June 1, 1961: “Block the Ditch”

Marchers against I-5 construction, downtown Seattle, June 1, 1961
Photo credit: Museum of History and Industry

What would Seattle look like today without Interstate 5 slicing straight through it?

It’s all too easy these days to take for granted the concrete monstrosity that runs through the heart of our city, dividing Seattle into two absurdly disconnected halves like the result of a brain operation gone horribly awry. But there was in fact early opposition to the unfortunate location of I-5 while it was still in the planning stages.

One demonstration of that opposition occurred on the date in focus here, when a group of roughly 100 Seattle residents staged a protest march against the impending construction of I-5 through the city. Since the new freeway was already a done deal at the time, the march was aimed at persuading the Seattle city government to construct a lid over the portion of I-5 that would run directly through downtown.

The group was comprised mostly of First Hill and downtown neighborhood activists concerned about the negative effects the freeway might have upon the quality of life in the area. Escorted by Seattle police, the group marched along the proposed route of the freeway through a seven-block stretch of downtown, with many carrying placards proclaiming “Block the Ditch” and “Let’s Have a Lid on It,” among other noteworthy slogans.

Among the organizers of the protest were members of the First Hill Improvement Club and architect Paul Thiry (1904-1993). Best known as the primary architect of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, Thiry was also one of the first to propose a lid over I-5 where businesses and apartments could be built. Downtown interests also supported the proposed lid, due to their concerns about the loss of parking spaces and the increase in traffic from the freeway. Among other significant local figures who publicly opposed the freeway route was former Seattle Mayor George Cotterill (1865-1958), who was concerned about the effects of building the route through a slide-prone area.

This protest was actually an anomaly, and there was in fact minimal opposition to the I-5 route during the early planning stages, since the freeway was mostly planned through quiet bureaucratic process in Olympia until late in the game. The Seattle portion of I-5 began conceptually as the Everett-Seattle-Tacoma Superhighway in 1951, and was approved by the Washington state legislature in 1953. Funds for construction were provided by the Federal Defense Highway Act of 1956, signed by President Eisenhower.

The Seattle portion of I-5 was completed in January 1967. Although the opposition to its construction was minimal and moot, the damage done to Seattle’s quality of life by its location would soon motivate much more fervent efforts against future freeway construction within the city limits–specifically, against the R. H. Thomson Expressway. That story, told elsewhere on this blog, ended in success when Seattle voters rejected that project in 1972. The cap desired by the June 1961 marchers was finally realized when Freeway Park was dedicated on July 4, 1976.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Don Duncan, “100 Marchers Call For Freeway Lid,” The Seattle Times, June 1, 1961, p. 1; Sam Angeloff, “Freeway Marchers Advocate Landscaping,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 2, 1961, p. 8; Dan Coughlin, “Council OKs Mall Cover On Freeway,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 6, 1961, p. 1; “Council Backs Mall Over Two Downtown Freeway Sections,” The Seattle Times, June 6, 1961, p. 11; Paul Dorpat and Genevieve McCoy, “Building Washington: A History of Washington State Public Works” (Seattle: Tartu Publications, 1998); Jeffrey Craig Sanders, “Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability: Inventing Ecotopia” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010).

May 4, 1969: Hit the Highway, Freeway

Marchers in the UW Arboretum, May 4, 1969. Photo credit: Museum of History and Industry

The concrete monstrosity that has long divided Seattle into two absurdly disconnected halves like the result of a brain operation gone horribly awry–a.k.a. Interstate 5–was never a civic inevitability. Long before its official completion in January 1967, citizen activists and elected officials alike fought for a better solution to the city’s emerging need for a major transportation corridor that would connect Seattle with the other major cities on the West Coast. Unfortunately, in 1956 the Washington State Highway Department trumped local desires for a sane solution (such as building the Seattle segment of I-5 on the east side of Lake Washington, still underdeveloped at the time), and we’re still left with the garish results of that dreadful lack of foresight today.

Fortunately, eleven years later, a group of local citizen activists, appalled by the results of the decision to build I-5 in the heart of the city, organized a series of protests against what could have been a much greater infrastructure disaster, namely, the R. H. Thomson Expressway. At the time still under proposal, the Thomson Expressway, if completed, would have followed the Lake Washington shoreline throughout Seattle, running north from Interstate 90 through the Central District, Montlake, and the University of Washington Arboretum, and ominously onward through Lake City to an interchange with an also-proposed Bothell Freeway.

