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Civil Rights

Every month is Black History Month at HistoryLink, and this week we take a look back at the long struggle in Washington for Black equality. In 1844 the provisional government of Oregon enacted a ban on Black residents settling south of the Columbia River, a ban that was reenacted after Oregon Territory was created in 1848. To avoid the law, in 1845 a group of pioneers led by George Bush, a free African American from Missouri, and his friend Michael Simmons, moved north to today's Tumwater, where they established the first non-Native American settlement in what eight years later would become Washington Territory. Washington Territory had no such ban but was not free of racism. In 1874 a group of white parents were outraged when the University of Washington admitted a Black student. While many remained silent, newspaper editor and future Seattle mayor Beriah Brown came to the school's defense in a powerful editorial titled "Civil Rights."

In 1890, one year after achieving statehood, Washington passed model civil rights legislation, but racial tensions grew nonetheless, particularly among workers who feared losing jobs to minorities. The first NAACP chapter in the state was formed in 1913, but many African Americans still had to battle against segregation and discrimination. In the early 1920s a resurgent Ku Klux Klan enjoyed considerable success in the state. In 1938, a mob of white residents in Wapato, armed with clubs, sticks, and rocks, tried to drive the African American population out of town. That same year, in a rare rebuke of police misconduct, a Seattle jury convicted three officers of manslaughter for the fatal beating of a Black prisoner, but Governor Clarence Martin pardoned two of them the following year, and the third was paroled early. The influx of thousands of Black defense workers during World War II led to more conflict – and to new leaders, laws, and attitudes to address and overcome racial barriers.

Civic Activism

Seattle's first sit-in of the modern civil rights era occurred on July 1, 1963, when 35 young African American and white demonstrators occupied Mayor Gordon Clinton's lobby to protest the make-up of the city's new Human Rights Commission. The protest ended within 24 hours without incident or arrests, but also without action from the mayor. Three weeks later, 22 protestors occupied the city council chambers for four days before being removed and carted off to jail. The commission was created as planned, and although it submitted an open-housing ordinance the following year, Seattle voters rejected it. An open-housing law was finally enacted by the Seattle City Council in April 1968.

That year saw another sit-in, this time at Franklin High School to protest suspensions and unfair treatment of African American students there. It ended with the arrests of University of Washington Black Students Union members Aaron Dixon and Larry Gossett; Carl Miller, the head of the local Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; and student Trolice Flavors. Their sentencing for unlawful assembly led to riots in Seattle's Central Area, and their case traveled up through the courts for years. Gossett would be elected to the King County Council in 1993.

Civil rights activists have come from all walks of life, including educators, ministers, rabbis, community organizers, lawyers, judges, doctors, dentists, nurses, poets, social workers, and legislators. Their struggle has been long and some have paid dearly for their efforts, but progress has been made toward ensuring equal rights for all.