♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Y'all, let's give it up one more time
for the Khalfani drumming group, please.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Ashe.
Good morning, everyone.
How y'all doing this morning?
All right, that's a pretty good response.
Little after 10:00 a.m. Thank y'all so much for coming.
I'm your emcee, Trae Holiday.
I'm excited to be with y'all.
Once again, for the State of Africatown,
we are here for the 11th year.
Y'all give it up for 11 years of bringing
information and inspiration to the community.
I want to welcome you all here
for this State of Africatown 2024.
Today, we gather under the theme of building legacy together,
which is really a testament to our collective effort
to shape a future that honors our heritage
and builds a community that can thrive in place.
Every story that you hear today and every project
that is shared is a step toward building that legacy.
You know that the State of Africatown
and all other events that we offer
could not happen without you, the community.
We want to continue to offer these free
and low-cost events and gatherings
to bring us all together with folks who are still here,
folks who have been displaced,
and folks who want to live and belong here.
That's why we're asking for your help today.
Throughout the program and in the building,
you'll see messaging with opportunities
to donate via a QR code.
It's also on the website, and you can also donate in person.
We need your help to join us in building a legacy
for the next generations that can start today.
I'm excited because when we think about legacy,
we often think about the identity
that we have held throughout this country
and the African diaspora abroad.
Many of us have understood the power
that kind of comes from that
when we think about the Black national anthem.
So before we get started today,
I'm going to check in the back,
make sure we're ready for it
because we want to start off right with
the Black national anthem.
Y'all give it up for Miss Josephine Howell.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Good morning.
I ask that we all rise.
♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪
♪ Till earth and heaven ring ♪
♪ Ring with the har... ♪
-Recording in progress.
[ Laughter ]
-Huh?
Oh.
♪ ...monies of Liberty ♪
♪ Let our rejoicing rise ♪
♪ High as the listening skies ♪
♪ Let it resound loud as the rolling sea ♪
♪ Sing a song full of the faith ♪
♪ That the dark past has taught us ♪
♪ Sing a song full of the hope ♪
♪ That the present has brought us ♪
♪ Facing the rising sun of our new day begun ♪
♪ Let us march on till victory is won ♪
♪ Stony the road we trod ♪
♪ Bitter the chastening rod ♪
♪ Felt in the days when hope unborn had died ♪
♪ Yet with a steady beat ♪
♪ Have not our weary feet ♪
♪ Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? ♪
♪ For we have come over a way ♪
♪ That with tears has been watered ♪
♪ We have come, treading our path ♪
♪ Through the blood of the slaughtered ♪
♪ Out from the gloomy past ♪
♪ Till now we stand at last ♪
♪ Where the bright gleams of our bright star is cast ♪
♪ God of our weary years ♪
♪ God of our silent tears ♪
♪ Thou who hast brought us thus far on our way ♪
♪ Thou who hast by Thy might ♪
♪ Led us into the light ♪
♪ Keep us forever in the path, we pray ♪
♪ Lest our feet stray from the places ♪
♪ Our God, where we met Thee ♪
♪ Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine ♪
♪ Of this world, we forget Thee ♪
♪ Shadowed beneath Thy hand ♪
♪ May we forever stand ♪
♪ True to our God ♪
♪ True to our native land ♪
♪ So let us march on ♪
♪ Till victory is won ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Oh, my goodness.
One more time for Miss Josephine Howell, y'all.
Well, obviously, we are here at
the iconic Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center,
and I want us to get a official welcome
from the executive director, Ebony Arunga.
-Hello, everybody.
Welcome to Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.
Thank you, Josie,
for that amazing rendition of the Black national anthem.
I love all three verses.
That is -- that is so special to me.
You know, we often only sing the first verse,
but all three verses, they mean -- it means so much.
So, yes, my name is Ebony Arunga,
and I am the executive director of Langston.
Thank you. I'm new.
And Langston is a nonprofit that is housed here
in the historic Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.
And we programmed this building with support
from the city of Seattle, the Office of Arts and Culture,
and the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.
We also partner with the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas
who is also housed in this building.
And so I just wanted to mention that
and thank them for all their support.
This year's theme of building our legacy together is on point
because this building has a legacy of 51 years
in our community.
And so when you come here,
you are coming home, and this is your home.
This year, for us at Langston, is about liberation,
and so we launched our liberation year in February,
and I don't know how many of y'all came into the building,
but it was lit.
February was lit Black History Month for Langston,
so y'all stay with us
because right now we're doing a lot of classes.
We have -- what we got? Hold on, I wrote it down.
We have Lindy Hop.
So we're going to be working with HellaBlackLindyHop
to bring Lindy Hop as a movement class for y'all.
We have healing African drum classes for seniors,
for youth, and for adults.
We have three different classes, so please come through for that.
We have Improv for All, which is just practicing improv.
So those of y'all who are like I want to dibble
and dabble in acting, that is a good place to start.
And then we also have our Grant Writing Day Parties,
which is happening right now with Tana Yasu,
the grant-writing goddess.
All of our classes are either free or, you know,
on a sliding scale,
and, really, all of our programs tend to be that way.
So never let the cost be the reason that you don't come.
Every year, we do our Seattle Black Film Festival,
which is in its 21st year this year.
So please come through for that.
It was started -- speaking of legacies --
it was started by Jackie Moscou,
who was the artistic director in this building for 15 years.