The first of these protests occurred on the date in focus here, when several thousand marched through the Arboretum to protest the expressway’s impending construction. The initial expressway proposal–named for Seattle’s erstwhile city engineer Reginald Heber Thomson (1856-1949)–was approved by Seattle voters in 1960. But when inevitable changes of plan, in which much of Montlake would have been bulldozed, were revealed in 1966, Citizens Against R. H. Thomson organized to oppose the project.

These protests were part of a broader nationwide activist movement against major freeway construction projects that emerged during the 1960s. Citizens concerned with the negative impact such projects would have upon the quality of urban life organized to stop such projects in several major U.S. cities, including New Orleans, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and, last but not least, Seattle.

Unlike the earlier, much less passionate opposition to I-5, these protests were eventually successful, benefiting greatly from the local environmental movement that had emerged since 1965. In February 1972, a special-election ballot referendum was passed in Seattle that withdrew funding for the Thomson project. Finally, in June 1977, the Seattle City Council voted to officially cancel the R. H. Thomson Expressway, thus bringing a joyful closure to a crucial episode of local grassroots activist history.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Maynard Arsove, “Concrete Dragons,” Helix, April 3, 1969, p. 16; Clayton Van Lydegraf, “CART … Dragonslayer?,” Helix, April 3, 1969, p. 18; Charles Russell, “‘Save, Don’t Pave’,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 5, 1969, p. B; Roger Sale, “Seattle, Past to Present” (University of Washington Press, 1976); Walt Crowley, “Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle” (University of Washington Press, 1995); Paul Dorpat and Genevieve McCoy, “Building Washington: A History of Washington State Public Works” (Tartu Publications, 1998).

February 24, 1966: Hell No!

Demonstrators burning draft cards outside the Selective Service office in Seattle, circa 1969. Copyright (c) Fred Lonidier.

Along with growing protests against the Vietnam War, resistance to involuntary conscription for U.S. military service gradually became a hot topic nationwide as combat operations began to escalate in Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s. At first a brave few draft-age American males risked jail time and/or ostracism by openly refusing induction. By the end of the decade, many were brazenly burning their draft cards and seeking escape to Canada, among other popular draft resistance strategies.

Seattle’s formal introduction to the draft resistance movement occurred on the date in focus here, when Russel Wills, a University of Washington philosophy graduate student, became the first Seattle citizen to refuse induction in protest against the war. The consequences of his actions would become apparent the following autumn, as the U.S. government began to legally crack down on draft resisters in earnest. In Wills’s case, he would be sentenced to five years in prison that September.

Wills’s draft resistance actually began on October 16, 1965, when he wrote a letter to his draft board stating that he was so opposed to U.S. involvement in Vietnam on both legal and moral grounds that he had destroyed his draft card. One week later, he was given a 1-A draft classification (i.e., first choice for induction, thus canceling his student deferment), with no explanation. He did not receive a notice explaining the grounds for reclassification until January, after the date of possible legal appeal had expired. With conscientious objector status not available to him, he had no course but to refuse induction–a very bold decision to make at the time.

Eventually, Wills’s sentence would be reduced to two years. Meanwhile, the draft resistance movement grew to the point where, in 1969, the student body presidents of 253 U.S. universities wrote to the White House to say that they personally planned to refuse induction. By the war’s end, a half-million Americans had refused induction, along with many more who had evaded the draft by various means.

In Seattle, the draft resistance movement was represented by Draft Resistance-Seattle, the local chapter of a larger national network. DR-Seattle worked in tandem with the UW chapter of Students for a Democratic Society to create antiwar organizations at the UW and Seattle Central Community College, as well as many area high schools, including Queen Anne, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Rainier Beach, Ingraham, West Seattle, Shorecrest, Bellevue, Sammamish, and Sealth. DR-Seattle also organized support campaigns for draft resisters, solidarity protests at the Canadian border, and marches to Selective Service System offices throughout the course of the war.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Trudy Capell, “Grad Student To Fight Court Draft Ruling,” University of Washington Daily, November 8, 1967, p. 1; Melvin Rader, “No Anarchy” (letter to the editor), University of Washington Daily, November 16, 1967, p. 2; Melvin Rader, “Russel Wills Defense Fund” (letter to the editor), The New York Review of Books, December 7, 1967; Walt Crowley, “Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle” (University of Washington Press, 1995); Jessie Kindig, “Draft Resistance in the Vietnam Era,” Pacific Northwest Antiwar and Radical History Project (http://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/vietnam_draft.shtml).

February 9, 1971: The SCCC Oriental Student Union Sit-In

SCCC's Oriental Student Union and their "posse on Broadway," February 9, 1971
Photo credit: Ben Yorita

“The time of the quiet Asian has passed.”

