This past Saturday, Feb. 25, community organizers and members, elected officials, and Black Seattle residents gathered together at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute to join Africatown Community Land Trust (ACLT) in “celebrating a decade of realizing the vision of Black Seattle.” Hosted by TraeAnna Holiday, 2023’s State of Africatown celebration held space for over 15 speakers to present the ways in which they are invested in making their community thrive. Although the speakers came from an array of backgrounds, representing different fields of work, including health care, education, and philanthropy, through their songs and stories, each of them spoke to a collective vision and commitment to protecting, promoting, and preserving the potential of Seattle’s Black communities.
(This article is reprinted with permission from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and Reagan Jackson. Read the full“Reimagining Black History Month” series on FrontPorch.Seattle.gov. Stories and profiles will be added throughout the month.)
Victoria Santos is a cofounder of the BIPOC ED Coalition of Washington State, a multicultural, cross-sector collaborative of 200+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Color nonprofit leaders working in solidarity to promote wellness and restore resources in our region’s communities. She is also the director of the Center for Healing and Liberation, a home for transformative work, committed to the thriving of BIPOC community members and the liberation of everyone.
(This article is reprinted with permission from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and Reagan Jackson. Read the full“Reimagining Black History Month” series on FrontPorch.Seattle.gov. Stories and profiles will be added throughout the month.)
The earliest memory I have of celebrating Black History Month was in the fourth grade. I attended a predominantly white school in Middleton, Wisconsin. One day, my mom noticed my backpack was much heavier than usual. She asked why I was taking so many books to school. I told her about the lesson from the day before where my teacher summed up Black history with one specific story, the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This was long before Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s excellent Ted Talk about the dangers of a single story, long before I’d taken any social justice classes or learned any language to label that moment for the reductive, misguided, oppressive experience it was.
Last night, Seattle Arts & Lectures in partnership with the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas hosted a virtual lecture with Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham to promote their co-edited new book Black Futures.
The lecture itself was a robust conversation about the writers’ journey curating this eclectic anthology and their experiences stepping into the realm of being editors for the first time. As a writer myself, it was especially interesting to hear about the dynamics of being on the opposite side of pressing due dates and having to tackle tasks like heavy cuts to pieces submitted by contributors.
On one street mural, a radiant yellow circle frames a feminine figure who holds her right palm outwards and left arm downwards. Adorned in a cedar hat, turquoise necklace, and multi-colored ribbon belt, the figure stands in front of outstretched butterfly wings rippling with red, orange, yellow, and purple colors. Most distinctive is the figure’s face, smeared with a jarring red handprint. Beyond this, the words “PROTECT INDIGENOUS WOMXN” anchor the mural’s mostly purple background.