And so we're really proud
and grateful to be able to carry on her legacy.
It was her along with Karen Toering, Zola Mumford,
and several other people in our community.
We have -- we are doing a play by Jourdan Imani Keith
called Uterine Files.
It's like a Afrofuturism taking place.
There's scenes that take place in the womb.
And we're really talking about uterine fibroids
in the Black community
because Black women have the highest number
of uterine fibroids. So that is coming up in May.
In September, we're going to be doing the Black Nerd Fest,
which is going to be, you know, STEM, STEAM.
We're going to be exploring cosplay.
We're going to be exploring comics,
tabletop games, video games.
We're going to activate this whole building,
so come through for that.
And we're definitely looking to partner with Africatown
and the William Grose Center as well for that.
And then let's see. What else?
We got Reel Youth, which is our young filmmakers' program.
We're also building out more youth programs
because for those --
how many y'all could say you grew up in this building
by show of hands?
Yeah. So like for those of us who grew up in this building,
that means something to us, you know?
And so one thing
that we really want to do is give an opportunity
for our young people to have that same, you know,
to be able to say they grew up in this building as well.
So we are creating more youth programs coming up probably in
after we get through May.
And then finally, hold long.
I think I covered it all. Yeah.
So come through to Langston and just know this is your home.
It will always be your home.
That is the legacy of this building,
and we are always working every day to make sure
that it stays this way.
So thank you so much for being here, and we love to have it.
-All right,
y'all got the litany of all the great things
happening here in this building.
And of course, many of you see this plant here.
You know what time it is.
We get to bring out the Nana Kibibi Monie
of Nu Black Arts West to get us settled right with libation.
Give it up.
-Jambo. -Jambo.
Karibu means you are very, very welcome.
I'm Nana Kibibi,
and I have been honored with the pleasure of giving libation.
You know, Africa,
once thought of as the Dark Continent is now the place
where man first received light.
Africa, the beginning.
You know, when I was a young youngster, even a teenager,
when we would talk about giving libation,
I thought they were talking about our ancient ancestors,
the royalty that used to reign over, you know, Africa.
So I didn't know that they were talking
about my actual relatives.
I'm talking about my mother who has passed on
and my grandmother, my great grandmother, and my
great-great-great-great-great grand people.
So I almost missed the boat. You know, I was thinking, well,
when they're doing libations for our ancestors,
you know, they're -- I mean, we appreciate them.
We appreciate them for the pyramids and the mathematics
and the, oh, on and on,
the beautiful, marvelous, godly things they did on this planet.
I didn't know we we're talking about our own relatives.
So now when I read libation to you,
and I say the word ashe,
I will then be giving it to you to welcome your ancestors.
Ancestors, okay?
Not ancient, but right now as well as ancient ancestors.
The pouring of libations for the ancestor
is a very important ritual.
It is an ancient African teaching,
which is found in the Book of Ani of ancient Kemet, Egypt,
to honor one's ancestors by pouring libations,
pouring libations for father and mother
who rest in the Valley of the Dark and deepest.
God willing, your action will accept our invitation.
Do not forget this, even when you are away from home,
sisters and brothers, for as you do for your parents,
your children would do likewise for you.
We pour libation and remembrance and honor
of our ancient ancestors as well as our
recently departed ancestors.
And we reaffirm our linkage with them.
We commit to their legacy.
For it is they who, through their love, labor,
and struggle laid the foundation for us,
pushed our lives, our histories, forward
and gave us basic principles
by which we could live our lives in strength and dignity,
in brotherhood and sisterhood,
in freedom with confidence in the future.
We call upon our ancestors both far and near,
fathers of our fathers and mothers of our mothers,
to bear witness to our efforts here today.
Yes, we pour libations to continue in the inspiration
that they gave us to the teaching of Maat, truth,
justice, and harmony, balance,
and order in our relationship
with the world and each other, ashe.
Ashe. Thank you.
For those who know, when I say ashe,
you say ashe, okay?
Now, I haven't started the ashe-ing,
bringing of our people yet.
That was a precursor to so you would know.
And thank you for those of you who repeated ashe.
My assistant here,
she has graciously said that she would not only pour libation,
but bless it as well because she is a priestess.
So baby girl, get ready because when I say ashe,
I want you to say ashe.
And ashe that you say will bring on your relatives
to celebrate with us
this great building, the great blessings
that we have received from the great God we worship.
So here we go.
It is in honor of our Creator and our ancestors,
our children and their children to come after us
that we pour libation, ashe.
For the Creator and the various manifestation --
sorry for the Creator
and the various manifestations of the created spirit,
we pour libation, ashe.
For our esteemed ancestors,
who laid the foundation for human civilization
and also provided the wisdom by which we live
and the models of which our lives are guided,
we pour libation, ashe.
For our esteemed ancestors
who suffered the atrocities and horrors of our Maafa
of the Middle Passage and the slave plantations,
for those who perished,
and for those who on the slave plantations worked,
for those who perished,
and for those who suffered unimaginable indignations,
brutality, and pain,
yet demonstrated the various power of the spirit
against adversity
by maintaining their human dignity no matter the cost.
We pour libation, ashe.
For all our esteemed ancestors
who surely represented the very best
that the human spirit could give the world
and whose courage and spirit
will live eternally in our hearts and souls,
for them, and in their honor, we pour libation, ashe.