With those words, spoken on the date in focus here by Mike Tagawa, a sophomore at Seattle Central Community College (SCCC), that school’s Oriental Student Union (OSU) commenced a sit-in protest at the SCCC administration offices. The protest was staged to support the OSU’s demands that the Seattle Community College system hire five Asian-American administrators.

The protest began at noon when a crowd of about 200 gathered outside the SCCC Administration Center on Broadway on Capitol Hill. Roughly half were Asian-American, while the rest were black, Latino/Latina, and white students who supported the OSU’s demands.

The OSU, founded at SCCC in 1970, was largely inspired by the school’s Black Student Union (BSU), which during the 1968-1969 school year had staged similar protests to demand black studies courses and the hiring of black administrators and faculty. Mike Tagawa, the OSU’s 1970-1971 vice-president, was in fact a member of the SCCC BSU prior to the OSU’s formation. The other crucial OSU leader involved in organizing the protest was Alan Sugiyama, the OSU’s 1970-1971 president.

It must be noted here that the OSU’s action was not completely supported at the time among Seattle’s communities of color. Older, more conservative representatives of the city’s Asian-American community reportedly took issue with the OSU’s militant, Black Panther-inspired tactics. Meanwhile, although the Seattle Black Panther Party publicly supported the action, much of Seattle’s black community, including the SCCC BSU, reportedly did not. Such was the fragmentation among the American Left, in Seattle and nationwide, in the year 1971.

The OSU would again take over the SCCC offices, this time more forcefully, on March 2, 1971, and the pressure generated by that protest action would eventually lead to acquiescence by the school’s administration. Following negotiations facilitated by leaders in the local Asian-American community, SCCC agreed to hire an Asian-American administrator for the 1971-1972 school year. Not long after, SCCC hired Frank Fujii as a Department Head and Peter Kosi as Minority Affairs Director. Eventually, in 1990, the district would also hire an Asian American, Peter Ku, as president of North Seattle Community College. In 1998, Ku was promoted to chancellor of the Seattle Community College District.

Next month, the 40th anniversary of the OSU sit-ins will be commemorated on March 2 with a public event at SCCC’s Broadway Performance Hall, with Alan Sugiyama and Mike Tagawa as keynote speakers. For more information, see the website of Seattle’s Japanese American Citizens League.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: John de Yonge, “SCC Trustees to Consider Oriental Student Demands,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 9, 1971, p. 7; John de Yonge, “SCC, Oriental Students to Negotiate,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 10, 1971, p. D; Stephen H. Dunphy, “No solution reached on Asians’ demands,” The Seattle Times, February 10, 1971, p. E 4; “Asian-Ancestry Community College Students Demand Official Voice,” The Facts, February 11, 1971, p. 1; Robert Marshall Wells, “Ku retires with legacy as steadfast promoter of community colleges,” The Seattle Times, June 13, 2003; “Oriental Student Union Sit-In,” Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project (http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/aa_osu.htm).

January 21, 1997: In Search of the Golden Shower of Public-Private Partnerships

Downtown Seattle: A wonderful place to shop!

Gentrification, triangulation, and public urination, oh my!

Such were the underlying themes of civic life in Seattle during the allegedly halcyon days of the dot-com boom. And such was the backstory on the date in focus here, when roughly 75 local homeless citizens and advocates invaded the downtown Nordstrom store (then in its original Westlake Center location) and the brand-new NikeTown wearing bathrobes and shower caps and bearing rubber duckies and toothbrushes. These activists were ostensibly searching for a place to take a shower, but in fact they were engaging in a protest to draw attention to Seattle City Council plans to de-fund a proposed downtown public hygiene center that could have been used by the homeless.

The protest, which took place at noon, was strategically scheduled that day to coincide with a meeting of the council’s Health, Housing, Human Services, Education and Libraries Committee, in which the committee planned to vote on the disputed location of the hygiene center. The facility, as proposed by its advocates, would have been located in the basement of the Glen Hotel, a vacant remnant of Old Seattle at Third Avenue and Spring Street. However, certain city mothers and fathers, heavily influenced by the pro-business Downtown Seattle Association, fought both overtly and covertly for “dispersed” bathing and toilet facilities spread over the outskirts of downtown, safely concealed from the city’s financial and retail core.

Such moneyed maneuvering was of a piece with Seattle City Hall’s attitude towards the homeless during the late 1990s, best exemplified by a set of proposed “civility laws” banning economically unproductive loitering and public urination downtown. And such were the ways in which our city government so gleefully wizzed all over the city’s poor folks while rolling out the red carpet for the rich–best exemplified by the $73 million of public money then being given away behind closed doors to none other than Nordstrom, for construction of the private parking garage that now stands at Sixth Avenue and Pine Street.

