The King County Library System (KCLS) and the South Seattle Emerald are teaming up to bring you the “South End Scoop.” Dig into this community-centered column each month for great book, music, movie, and event recommendations from your local librarians.
Continue reading South End Scoop: Books & More From KCLS — March 2024Tag Archives: Observance/Holiday
OPINION | This Women’s History Month, Uplift the Powerful Outcomes of Women’s Movements
by Cindy Domingo
As we celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8, I was reminded that out of the negative experiences and stories of women and girls, powerful social movements led by women develop. Such was the emergence of International Women’s Day. Begun by socialist European movements, it was the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Chicago that killed 146 young, mostly immigrant women that popularized IWD. Today, IWD is celebrated globally as a day to highlight the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Coupled with the declaration of March as Women’s History Month, women’s contributions to history, especially in the area of women’s equality, can become the discussions in classrooms, community meetings, and events. However, celebrations and education on history are only one part of IWD and Women’s History Month, as their spirit is also a call to action for continued work and organizing for women’s equality.
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OPINION | Friendship in Black, White, and Color: A Women’s History Month Seattle Love Letter
by Rozella Kennedy
When I moved here from Oakland in 2022, everyone warned me that coming to such a “white” city would disappoint and even shock me. Incredibly, I still find myself blessed with the most diverse group of friends (with gals and some guys) that I’ve ever had, and I grew up in New York City and spent a decade in the East Bay! One friend, herself a transport from the Bay, told me it’s because “we Black women find each other and cleave to each other,” which I certainly have experienced. (It’s like a Waiting to Exhale moment without the excessive, #SoftLife consumerism.) But what’s been pleasantly surprising is the quantity and quality of intercultural friendships I’ve been able to forge: Like the focus of my book Our Brave Foremothers, and my platform Brave Sis Project, my posse is Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous.
Continue reading OPINION | Friendship in Black, White, and Color: A Women’s History Month Seattle Love Letter
Remembering Executive Order 9066 Through the Generations
by Julia Park, photos by Alex Garland
The forced removal of Japanese Americans into incarceration camps after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 affected thousands of families including both Issei — Japanese-born immigrants — and their Nisei children born in the United States.
Now, as the oldest generation of Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII is largely gone, their descendants are carrying the memory of the camps forward. More than 80 years later, the struggle is how to preserve the integrity of the story when each generation’s memory of the camps is different.
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‘X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X’ Is a Powerful Reflection of Malcolm X’s Legacy
by Jas Keimig
Malcolm X is among the most mythic figures in American history. The radical life that saw him go from hustler to skilled orator calling for uncompromising Black liberation to political martyr leaves room for legend to bloom.
Malcolm X’s mythic quality is what was going through my mind as I sat in the dark, packed McCaw Hall last weekend, watching his life play out onstage in the opera, X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X. Particularly just before intermission when Malcolm is serving time in prison for larceny and burglary and is visited by Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. As the promise of a movement greater than him beckons, Malcolm (played by bass Kenneth Kellogg) looks out into his future — the audience — and you can almost see destiny form before his eyes. It’s a powerful moment.
Continue reading ‘X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X’ Is a Powerful Reflection of Malcolm X’s Legacy
OPINION | Reparations May Be a Pipe Dream but Justice by Geography Could Work
America will likely never pay remunerations for slavery. But it could enact policies that just happened to help Black Americans at the local level.
by Marcus Harrison Green
(This op-ed has been copublished with The Seattle Times.)
Black History Month is as good a time as any to contemplate a Black future. Of course that requires an unflinching reflection on the past.
But with one presidential candidate unable to identity slavery as causal to the Civil War, another claiming it was a nuisance that could have been negotiated around, and books depicting the horror of the “peculiar institution” bound for bans in certain school districts, how can a mass appeal to examine painful American history not be anything but futile?
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OPINION | Malcolm X’s Timeless Call to Action: Echoes of ‘The Ballot or the Bullet’ in Today’s Struggle for Black Liberation
by Gennette Cordova
Black History Month, especially, is a time for reflecting on the teachings and work of Black leaders who came before us. Malcolm X’s 1964 speech “The Ballot or the Bullet,” delivered less than a year before his assassination, offers valuable perspective to understand the ways in which history has continued to repeat itself, with a call to action to disrupt the cycle.
This speech, which he opens by beseeching his Black audience to unite despite their differences, is rich with relevant insights. The most pertinent of these is an urgent idea with two parts. The first is that, while supporting Republicans is clearly not a realistic solution to the problems Black people face — it wasn’t in 1964 and it isn’t today — we must urgently address the Democratic Party’s consistent failure of the Black community.
Continue reading OPINION | Malcolm X’s Timeless Call to Action: Echoes of ‘The Ballot or the Bullet’ in Today’s Struggle for Black Liberation
Kubota Garden Foundation Remembers Executive Order 9066
On Feb. 19, 1942, after the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, giving the secretary of war and all military branches the power to exclude people deemed a threat to national security from all militarily sensitive areas. Implementation of this order, left up to the secretary and military commanders, deemed the entire West Coast of the U.S. as “militarily sensitive.” As a result, all people of Japanese descent living in the western U.S., even American citizens, were forced out of their homes and into concentration camps for the duration of WWII.
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Day of Remembrance: Commemorating Executive Order 9066
by Julia Park and Mark Van Streefkerk
On the first Day of Remembrance event held in 1978, Seattle author Frank Abe remembers being blown away by the turnout.
“There were hundreds of people just waiting to sign up,” Abe said. “And I mean a thousand people and hundreds of cars jamming the parking lot.” They were there to recreate the trip Japanese Americans took in WWII after the U.S. government forced adults and families into desolate incarceration camps.
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Happy Valentine’s Day! ❘ South End Love 2024
Last week, we asked for your Valentine’s Day messages, and you answered.
Continue reading Happy Valentine’s Day! ❘ South End Love 2024