And finally,
for our children and their children
and future generations to come,
that they too, in their time,
will vindicate truth and justice for all --
from all adversities
and continue to imprint upon the world
the greatest virtues of humanity.
We pour libation, ashe.
May we ever have eyes that see,
ears that hear, hearts that love,
and hands that help each other.
May the variable spirit of the best
of mankind encourage this occasion to reaffirm
in each of us our humanity.
I want all of you at one time or another
to say...ashe
and name the person you want to be here with us.
So my mother, Hattie Porter. Ashe.
Come on now.
Surely, you have relatives that you want to party with us.
They've been looking forward to this day, don't you know?
Malcolm X.
Ashe.
Marcus Garvey, yes, ashe.
Come on. Come on, y'all.
Ashe.
May the variable spirit of our best of mankind
engulf this occasion to reaffirm in each other
our humanity has done, ashe.
Ashe. Ashe.
-Y'all, this is an amazing event,
and it would only be right
that we get grounded in the history of this
from someone who pours into this every single year.
One of the amazing people
who helped to begin this tradition in our community,
please, let's give it up for our former state representative,
the honorable Dawn Mason.
-So thank you.
It is such an honor to stand here
in front of you this 11th year.
And, yes, this legacy -- and I love that term is in here --
is about passing on
for the Black African American African diaspora.
It's also about regrowing an ecosystem.
And just a few years ago, in 2019,
the state legislature passed a bill, and in that bill,
it described the decimation, the displacement --
a lot of D's in there --
destruction of the African American community --
actually named it as African American --
and the geographic area
that encompasses what we call the Central District,
which is of course,
our epicenter for the Black community
in Seattle King County.
And I looked up ecosystem,
and I compared it to Mount Saint Helens in the '80s.
Mount Saint Helens erupted, and in the '80s,
our community erupted.
We had gangs and crack cocaine and violence
brought into our community to affect our children
and impact our children.
And as in with Mount Saint Helens,
all the organisms did not die, so it's coming back.
And like our Black community,
all of us were not destroyed, and we are coming back.
So I am honored to be here today
and welcome you to the African American
African diaspora gathering,
the foundation of the State of Africatown.
This was bought into being 11 years ago.
I was on the transition team for one of our mayors,
and he wanted listening opportunities with stakeholders.
And I chose the African American community as my stakeholders,
as the stakeholders that I wanted to represent.
And so I asked why King, who is one of my community sons,
and Trae is one of my community daughters,
and Drosha is one of my community daughters
because legacy is about passing on the baton.
We can actually do this,
and all I have to do is show up for five minutes,
and they can make this happen.
And so that is legacy passing on.
And also legacy passing on is seeing --
and we'll hear from him -- our former fire chief,
Claude Harris,
who's here with his Black firefighters and dressed Black.
He used to have 100 of them follow him,
and we're going to get to that.
Twenty twenty-four,
this -- just consider we are kicking off the recruitment
of Black firefighters.
We're going to get that number back up, Chief.
And we're going to get it back up.
And we're going to start by making sure that it --
because it is about the children, the legacy.
It's investing in our children's wellbeing and their future.
So we're going to get them into the cadet programs.
We can save our future, and we can sustain it.
We are the answer, as we sit in this room,
to prayers prayed by our ancestors hundreds of years ago.
We're here. We're the heroes. We're still here.
So I -- is Adiam Emery here in the room, Adiam,
did she -- was she able to come?
If not, it's okay. She is our deputy mayor.
She works with our mayor, Bruce Harrow.
And I testify that the city council
that our children need to be safe in Seattle.
At 12th and Jackson, anyone who's driven by there,
and we know our firefighters know about that corner,
it's violence and drug use and behaviors
that we definitely would not want normed for children.
What I have said is that if Hollywood came
and filmed that location and turned it into a movie,
it would be X-rated,
and our children wouldn't be able to see it.
But yet,
we would expect our children to have to navigate
that area every day to try to go to school,
Summit Sierra school,
a high school with majority Black attendance
is sitting right there next to that.
Children shouldn't have to leave school watching our firefighters
and our medics, our EMTs,
trying to bring someone back to life from an overdose of drugs.
We don't want that behavior normed.
So, Adiam and I, we sat down.
We bought a roundtable together, Department of Transportation,
and all those needed to be, and that corner has calmed now.
But it has to stay that way,
so we have to stay ever vigilant.
But I want to thank her for that work.
And if we don't tell our story,
others will tell the story, and they won't know how it happened.
I want you to know what happened
because these two Black women had intent.
Our children will not --
either you're going to move that behavior from our children,
or we will move the school.
So they got together, and the city came in and police,
fire, our Department of Transportation, and others,
and it's calmer now, and let's keep it that way.
So I just wanted to say that about Adiam.
And then also I'd like to say that we have a network.
Where's Dr. Maxine Mimms?
-Here. -She's up here.
She is one of our elders of distinction.
And my -- and we will also like to recognize Dr. Brooks.
He's an elder of distinction.
And you'll hear more about our elders of distinction
because it's -- a civilized society is known by
how they take care of children and elders.
If our children are safe, and our elders are safe,
everybody else is safe. And it makes sense.
And right now we, with so many things happening in our city,
we have -- if we take, as we showed at 12th and Jackson,
if we make the children the priority,
everybody else benefits.