The following day the council committee relented somewhat and informally agreed to install public toilets at the Glen Hotel site. Eventually the proposed hygiene center would surface elsewhere downtown as the Urban Rest Stop. Today, the Glen Hotel survives as a single-room occupancy apartment building for homeless individuals, with shared bathrooms. Meanwhile, now that Seattle’s economic straits are far, far more dire than those of 1997, our city’s homeless citizens are still waiting for a truly fair break–despite the apparent sympathies of our current mayor.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Joe Mooney, “Cleanliness proves next to impossible for some downtown,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 22, 1997, p. B 1; Linda Keene, “Restroom protest at Nordstrom–Homeless advocates seek downtown hygiene center,” The Seattle Times, January 22, 1997, p. B 1; Neil Modie, “Panel favors public toilets at hotel,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 23, 1997, p. B 2; Timothy A. Gibson, “Securing the Spectacular City: The Politics of Revitalization and Homelessness in Downtown Seattle” (Lexington Books, 2003).

October 16, 1965: Mickey Mouse Fight Club

Different city, same scene: Antiwar protesters and counter-protesters, Berkeley, California, November 20, 1965.

Never underestimate the impotency of a heckler–even when he, she, or it represents the majority. Such was unfortunately the case on the date in focus here, when almost 400 protesters turned out for Seattle’s first major local demonstration against the Vietnam War, and were greeted with decidedly feral heckling from both counter-protesters and pro-war bystanders.

The event was organized by the Seattle Committee to End the War in Vietnam (SCEWV) and the University of Washington chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in solidarity with other, larger protest events in several major U.S. cities that same weekend, including a 13,000-strong march in New York City. The Seattle protest began with a march under police escort down Fourth Avenue in downtown Seattle, from the Federal Courthouse at Fifth Avenue and Spring Street to a noon rally at Westlake Park. The heckling began at the courthouse, where the counter-slogans included such reactionary gems as “Keep Washington Green–not Red!,” “For Sale Cheap–Ho Chi Minh Sandals!” and, amusingly representing the UW’s right-wing Greek community, “Sigma Chi says ‘USA–All The Way!’”

When the march arrived at Westlake Park, the counter-protesters, keeping their distance one block away from the rally, attempted to drown out the antiwar voices by singing the Mickey Mouse Club anthem, and the first speaker, UW Political Science professor Paul Brass, was doused with red paint by a certain self-identified “Joe Freedom,” who amusingly turned out to be a disgruntled student of Brass’s.

To protest the Vietnam War at such an early stage, when American public opinion was still squarely (yes, that was a double-entendre) in its favor, was truly daring, especially in light of the news that the march in NYC hours earlier had been violently attacked by spectators, while in Oakland, California, 10,000 marchers were also attacked–some bludgeoned, even–by Hell’s Angels. According to eyewitness and radical Seattle icon Walt Crowley (1947-2007), then an 18-year-old UW freshman braving his first major protest event, all involved were understandably “nervous.” Nevertheless, the crewcutted heckling majority eventually ate their according crow: by mid-1970, in the wake of the Kent State massacre and the war’s increasing lack of direction and loss of American lives, nationwide antiwar protests had grown into massive events, with increasing empathy from the so-called “silent majority.”

One can only wonder what Walt Disney (1901-1966), noted anti-radical, would, by that point in time, have done.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Richard Simmons, “Viet Protest Orderly Here; Violence Across Nation,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 17, 1965, p. 1; “Hell’s Angels Attack Berkeley Demonstrators,” The Seattle Times, October 17, 1965, p. 1; “Viet-Nam Protesters Heckled In March to Westlake Mall,” Ibid., p. A; Walt Crowley, “Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle” (University of Washington Press, 1995), pp. 45-46.

July 1, 1963: Seattle’s First Civil Rights Sit-In

The Central District Youth Club in Mayor Clinton's office.
Photo credit: Tom Brownell, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The “Seattle Way” is nothing new. In fact, our city government’s infamous penchant for processing potential legislation towards a slow, agonizing death dates back at least to the early 1960s, the prime of the Civil Rights era. Then, people of color here, inspired by activists in the Deep South, began to pressure Seattle City Hall to outlaw racial discrimination in housing. In response to that grassroots pressure, in July 1962 Seattle Mayor Gordon S. Clinton appointed a Citizen’s Advisory Committee on Minority Housing, which concluded later that year that “a city ordinance prohibiting discrimination in the sale or rental of housing accommodations on the basis of race, creed, color or national origin is an essential tool for the work of a city commission on human relations.” The committee also recommended the creation of a 12-member human rights commission to carry out that mission.

