what they like, where they live, what they produce, history that centers the White experience, buildings and structures associated with this experience, their opinions, etc., etc., i.e., white supremacy. This myth hides the white fragility that lurks in offices, places of business, and on the sidewalks of this majority-White city. It is no coincidence that the author of White Fragility lives in Seattle – it is a book that could be titled White Fragility: Seattle’s Full Story. I have first-hand experience with the pathology of white fragility, nearly line by line from Dr. DiAngelo’s book, from a one-hour business meeting, with a seasoned, White female senior executive in Seattle in 2019. The “Seattle Freeze” or “Seattle Nice?” Perhaps, in the context of race and some experiences of Black people in Seattle, these Seattle euphemisms are versions of gaslighting. And now, a reminder – “If it doesn’t apply, let it fly.”

Like most cities, Seattle is a city that Europeans established through violence and trauma – the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and Nations, and terrestrial and aquatic life. And, the trauma continued well into the modern world. Did you know that for years, that White people banned Indigenous people from visiting Alki Beach, the place where their ancestors once lived?

To tell the full story about Seattle or any city, institution, human experience, is to speak honestly about it. The glamorous parts, and, more importantly, the painful parts – the full story integrates the two parts to create a whole, full story. It’s not easy because the process includes examining trauma, a story that connects Black and White people alike. Trauma is a continuum. White people arrived to the US, the “New World,” as traumatized Europeans who not only traumatized each other – the Salem Witches for example – but also traumatized Indigenous Peoples and Nations and Black people through genocide, chattel slavery, and beyond. Thus, our trauma and subsequent healing are all connected. We can’t heal, what we don’t face.

One take on Seattle’s full story is that there are White people and other non-BIPOC people in your office harassing the one Black employee through a series of microaggressions that collectively become macroaggressions and slowly erode at the Black employee’s mental, physical, and emotional health. These are the same White and non-BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color) employees that are your friends outside of work, that “pre-game” with you in Pioneer Square before a Sounders or Seahawks game. They, the Black employee, are too afraid to speak up, lest they risk their financial health or your friendship or business camaraderie. The full story is that your White friends and non-BIPOC friends are not the friends of your Black friend – they do not treat your Black friend, trust your Black friend the same way that they trust and treat you. Seattle is a difficult place to live for a Black person.

No one knows their biases, their true feelings about Black people until they are in the presence of a Black person. And, it is especially difficult to know your biases in Seattle, if the majority of the people around you are of the same race as you, if the only interaction with a Black person is with a public transit operator or a Black person experiencing homelessness or tangentially when volunteering in service to Black people as charity. Or, in a professional setting with the one Black person, the pressure is on them to defy the negative stereotypes of their race in a sea of White faces, and at the same time, be themselves – a game of conscious or unconscious mental gymnastics. In a city like Seattle, of overwhelming White majority, this is especially true, with a grand illusion of progressiveness that actually gaslights the not so comfortable experiences of Black people who call the city, the state of Washington home. Telling the full story about Seattle means telling everything about everyone’s experience in the city, and a part of that story includes understanding what it means to be a White person, and for the non-BIPOC, understanding how their anti-Blackness manifests from their proximity to whiteness.

So what, now what? To tell the full story of any city like Seattle, is to heal problematic perceptions like anti-Blackness, on an institutional and individual level. Perhaps, at an institutional level, integrate the not so pretty parts in history with the glamorous. It’s as little as Historic Seattle including a tidbit about redlining during their Capitol Hill Apartment Tour. It’s as little as the Southwest Historical Society and West Seattle Bike Connections mentioning on the 2017 “Log House to Long House” West Seattle Bike Tour that Indigenous people “were not allowed at Alki Beach.” But, telling an even fuller story, with the active voice is, “White people denied Indigenous people, such as the Duwamish, access to Alki Beach. Even though the Duwamish helped Europeans in battle against other Indigenous nations, the European inhabitants of Seattle banished the Duwamish from living in Seattle in the 1865 Indian Exclusion Ordinance, a law inconsistently enforced among European inhabitants of Seattle in the late 19th Century.”* A mouthful, but the full story about one of the best places in Seattle.

At a personal level, believe your Black friends and colleagues when they say that your friends are not their friends, that they do not feel as comfortable speaking candidly in the workplace, with your mutual manager or with the owner of the company, in the same way, that you do. Ask them why they feel the way they feel, and listen. Transcend superficial “nice” to deep connection, to, as W.E.B. DuBois said, understand the “Souls of Black Folk” – it’s a privilege to know it. Unlike the streets and other public spaces, there are no cameras in the boardroom or other places of business where cameras are not the norm to provide evidence of lived, painful experiences of being Black. For Seattle, being “progressive” must be more than a label, it must be a verb. And, why not? The word progress, a word that insinuates motion is in the word. So, the 2020 call to action for Seattle and other cities is to transcend the norm.

And again, if nothing in the paragraphs above applied to you, then let it fly … like a Seahawk – this is integral to taking good care of yourself. But, in a city like Seattle, that is majority White, that believes its own hype of being progressive and liberal, the problem is, is that anti-Blackness has been flying under the veil of “progressive” and “liberal” for too long. And, equally important is to admit when the uncomfortable reflection does apply, when the reflection presented above hurts. Find someone you trust to talk to about what came up for you as you read this, journal, seek additional resources about healing from racial trauma. And, if you see something, say something. Even being a bystander to hate and abuse, intentional or not, hurts, too. If you are a Black person and the above applied to you, may this grant you the courage to … be, simply be, and breathe, simply breathe. Be well. May we all have the courage to tell the full story, for why lie when the truth speaks. And, it will, for telling the truth leads to healing, and healing is the inevitable next step after pain. Take good care of yourselves. May all beings be at peace.

*Citation: Walk, Richard. “King County Council Remembers 1865 Exclusion of Native Americans.” Indian Country Today, 10 February 2015. indiancountrytoday.com/archive/king-county-council-remembers-1865-exclusion-of-native-americans-I5hcpWZ3v0C7FztJkbCHiQ.

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“Will the Last…Black Woman Leaving Seattle, Tell Seattle’s Full Story?” is the August feature in Historic Seattle’s Seattle’s Full Story recurring blog series, contributed by an anonymous author. Submissions for features are accepted on a rolling basis – for more information: https://historicseattle.org/resources/sfs/