Duh, that seems to make sense to us
and many populations that see children as important.
And we will continue to make our children important
and make sure they're educated.
Dr. Mimms told me, in 1985,
we need safe learning center along the I-5 corridor.
I didn't know what she meant.
But I went back, and we spoke, and in all these years,
all that I've done, all you see me done,
comes from that statement.
How do we make an environment safe for our children,
and how do we get them educated?
So we now have from pre-K through college degree,
graduate degree, a network of decolonized,
pro-Black, pro-Indigenous, antiracist,
publicly-funded school network.
Imagine that. We did that.
It took years,
but it's going to take years to bring the epicenter --
the epicenter, the, you know, the ecology of our growth back.
So I tell the next generation's younger people don't make
people think you have to fix this in one year.
It took 400 years to create this mess and this oppression
and what we go through.
Just keep going.
And for our elders,
we -- the reason
they get recognized as an elder distinction
is they've created a legacy and passed it on.
There are many elders who keep it in their pocket
and hold on to the baton with their arthritic hands,
and they won't let -- they won't teach anyone.
If they go, then whatever they were doing.
When I leave here, this will still go on.
It'll still go on.
So when Josephine is no longer singing,
she already knows who's going to fill in for her.
We'll always have the Black national anthem.
I can't imagine a baseball football game
without the national anthem.
How can we start a Black event
without the Black national anthem?
We wouldn't even know that it began.
So I mentioned, doc, also I wanted to --
would anyone who is a elected or appointed public official,
past or present, please stand so I can welcome you and thank you.
Come on, come on. Stand up, all right.
We created this event as a listening opportunity for you
because you,
every day, make decisions that impact our lives
and the lives of our children and their future.
And we needed you to always know what we want
and need and what we're doing.
If we -- other people,
when they write our story,
they might say we're not doing anything but stealing cars
and using drugs, but that's not true.
It's never been true. Education has been important.
The emotional and wellbeing of our children are important.
Just kind of close your eyes
and envision our children in the torchlight parade on horses,
just a whole command of horses.
We are adding horses to the social
and emotional wellbeing of our children.
Working with the city,
there's a area out in Auburn called the Red Barn Ranch,
and we will at some point have our children
on horses out there.
Not overnight, but it's happening.
We're laying the ground for that to happen.
So things are happening. The ecosystem is growing.
It is coming back.
One more thing I'm going to close with is that we work hard.
We work hard to invest in our children.
We work hard in passing things on.
We work hard and bring inspiration to not only
Seattle and King County, but the nation.
And as soon as we almost get there,
it gets snatched from people
who weren't even at the table, right?
The other day, I had to write a letter to the legislature
and tell them that money that came into a fund
to restore the African American community after being jailed
and the war on drugs,
and the money that's coming from cannabis is go --
supposed to go into a community reinvestment fund.
Now, the Department of Equity and Department of Commerce
identified Indigenous people and African Americans
and those of the greatest impact.
But now -- then someone sneaks in an amendment in.
That's why you need me to keep paying attention.
So I had to write and say why this --
these other groups didn't fill up our prisons.
These other groups didn't -- weren't even at the table
to get the money.
Now they want it.
And so we have to keep working on this, and we will, we will.
We'll do it.
So I have to leave here after these remarks.
I'll be back for the reception
because I'm going to the funeral for honorable representative,
Peggy Maxie,
who was our first Black woman elected to the legislature.
She passed away this last month,
and they're funeralizing her today,
and I want to respect that. So I'm going to duck out,
and I'll duck back in, and I think that's mainly it.
Oh, also I always have to mention his name,
Wyking Garrett.
He is the star of the show. If this is the first time
anyone's been to the State of Africatown presentation,
you're in for a wonderful treat.
He'll tell us all that we've been doing,
what we're going to do.
And see all these elected officials
and public officials who make decisions?
Dwane is over there.
He's the reason that we have this network of schools.
He is funding our preschool over at First Place
and all the other and A for Apple, all our other preschools,
and we -- raise your head.
Education is the basis of our sustainability,
and he's doing a great job.
I always like to call him out.
And then when we're in a room together by myself,
I just talk -- I talk to him
real hard about what we need to do.
But publicly, I just say, no,
he's doing a great job, and thank you for that.
And is that Tanya? Oh, stand up.
Tanya is our --
she did such a great job getting herself onto the city council.
I was kind of known as the key endorser,
but we're going to make her work really hard for us
also, no problem.
So with that, I'm going to say thank you for coming,
and I'll be back.
-We want to bring up Miss Emijah Smith
to give us some history on the Black Community Impact Alliance.
-Thank you, everyone.
Emijah Smith, born and raised here.
Just want to say really briefly
the Black Community Impact Alliance is an organization
that's consists -- that consists of nonprofits and businesses
that support
and invest in the historical excluded Black community
all across the Washington,
but particularly western Washington state.
I just wanted to really briefly --
oh, I want to highlight that it's our 10th year.
We're going to be celebrating.
You're going to get more information.
We're going to be celebrating in November,
so invites will go out.
Again, thank y'all for being here.
But just really quickly just wanted to share some
of our values, if I can, if this pops back up.
So the Black Community Impact Alliance is a group
of cooperating organizations serving the Black community
in western Washington.