In keeping with the “Seattle Way,” Clinton and the Seattle City Council naturally delayed action on the advisory committee’s recommendations for nearly a year. It was on the date in focus here that, to protest the city’s inaction and to demand “open housing” in Seattle, the Rev. Mance Jackson of the Bethel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the Rev. Samuel B. McKinney of the Mount Zion Baptist Church organized a march on City Hall, beginning in the Central Area. That morning, roughly 400 marchers descended upon the Fifth Avenue plaza of the Seattle Municipal Building, where a city council meeting on open housing was scheduled for that day. There, a group of high-school and college-age protesters circulated a flyer, which read in part:

“As citizens of Seattle and members of the Central District Youth Club, we feel humiliated by the slow process of the City of Seattle to adopt open housing. We are past the stages of patience, we also are past the stage of committees and subcommittees. We want open housing today.”

Inside the city council chambers, some 300 protesters filled the meeting, in a room with a seating capacity of 175. Mayor Clinton spoke in favor of the human rights commission, while several clergymen involved with the march expressed their own impatience with the lack of progress on the open housing issue.

Meanwhile, before the meeting, at about 1:30 p.m., about 35 members of the Central District Youth Club–which included both African-American and white youth–proceeded to the mayor’s office with the intention of occupying it as a form of protest in support of open housing in Seattle. The sit-in lasted 24 hours and ended peacefully, and it succeeded in convincing the city council to commit to the creation of a human rights commission, with the mandate of drafting an open housing ordinance within 90 days.

Some of the protest leaders, including the Rev. Jackson and the Rev. McKinney, were still critical that the council did not directly move toward the creation of an ordinance. Another local clergyman, the Rev. Dr. John H. Adams, minister of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, said tersely at one point, “You cannot put out the forest fire of racial tension with the hot dry air that comes from committee rooms.”

Seattle voters would defeat the open housing ordinance in March 1964, but, after four more years of “Seattle Way” shenanigans, the ordinance was finally passed directly by the city council in April 1968.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: “Sit-In Begins In Mayor’s Office Here,” The Seattle Times, July 1, 1963, p. 1; Dan Coughlin, “City Implies OK For Open Housing Law After Sit-In,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 2, 1963, p. 1; “Youths End Sit-In At Mayor’s Office,” The Seattle Times, July 2, 1963, p. 1; Lane Smith, “City Council Stalls on Housing, Negroes Charge,” The Seattle Times, July 2, 1963, p. 6; Douglas Willix, “Council Influenced by Spokesmen for Open-Housing Ordinance,” The Seattle Times, July 2, 1963, p. 6; Dan Coughlin, “Protesters To ‘Go Along’ On Seattle Rights Plan,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 3, 1963, p. 5; Charles Dunsire, “Open Housing Sleepy Sit-Ins End 24-Hour Visit To Mayor,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 3, 1963, p. 5; “King AM-FM Cover City Council Hearings On Minority Housing,” The Facts, July 12, 1963, p. 1; “Mayor Appoints Minister to Commission–Housing Ordinance Top Priority,” The Facts, July 19, 1963, p. 1.

June 15, 1963: Seattle’s First Civil Rights March

Rev. Mance Jackson (center, next to police sergeant) leading demonstrators in downtown Seattle

In the summer of 1963, Seattle may have still been a small, sleepy city in some respects, but in its response to the civil rights movement then reaching full bloom in the Deep South, Seattle’s black community showed exceptional civic leadership among the cities west of the Mississippi. On the date in focus here, Seattle witnessed the first of many bold actions that would echo the events then unfolding in Alabama and elsewhere.

On that Saturday morning, several of Seattle’s leading black clergymen, including the Rev. Mance Jackson, led a march of some 1,000 persons, both black and white, from the Central Area to Westlake Mall. The march, which began at Mt. Zion Baptist Church at 19th Avenue and Madison Street, was organized by local officers of the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), partly in response to the murder of Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP. Evers was shot to death in front of his house in Jackson, Mississippi earlier that week, and several protests along the East Coast had already ensued as the Seattle marchers assembled at Mt. Zion.

At the church, a spirited rally preceded the march, and a collection of $634.02 was taken for Evers’s family; a minute of silent prayer was also offered for Evers. The march then proceeded through the Central Area, converging down Pine Street towards downtown for a scheduled noon rally at Westlake Mall.

