Tag Archives: Black History Month 2022

Community

The Morning Update Show — 2/28

The Morning Update Show — hosted by Trae Holiday and The Big O (Omari Salisbury) — is the only weekday news and information livestream that delivers culturally relevant content to the Pacific Northwest’s urban audience. Omari and Trae analyze the day’s local and national headlines as well as melanin magic in our community. Watch live every weekday at 11 a.m. on any of the following channels, hosted by Converge Media: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Periscope, and whereweconverge.com.

We also post the Morning Update Show here on the Emerald each day after it airs, so you can catch up any time of day while you peruse our latest posts.

Morning Update Show — Monday, Feb. 28

LIVE — DeVitta Briscoe of City of Seattle | LIVE — Gusti Clark of Keller Williams | Black History Month Comes to an End | War in Ukraine | Cannabis Equity: Is There Such a Thing?

Continue reading The Morning Update Show — 2/28 →
Features

My Black History: Where Two Bloodlines Meet at an Intersection

by Chardonnay Beaver

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, legacy is defined as “the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life.” Black history and culture encapsulates the legacy of Black people. I celebrate those who dared to dream and those who survived despite injustice.

The contribution I celebrate begins with the legacies within my own family. When considering Seattle’s local Black history, I trace the impact of those who came before me. 

My Black history begins at an intersection where two bloodlines of Seattleites meet.

Continue reading My Black History: Where Two Bloodlines Meet at an Intersection →
Features

Black History Today: Di’Andre Campbell, Using His Gifts in True Service

by Marcus Harden

Black History Today, created by Marcus Harden in celebration of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond and recognizes the people shaping the future.

Presented in collaboration with Rise Up for Students.

“Stop thinking about the damn wall! There is no wall. There are only bricks. Your job is to lay this brick perfectly. Then move on to the next brick. Then lay that brick perfectly. Then the next one. Don’t be worrying about no wall. Your only concern is the one brick.”

—Will Smith

I watch a lot of HGTV for a person who can barely (and I mean barely) put together a small table from IKEA. I’m fascinated by those who can walk into a space and bring their vision to life — building, renovating, and creating a place for people to truly call home.

An old parable tells us that our body is a temple, and through the art of training and teaching, Di’Andre Campbell is not only a master builder but also a skilled renovator of the human condition.

Features

Black History Today: Leslie Lawson-Sims, an Unsung Hero Filling Her Community With Light

by Marcus Harden

Black History Today, created by Marcus Harden in celebration of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond and recognizes the people shaping the future.

Presented in collaboration with Rise Up for Students.

“As Black women, we’re always given these seemingly devastating experiences — experiences that could absolutely break us. But what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. What we do as Black women is take the worst situations and create from that point.”

—Viola Davis

Here’s to the unsung heroes, the ones who never desire the spotlight, because the work they do comes from something deep inside of them. The ones who you interact with every day — at the coffee shop, at the bodega, and in the office space. Yet for the ones who’ve carved out space where they typically aren’t seen — the “Hidden Figures,” the ones quietly demanding equity and inclusion with their every action — those heroes who don’t seek the light, ironically, become the light.

Community

RARE Documentary Looks at School Busing in Seattle

by Jane Harris Nellams

(An earlier version of this article was previously published on the RARE blog and is being updated and reprinted in the Emerald by permission.)

Joe Hunter and Tony Allison are talking about the same things that they talked about 50 years ago — that is, if they talked then at all.

The two former basketball teammates, one Black and one white and cofounders of Roosevelt Alumni for Racial Equity (RARE), agree that not much has changed regarding the racial climate at Roosevelt and they wonder why. So as one of the founding projects of RARE, a group of alumni formed to work against racism in Seattle high schools, they decided to make a documentary about Seattle’s efforts to desegregate the schools.

Continue reading RARE Documentary Looks at School Busing in Seattle →
Community

The Morning Update Show — 2/15

The Morning Update Show — hosted by Trae Holiday and The Big O (Omari Salisbury) — is the only weekday news and information livestream that delivers culturally relevant content to the Pacific Northwest’s urban audience. Omari and Trae analyze the day’s local and national headlines as well as melanin magic in our community. Watch live every weekday at 11 a.m. on any of the following channels, hosted by Converge Media: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Periscope, and whereweconverge.com.

We also post the Morning Update Show here on the Emerald each day after it airs, so you can catch up any time of day while you peruse our latest posts.

Morning Update Show — Tuesday, Feb. 15

LIVE — School Board President Hersey | Update on Seattle Public Schools | LIVE — Queen Bri of Rainier Avenue Radio | Black History Month Events

Continue reading The Morning Update Show — 2/15 →
Arts & Culture

One-Woman Production Features Story of Famed Activist Fannie Lou Hamer

by Amanda Ong

Until Feb. 12, Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer is running at Seattle Rep in co-production with the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The production is a one-woman show celebrating the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, the famed American civil rights activist. The show’s playwright, Cheryl L. West, is a longtime resident of Seattle and one of Seattle Rep’s most-produced living playwrights. 

Continue reading One-Woman Production Features Story of Famed Activist Fannie Lou Hamer →
Features

Black History Today: Omari Salisbury, Uplifting and Empowering His Community by Sharing the Truth at Any Cost

by Marcus Harrison Green

Black History Today, created by Marcus Harden in celebration of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond and recognizes the people shaping the future.

Presented in collaboration with Rise Up for Students.

“We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”

—Jesse Owens

What best reveals someone’s true character is the moment their life is ambushed by a heap of public awareness. In this moment, all of their work, exploits, and ambitions — once largely unknown to larger pop culture — become unhidden. With this fresh (and in some cases renewed) notoriety, discarding your community, your friends, your promises that initially set you up for recognition is an enticing option. One chosen so often that the tale of someone reaching the pinnacle of their profession only to leave us mere mortals behind as they fly “too close to the sun” before their inevitable crash landing is a well-recited cliché.

Less evoked are the stories of those who skyrocket and grab hold of their community to take them along on their journey.

I think of this every time I reflect on Omari Salisbury. 

Features

Seattle Green Book Tour App Aims to Keep Local Black History Alive

by Troy Landrum Jr.

As the product of the Great Migration, a historical period in American history where millions of African American citizens left all they knew and took all they had from the Jim Crow South to cities up North in hopes of a better life, my grandmothers took their rightful place in that movement in hopes of a Promised Land that wasn’t always so promising for them. What was stronger than the reality of that promise was the hope they brought with them. They came with hopes that one day their kids and grandchildren could reap the future benefits of their elders being uprooted. 

Some of those benefits can be felt in the work of Black & Tan Hall, highlighted along with local Black history in the upcoming Seattle Green Book Self-Guided Tour app coming in March.

Continue reading Seattle Green Book Tour App Aims to Keep Local Black History Alive →
Features

Black History Today: Dr. Kristina Bellamy, Actualizing Her Dreams in Service of Others

by Marcus Harden

Black History Today, created by Marcus Harden in celebration of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond and recognizes the people shaping the future.

Presented in collaboration with Rise Up for Students.

“Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.”

—Shonda Rhimes

Only those who are brave enough to chase their dreams are bold enough to catch them. The act of turning a dream into a plan, a plan into an action, and that action into an accomplishment is what truly defines “success.” The person that does that over and over again, across various disciplines, is more than just a dreamer — they are an agent of change and proof of possibility.