We make sure
that our taxpayer-funded initiatives and organizations
that receive government money work in the Black community
and is actually doing the work to better the lives
of Black children and Black families
and particularly those low income and the working poor.
Our scope includes all elements impacting the wellbeing
of the Black community, such as health, education,
jobs, housing, technology, safety, art, criminal justice,
economic development, and environment.
Like there should be no stone untouched
when it comes to how we're trying to support our community,
invest in our community.
We strive to assist the Black community in creating
and owning their future by educating themselves on
how to access
and manage resources in the health education workforce,
business, creation, and housing.
I want to shout out to Miss Evelyn Allen,
who should be sharing about our elders of distinction
who has been really leading the way
through this opportunity for us
in the Black Community Impact Alliance.
And also just want to highlight some
of the businesses and organizations.
We have CCS Village Spirit Center.
We have the Central Area Development Association,
Africatown Preservation and Development Association,
Africatown Community Land Trust, Colorful Communities LLC,
SU Center for Community Engagement,
Outside Think, FAME Equity Alliance of Washington,
Black Dot, Tubman Health,
Curtiss Calhoun's LLC Coaching & Consulting.
So those are just a few of those who are holding us down,
who are supporting our community overall.
I just want to say thank you
and be looking out for our invitation to celebrate.
Thank you.
-All right, we heard about someone
who has been so impactful in our communities,
and now we want to present to you
the Elder of Distinction Award,
giving it up for Miss Evelyn Allen.
-Well, good morning.
I just want to say
that as the convener of the Black Community Impact Alliance,
we have been honored for the last 10 years
to give this Elders of Distinction Award
here at the State of Africatown.
And it is important to me and to us to always honor our elders
because they are very important to the success of our community,
to the success of our families,
because they carry our history.
They set the foundation.
They make sure that we are grounded
and able to move forward.
So for us to be able to say to our elders you are important.
We love you. We need you. We care for you.
And you will always be important in our hearts.
So for the Black Community Impact Alliance,
we will always be here.
We've been here for 10 years,
and we'll be here as a part of the legacy of this community.
Under this year's theme, building our legacy together,
it is our privilege to highlight those
who endeavors significantly reflect our collective efforts
towards a more equitable and just community,
including our community elders.
In keeping with this tradition,
we are honored to recognize Chief Claude Harris.
[ Applause ]
He is this year's elder of distinction.
Chief Claude Harris's legacy is distinguished not only
by his historic role as Seattle's
first Black firefighter in 1959
and first Black fire chief in 1985,
but also by his unwavering commitment to fostering equity
as the founder of the Seattle Black Firefighters Association.
His 40-year tenure as firefighter and chief
was marked by groundbreaking achievements
in advancing the representation and success
of Black firefighters in a profession
where they had been historically grossly underrepresented.
Chief Harris has been pivotal in mentoring Black firefighters,
offering guidance, support,
and encouragement to ensure that not only
they joined in the fire service,
but also thrive and ascend within its ranks.
Chief Harris's efforts to provide equitable opportunities
to other Blacks in the field
provided the necessary open doors for those
who would undoubtedly follow in his footsteps.
In a recent article in the Seattle Medium,
Chief Harris says,
"I am most proud of those Black firefighters.
I have been able to recruit, council, mentor,
and once I was able to motivate to take the exams."
And I just want to share that I have a personal experience
with his efforts.
There was a member of my family
who was a part of the first Black affirmative action class
of the fire department who took those exams
and every one of those exams
until he became a battalion chief
and remained the battalion chief until he retired.
And I was also honored too to be recruited
to be a part of the Public Safety Civil Service Commission
that gave the tests
who are police officers and firefighters.
So was intimately involved with some of those tests
that was given to the firefighters.
Chief Harris's leadership extended
beyond the fire department.
His advocacy for social justice
and his active engagement and community initiatives made
him respected -- a respected figure of course
in the Seattle's Black community and beyond.
By breaking barriers and challenging the status quo,
Chief Harris has inspired countless individuals
to pursue aspirations in public service and advocacy,
meaningful change within the field,
that remains limited in its ability
to provide equitable access to career seekers
from the Black community.
It is my honor to present to you,
Chief Harris, the 1923 Elders of Distinction Award.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Okay, everyone sit down.
[ Laughter ]
I had to walk out the other end.
I was sitting on the end seat,
but I had to let the fire department in
because if they have alarm,
they're going to be running out of here.
And I don't want them to slow down at all.
So, first of all,
I want to thank all of the people
that have come out to this outstanding presentation.
I'm very honored to receive this presentation.
Now, before I get started,
I want to say that I almost quit 25 times
when I joined the fire department.
And five of those times, I was as serious as a heart attack.
But things have changed, and I'm recruiting now.
I've been recruiting for 65 years.
That's when I first came in, 65 years ago, that was January 5.
So before I start talking anymore,
I want to let you know that, starting October to November,
the Seattle Fire Department is going to try to fill a void.
I think it's something like 150 firefighters short,
somewhere close to that.
This is a good job, and we are recruiting both men and women.
We've got women firefighters, women lieutenants,
captains, battalion chiefs, deputy chiefs.
So there are opportunities there for all.
And the starting salary is $80,000 a year.
It's a little bit more than that
because they're trying to finish up a contract negotiation,
so it'll be a little bit more than that.
All you have to do is to call civil service.
And I'm not going to give you a number.