While partly instigated by the murder of Evers, the demonstration mainly concerned the discrimination in housing, education, and employment then rampant in Seattle, as well as the city government’s failure to adequately address that discrimination. At the time, local civil rights activists had been pursuing the creation and passage of an open housing ordinance in Seattle, so far to no avail. At Westlake, Rev. Jackson, pastor of Seattle’s Bethel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, gave a rousing speech lamenting the state of race relations in Seattle:

“We are trying to point out that Seattle is no different from any other American city…. Some believe Seattle is different … that Negroes are better treated … We have been complacent and satisfied in the great Northwest. We came to what we thought was a land of promise and we have been content to accept discrimination. The hour is upon us when we must realize [that] freedom from oppression is reserved for those who are willing to fight for it. The time is now–or never.”

Concluding his speech, Mance called upon the demonstrators to continue demonstrating in the coming weeks. He called upon men to stage protests on Mondays, women on Tuesdays, and young people on Wednesdays and Fridays.

“Saturday,” he concluded, “is everybody’s day.”

Other black leaders from Seattle also spoke at the rally, including the Rev. John Adams, pastor of the First African Methodist Church. Rev. Adams referred to a timetable recently proposed by Seattle Mayor Gordon S. Clinton for creating a human rights commission and a real estate listing service to address racial discrimination in the city. Many black leaders felt the timetable was not urgent enough, and the Rev. Adams declared:

“We will let the mayor know we don’t approve his timetable…. We don’t want any more study groups–we want some action, now!”

Reginald Alleyne, local president of CORE, vowed that CORE would “picket, boycott, and sit-in real estate offices that discriminate in this city.” He also said that CORE was prepared to pursue economic sanctions against any local businesses found guilty of job discrimination.

Mayor Clinton, while not speaking at the rally, announced to the press during the rally that he would recommend the following Monday that the city council establish a city human rights commission and housing listing service during his annual State of the City address at that week’s council meeting. On that day, a rally of some 400 persons in support of the proposed open housing ordinance was held outside the Seattle Municipal Building one hour before the council meeting. Clinton spoke at that rally to light applause, outlining his proposal for the creation of a 12-member human rights commission with an annual budget of $30,000. Stronger applause was reserved for the Rev. Jackson, who declared:

“We think we have heard you, Mr. Mayor, and we think there is no intention of our city government to do anything.”

The following year, an open housing ordinance was presented to Seattle voters as a referendum; it was defeated, mainly due to opposition from property owners who framed it as an attack on property rights. It was not until April 1968 that a Seattle open housing ordinance was finally adopted, this time by a vote of the Seattle City Council.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: “700 March in Racial-Equality Protest,” The Seattle Times, June 15, 1963, p. 1; Charles Dunsire, “Negro Leaders Here Launch Fight For Equality,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 16, 1963, p. 12; “400 Negroes, Whites Rally at City Hall,” The Seattle Times, June 17, 1963, p. A; Dan Coughlin, “Clinton Asks $30,000 To Start Rights Commission,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 18, 1963, p. 1.

May 20, 1968: The UW Black Student Union Sit-In

Black Student Union supporters outside UW Administration Building, May 20, 1968

May 1968, whose anniversary we obviously indulge this month, was a political rollercoaster ride in more ways than one. Worldwide is the legend of that month’s philosophy-fueled and historically cathartic student-worker uprising in Paris. But equally important for us here in Seattle is the anniversary of the date in focus here, when the University of Washington was unfathomably shook by its Black Student Union, then freshly-formed and quickly meaning serious racial justice business.

As the students of the Sorbonne and elsewhere fantastically shook France’s political foundations, the UW BSU staged a surprise occupation of the offices of UW President Charles Odegaard to demand that the UW take steps to amend the overwhelming lack of minority representation on its campus. Among the BSU’s specific demands was a budget allocation for $50,000 to be spent developing an expanded black studies program.

At approximately 5 p.m. that evening, after spending most of the day demonstrating outside the UW Administration Building, some 25 BSU members and supporters entered Odegaard’s office suite on the Ad Building’s third floor, where a meeting of the UW Faculty Senate executive committee was taking place. By 7 p.m., the number of sit-in participants had grown to more than 50, and bags of groceries and a portable record player were brought to the group, signaling their intent to maintain the occupation as long as necessary.

The BSU took this action as a very risky last resort, after weeks of politely petitioning the University to develop a recruitment program for black students and an expanded black studies program. Prior to the sit-in, the University had politely expressed its alleged sympathy for the BSU’s concerns, yet ultimately ignored the issue. As several Seattle police cars and a growing crowd of UW community members anxiously waited outside the Ad Building, Odegaard, after four hours of intense negotiation with the BSU and representatives of the UW Faculty Senate, finally signed a policy statement committing the UW to the BSU’s demands.

BSU President E. J. Brisker claimed Odegaard’s signature as a victory because it “put Odegaard on record and made absolutely clear his position.” The Faculty Senate executive committee also signed the statement, and later that week the Senate body unanimously approved the statement during its regular meeting. Prior to the vote, Brisker read aloud a prepared statement, which was met with applause by the Senate. Brisker’s statement read in part as follows:

“… we would like the support of the Faculty Senate in three key areas. One, in the area of recruitment of non-white students. Two, the development of programs, i.e., remedial and tutorial, that will aid newly recruited students in making the difficult transition to university life. Three, the development of a Black Studies Curriculum which will enable both non-white and white students to learn about the culture and life style of such groups as Afro-American, Mexi-American, and Indian-American peoples.”

The UW BSU sit-in remains unique among examples of student direct action in that its long-term impact involved not merely changes to UW policy, but also the establishment of new departments, new administrative positions, and even new buildings on the UW campus. The legacy of the event remains on the UW campus today in the form of the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, the Ethnic Cultural Center and Theatre, and the American Ethnic Studies department. In addition, several of the sit-in’s young organizers have today become significant leaders in the local social justice community, including longtime King County Councilmember Larry Gossett, UW Vice President for Minority Affairs Emile Pitre, and multi-faceted community activist Aaron Dixon (then a Garfield High student and co-founder of the Seattle Black Panther Party and Garfield’s own BSU).

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Dave Verbon, “Late-Hour Compromise Averts Sit-In Violence,” University of Washington Daily, May 21, 1968, p. 1; “Compromise Issued,” University of Washington Daily, May 21, 1968, p. 1; Robert Cour and Fergus Hoffman, “4-Hour Negro Sit-in at UW; New Talks Set,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 21, 1968, p. 1; Dee Norton, “Agreement Ends Student Sit-in,” The Seattle Times, May 21, 1968, p. 5; Don Hannula, “U. W. Sit-in ‘Just the Beginning,’ Says Black Student Union President,” The Seattle Times, May 21, 1968, p. 5; Dave Verbon, “BSU Working To Carry Out Its Obligations,” University of Washington Daily, May 22, 1968, p. 1; “Faculty Senate to Eye BSU Sit-In Resolution,” University of Washington Daily, May 23, 1968, p. 1; Mike Steward, “Senate Applauds Brisker,” University of Washington Daily, May 24, 1968, p. 1; “BSU Statement To Senate,” University of Washington Daily, May 24, 1968, p. 1; Aaron Dixon, “My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain” (Haymarket Books, 2012).

May 5, 1970: The UW Freeway March

UW students marching west down NE 45th towards I-5, May 5, 1970

Was the Kent State Massacre not a sufficient wake-up call for a complacent nation?

During that event, on May 4, 1970, four students at Ohio’s Kent State University were fatally shot by National Guardsmen during a protest against the previous week’s U.S. invasion of Cambodia. That tragedy should have served to sound an efficient alarm for any American still in denial about how our absurd military involvement in Southeast Asia had politically divided the nation during the otherwise prosperous 1960s. For the remaining still slumbering, the nationwide and passionate campus reaction the following day–namely, the date in focus here–was surely the test to separate the merely politically timid from the hopelessly complacent.

This was especially the case in Seattle, where several thousand University of Washington students, faculty, and staff members spontaneously marched from the UW campus onto Interstate 5 as part of a nationwide student strike against the Vietnam War–thus instigating the first antiwar freeway occupation in U.S. history.

As student strikes and campus building occupations ensued that day at over 100 universities and colleges across the U.S., nearly 7,000 UW students participated in a strike that would last throughout the month of May. The inaugural strike demonstration began at 10:30 a.m. in front of the UW’s Husky Union Building. There, striking students and faculty members overwhelmingly approved a list of demands to be presented to the UW administration, including a pledge by UW President Charles Odegaard to never call National Guard troops onto the UW campus, and an end to University complicity with the war effort, including military recruiting, ROTC, and “war-oriented” research.

After a long, serpentine march though campus, the strikers arrived at the UW Administration Building around noon. There, Odegaard, while expressing outrage over the Kent State killings, refused the strikers’ demands. In response, the students voted to begin marching en masse off campus and through the University District. Eventually, marching north on University Way Northeast, some 5,000 of the strikers reached Northeast 45th Street. When some of the strike leaders began chanting “Freeway!,” the march spontaneously but swiftly surged towards Interstate 5. Reaching the freeway around 1:50 p.m., still 3,000 strong, they spilled out onto I-5 from both sides and began marching south towards downtown, blocking southbound traffic for over an hour, and for several miles, in the process. By all accounts, there were no serious confrontations between marchers and motorists, with many motorists reportedly honking and flashing peace signs in approval.