I'm going to make your work
because you're going to have to start working
if you go in the fire department.
Nobody is going to be holding your hand.
We need people. We've got supervisors.
Those the lieutenants, captains, battalion chiefs,
and deputy chiefs.
But it's a pain
if you got to keep telling people what they know
that they need to do.
So anyway, it's a good job.
I was there for 38 years. I've been retired 27 years.
And I first came in January 5, 1959.
And I don't want to talk about those things
that I wanted to retire about because things have changed,
and I don't want to scare off other people
that know that there's a career -- a career available to them.
But I have a lot of families.
I have a biological family.
I have my son and his wife back there, Claude III.
Stand up Claude III.
And where is his wife? There they go.
And is that my grandson back there?
-Yes, it is, yep. -Okay, who else is back there?
-It's just us. -Okay.
And then I have my daughter sitting here.
JoJo Woods.
Stand up, JoJo.
They'd look out for me.
[ Applause ]
I have a military family, but none of them are here,
so I'll speak to my fire department family.
So here's the fire department family,
and there's one over there.
All you guys stand up. I'm 91, 90, and I stand up.
Get up.
Okay, you can sit back down.
I didn't want you to stand up yet, Chief.
I will give you an okay we've got our second Black fire chief.
His career is something like mine.
He was the first Black firefighter
in his Garden City Fire Department, first engineer,
which means driver, lieutenant captain, battalion chief,
and he became the first Black fire chief
in Garden City, California.
So stand up so they can see you.
So I want to -- want his wife to stand up too.
Stand up. Okay.
I want to congratulate him because he's been supporting me.
I've been retired 27 years,
and he still gives me support wherever I am.
And sometimes he takes me to places where he's going to be.
He started an award that's called a Chief Harris Award,
and that's in April, and I got the first award.
So I got to be there to see who's going to get
that second award.
But I just want to say that, as I said,
first of all, I'm honored.
And the Seattle Fire Department is a good job.
This guy is sitting on the corner here.
He's been in 49 years. Stand up, Ellebie, 49 years.
[ Applause ]
So the fire department is one of the few careers still left.
So if you want a good job,
and if you're serious about helping other people,
that's what the fire department is for.
We help other people.
Whether it's the fire department putting out fires,
or as all of us, as firefighters,
have taken EMT emergency training.
We have the paramedics.
We've got the -- I fell off a ladder when I was 16.
I never knew I was going to be a firefighter.
I broke my arm.
And because I lived in Washington, DC,
and because of some of this -- I'll have to say what it was,
racism, there was only one person at Cancilly Hospital
that would work on a Black person.
And my mother worked for the government,
and they wouldn't set my arm until my mother came,
and she had problems getting off of her job.
So the guy that works on Black folks, he set my arm in a sling.
He gave me a needle and some tablets,
and I was up all night long.
They couldn't fix my arm until the next day.
So for that reason,
you know, I've never gotten any higher than standing up
in a chair,
and I had to have something to help support me in the chair.
I just wanted to pass that by you.
But I've been in the fire department.
I've taught -- we used to have what we call --
what's that ladder with the hook on it?
What was that ladder? The pompier ladder.
We used to have the pompier ladder,
and the first day I was in the fire department,
I had to go up a pompier ladder.
A pompier ladder has a hook, and then it has rungs on the ladder.
And I had to go up to -- up the pompier ladder,
switch over to another pompier ladder.
That got to be a pretty dangerous thing.
And eventually they discontinued that.
Also, when I first came in the fire department,
they used to clean the aerial ladder,
and the guys would put the aerial ladder perpendicular
to the -- to the bed.
That means it's 106 feet up.
And they would climb up that ladder and clean the rungs
and the beams all the way up.
And I was fortunate not to have to do that.
But it's time for me to go?
Well, let me say one other thing.
I've been in the fire department.
I've been around the world.
I've been to Japan. I've been to Africa.
I've been to Mexico seven times for Seafair.
And all of this is because I talk a lot.
And even though it's difficult to work with people
that don't see things the same way you see them,
you have to be able to talk to those people.
And through my talking and whatnot,
I've been able to do a lot of things
with people throughout the community.
Thank you.
-Well, I'm really excited
because this year is a special year at the State of Africatown.
As we think about how we award those
who dedicate their lives to doing work,
we have one more award to present today.
It is the first time we're presenting this amazing award,
and it is going to a person
who has dedicated his life to really educating himself
so he can educate others on the ancient history
of our people in Africa
and in specifically throughout the Nile Valley.
So I'm really excited that we have someone who is here,
and Ashra Kwesi, who has been dedicating himself
for the last 42 years taking Black folks all the way to Egypt
so they can know thyself.
Y'all give it up for Ashra Kwesi
and the 2024 Africatown Global Impact Award.
[ Applause ]
-In the language of Kiswahili, I want to say asante sana.
I wasn't expecting this with so many distinguished guests.
I don't live in Seattle, Washington.
I just flew here last night.
And to hear so many great people here in the community
and especially here in Africatown.
And when -- as I thought about Africatown, I said,
we, as an African people,
have to look at Africa from a worldview.
And it's a honor
that we're taking that part of that African worldview
and also having it up Africatown here in Seattle.
But when we look at that germination of humanity,
and the leakies who let it all leak out,
that Africa is where it all started.