Near the Roanoke Street exit, the march was confronted by about 30 riot-clad Washington State Patrol troopers. After voting to stage a freeway “sit-in” that lasted roughly one half-hour, the marchers then voted to leave the freeway and continue south on Eastlake Avenue. They eventually reached the King County Courthouse at about 4 p.m., where they were joined by striking students from several other local colleges and high schools for an hour-long rally.

The following day, a much larger group of strikers would again march from the UW campus to downtown, this time through the Montlake and Central Area neighborhoods. They would again occupy I-5, this time downtown, meeting with much more resistance from police, who used tear gas and clubs to move the strikers from the freeway. The remainder of that week would see outbreaks of violence in the U District related to the strike, including attacks on antiwar protesters by right-wing “vigilantes.” Overall, though, the strike was a largely peaceful affair–on campus, at least.

The 1970 UW student strike would continue throughout the month of May. The strike would eventually lose its momentum and power as the UW administration began to clamp down on both the strike itself and coverage of the strike in the UW Daily and on KUOW-FM, at the time still a student-run station and often host to radical journalistic voices.

–Jeff Stevens. Sources: Greg Albertson, “Morning Mass Meeting Called,” University of Washington Daily, May 5, 1970, p. 1; Don Hannula, “5,000 U.W. Protesters Block Traffic on Freeway,” The Seattle Times, May 5, 1970, p. 1; Julie Emery, “U.W. Tense as Students Strike Over War, Kent State Killings,” The Seattle Times, May 5, 1970, p. A 10; Bruce Johansen, “War Protests Begin,” University of Washington Daily, May 6, 1970, p. 1; Frank Herbert, Larry McCarten and George McDowell, “Thousands Block Freeway; UW Marchers Join U.S. College ‘Strike’,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 6, 1970, p. 1; “UW War Protest ‘Loud but Peaceful’,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 6, 1970, p. B; Frank Herbert, “‘My God–We’ve Got the Freeway’,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 6, 1970, p. B; “Protesters March on City Hall; U.W. to Close On Friday,” The Seattle Times, May 6, 1970, p. 1; Mike Cassidy, “Peaceful Start: Gas & Clubs Mark Finale,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 2; Bruce Johansen, “‘Oh My God, Here They Come’,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 2; Kim Reich, “Student Strike: Some Went & Others Didn’t,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 8; Dan Greenberg, “Lower Campus:,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 8; Dave Rea, “‘They Make Excuses . . .,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 8; Eric Lacitis, “Confrontation on Interstate Five,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 9; Greg Albertson, “No Mass Blockade,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 9; George Arthur, “Northwest Region Schools Join Student War Protest,” University of Washington Daily, May 7, 1970, p. 10; Walt Crowley, “On Strike,” Helix, May 7, 1970, p. 3; “Shut It Down,” Helix, May 7, 1970, p. 4; “10,000 Block Freeway Again,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 1970, p. 1; Richard Simmons, “Peace March Brings Them All Together,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 1970, p. B; “‘Join Us!, Join Us!’; Student Strikers Move Into U.W. Classrooms,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 1970, p. B1; “Odegaard Meets Demand Partially,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 1970, p. B; “Lawyer’s Class at U.W. Invaded,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 1970, p. B1; “Protest Groups Unite, Call Demonstration,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 1970, p. B1; Don Hannula, “More Protests Due; 4,000 Rally at U.W.,” The Seattle Times, May 7, 1970, p. 1; “Support Pledged By Mayor’s Office,” The Seattle Times, May 7, 1970, p. 1; Marty Loken, “Some Hurt, 7 Held as Students Occupy Freeway,” The Seattle Times, May 7, 1970, p. A 8; Don Hannula, “Students Skip Campus Buildings, Invade Freeway,” The Seattle Times, May 7, 1970, p. A 9; John Hinterberger, “Students Clubbed Leaving Freeway,” The Seattle Times, May 7, 1970, p. A 10; “Destructive Binge In U District,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 8, 1970, p. 1; “HELP Group Denies Using Force at U.W.,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 8, 1970, p. A4; Martin Works and John deYoung, “U District a ‘Fluid Battleground’,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 8, 1970, p. B; Don Hannula, “Downtown Protest Peaceful; Freeway Again Disrupted,” The Seattle Times, May 8, 1970, p. 1; Don Hannula, “City Calm as Protests Subside,” The Seattle Times, May 9, 1970, p. 1; Greg Albertson, Dan Greenberg, Kim Reich, “Strike Still On, But Campus Open,” University of Washington Daily, May 12, 1970, p. 1; Greg Albertson, “Students Pause, Strike Fizzles,” University of Washington Daily, May 13, 1970, p. 1; Walt Crowley, “Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle” (University of Washington Press, 1995), pp. 172-176.