At one time,
they even looked at Europe as being the home of humanity,
and, in fact, they made what is called the Piltdown Man,
and they found out that was a forgery.
Humanity did not start in Europe.
And they also found the Java Man of 500,000 years,
and they said, well, it started in Asia,
but nothing predated what they found in Africa.
All anthropological evidence, documents,
that the fallopian tube of the Nile Valley
that ancient Kemet referred to as Hapi,
that's where it all began.
Early Africans migrated out all over the planet Earth.
No matter what ethnic group you are on this planet,
that beginning started in Africa.
And without Africa,
we would not have humanity on the planet Earth.
So those who do not honor Africatown,
you're not even honoring yourself
because you would not be here if it was not for Africa.
So it's a great honor.
And for many, many years,
I did not know that I would make this journey,
but I had to take the longest journey in my life,
and that was the journey into myself.
-Yes.
-I had to open up an African ancestral genetic memory bank
because, in my early years,
it was coated with all type of negativity
that became from a system of racism and white supremacy.
And after I unlocked that ancestral genetic memory bank,
I met a man named Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan.
Is a young man and a student at Long Beach State.
He gave a lecture on African history
and African spirituality. And I stopped him.
I said can you prove what you said here today?
He said not only can I prove it,
but I can take you back to Africa
and show you the greatest monuments on the planet Earth
right there in the land of Kemet
that the Greeks referred to as Egypt --
and Kemet means Black -- deep down into ancient Kush,
deep down into the Great Lakes region,
where Kemet acknowledged also its beginning.
I returned back with him 14 years studying under him,
now 42 years non-stop, returning back to Africa
to reveal that information and lecturing all over the world
and also lecturing today, in Tacoma,
on African civilization,
unlocking the African genius from the books in stone.
So it's a great honor.
This will be another great plaque that'll go on my wall,
and I know I lectured,
so I know that I'm going to get a tap on the shoulder too.
So it's an honor to be here in Seattle
and see right here that we have an Africatown.
And always remember that without an Africatown,
there would not be anyone on the planet Earth.
Peace.
-Y'all now we get to actually transition
to hearing from some of the amazing folks in our community
who are doing great things.
And as we delve into the heart of communities' progress,
we're going to open up with Africatown's
William Grose Center for Cultural Innovation,
or WGC,
as it is known, and celebrate the milestones achieved there.
Ty Griffin, WGC's program manager,
will be sharing achievements over the past year,
as well as where WGC hopes to land in the future
with our support. As many of you know,
WGC functions as our community's hub
for cultural innovation and business development.
It's also a testament of what we can achieve together.
Let's give it up for Ty Griffin, y'all.
-So I'm Ty Griffin.
I am the program manager
for the William Grose Center for Cultural Innovation,
and let's get into this.
So as you can see here,
since 2023, we've served over 300 students,
provided 500 plus hours of programming,
and we partner with 25 plus businesses,
and hired 32 facilitators for programming and
business development.
We've been a key contributing to the development
of small Black business owners.
Through events and workshops,
we've been able to empower
and preserve the Black diaspora community with resources,
education, and leadership in the pursuit of achieving a vibrant
and thriving Black community.
All right, that word empowerment means to give authority to,
right?
And the word preserve means to protect.
So we're doing two things.
We give them power, and we're preserving.
So the youth, by honoring them, we empower them.
And then we want to protect them, right?
So that's our mission.
So to date, we've done 300, okay?
Absolutely. Now, we do see opportunities, right?
So these are numbers that,
you know, let us know where we at, right?
Take a minute and look at it, please.
So the median annual wage for all STEM occupations is $97,980,
compared with $44,670 for non-STEM jobs,
and that only 9% of the STEM workforce is Black.
Only 20% of high school graduates
are prepared for college level coursework and STEM majors,
so that means 80% are not prepared.
Let's reverse that number.
Eighty percent right now will potentially make $44,000.
That's less than half of the 97, right?
So what do we do?
This is what we've been doing over the past year or so.
This is a chart that represents how we address our youth
and our community as a whole.
We start from age zero to five.
That means from birth all the way to 30 plus, right?
So here we have Minecraft coding.
Gaming is now the new way of teaching, right?
So once we interact with students,
we got to meet them where they're at,
right, through gaming.
The Dolly Parton Imagination Library,
that's another portion of which we've been
able to give 15,000 students access to books for free, right?
Fifteen thousand.
Not bad, not bad, not bad, right?
But this graph, how do we begin to address, right?
So ultimately, we want students to then be able to graduate
to the next level, right?
As you see, we have elementary and middle school.
The curriculum building technical skills
while gaining healthy social interactions
by forging friendships and support through tutoring,
coding, gaming, AR/VR, and, of course,
media production because we want to tell our stories
from a Black responsible perspective, right?
Next, we want to do is,
once those students graduate to the high school and college
level, we want those opportunities to build
on the training experience
as it relates to AI and business development,
professional presentation skills,
website design and marketing, and also fashion design.
Now, number three, now having a multitude of options,
students are able to,
if they choose,
to tap into workforce development and entrepreneurship
pipeline, which consists of networking opportunities
and events, business workshops, mentors and mentees,
financial literacy and initiatives,
and meeting our aspiring established business owners
where they are, right? So ultimately,
we envision those individuals having our
VC investment group -- that's venture capitalist group --
help fund their startup
or supporting small businesses with high growth potential.
So we look at this as a 360, right, opportunity.
And lastly, we thought about let's import agriculture.
Agriculture is the means in which we will thrive
and survive, right?
Benefits of microgreens, right? That's vertical gardening.
Microgreens contain 4 to 40 times
the nutritional value as vegetables,
helps with type 2 diabetics regulate their blood sugar,
lowers the risk of heart disease,
aids in the protection of vision,
and reduces the risk of anemia.
These are just a few of the benefits they have.
So we find -- we found a way
to engineer solutions to combat disease.
Respond was to create a hydroponic cohort program
which provides students an opportunity to learn
about nutritional marketing, construction design,
and building
out a fully-functioning hydroponic shed.
This all exists at the William Grose Center.
This was built and designed by students.
Give it up for the students for that, please.
Absolutely. All right.
Wrapping up here, this is our -- this is our WGC Air 1s here,
which has been created by our youth.
They just wrapped up yesterday. It's a --
as you can tell, there's a design team for fashion,
coding, extended reality, HR/VR, and business development team.
So all these teams were separate classes.
And at the last -- the end of the last week,
they all came together for a culminating event.
And they've created this technology shoe.
This shoe actually can sense the weather.
It tracks your steps.
And they were able to do this and market it,
and there's a website that they're going to present to.
This is how you make change, right?
This is how you invest in your community, right?
You make it happen yourself.
We have the resources.
We have the brilliant minds of our youth,
and we are -- all we're asking is that you lean in,
but we need your talents. We need your support.
Your financial support will also help.
We don't charge them anything.
We feed them every day. All classes are free, 100%.
Okay?
So with that, I would love for you guys to just gaze at this.
These are moments, historical moments.
Africatown Plaza, William Grose Center, fashion design,
the youth, technology.
Look at that, innovation. Of course, Wyking.
He's in everything, right?
All right, again, this is one way to give.
What we ask,
if you can't give, we ask that you give of your time,
your energy, and your knowledge because we need you.
Without you, this does not work. That's it for me.
But I -- what I want to do is introduce our next speaker.
He is Kyle Johnson.
He is a PhD student from the University of Washington
computer science department,
and he actually runs a lot of our coding.
And, Kyle, come on up.
-I wanted to start by saying I'm a part of AVELA,
which stands for A Vision for Engineering,
Literacy and Access.
And as was mentioned,
I'm also a PhD in computer science and engineering.
So I apologize to everyone first, especially the kids,
especially who are already asleep,
if this gets real academic. We about to show some stats,
but I would hope that everyone can try to feel the numbers
that we're showing.
I know I did. That was why I started AVELA.
Try to not just have it go in one ear and out the other
because this is the reality for a lot of our students.
The Washington STEM nonprofit mentioned that, by 2026,
they're expecting more than 60,000 jobs in STEM.
This slide is titled A Need For More Black STEM Professionals.
That is the need right there.
There's going to be 80% of those jobs
that require two to four-year degrees.
I mean, 60,000 of these jobs
are predominantly going to need students to be
able to get into college.
That's the need. Why Black?
Projection shows that, by 2060,
more than half of the population of our
like students are going to be Black and Latine,
and UW, the University of Washington,
educates more than 50% of the engineers
in the entire state of Washington
with those average starting salaries starting at $75,000.
Not quite firefighting numbers, but, you know, they're close.
And so that's why we need more Black engineers.
A national survey of more than 1,000 schools
because I get told,
well, they're not -- they're not applying.
They're not registering. They're just not interested.
National survey of more than 1,000 schools found
that Black students are just as likely
as their white counterpart to want to participate in STEM
and even more likely to want to pursue computer science.
So there's an interest. There's a need.
We just need paths.
So again, these numbers are why I started AVELA because,
in 2017,
when I became an undergrad at the University of Washington,
they have this word called
underrepresented minority students,
which means that there's not enough Black students
to just call Black students Black students.
They lump them in with Hispanics,
and they lump them in with Native Americans and students
with disabilities,
and they come up with this number for underrepresented.
That is a sad 8.3% despite in the state
as having more than 21% of these URMs,
these underrepresented minorities and,
in the country, having more than 34%.
You can see as well
that we don't tend to retain as well at the college level.
More than 45% of these URM students end up dropping out,
and they actually cite financial stress
as the reason why they do so.
And so again, I dive into numbers.
This may seem old, especially for some of y'all.
Twenty fourteen is a long time ago.
So I asked the College of Engineering
how many students applied to their program this year?
And it was 2,000.
I asked how many Black students applied, and it was 20.
Only 10 of those students got accepted.
Seven of those 10 students came from AVELA classes,
like were taught at the William Grose Center.
So when I say we need paths, these are the paths.
Why is it that this is so important?
This is a quote when I reached out.
They said, "No one feels
like they can get into the University of Washington,
so they're not even applying."
They said they had vacant seats specifically for URM students
that didn't get filled
because there weren't enough people applying.
And they also said they don't have
a dedicated recruiter to do so.
And so why is it that we would want to go and ask for help
if we can help ourselves?
This is a slide I show to students in our classes,
like the classes that Ty just showed.
Because the main thing I tell our students
is you always must apply.
You always must let someone else reject you.
Never reject yourself. I always show this brother
because he got more than $9 million in scholarships,
which should have funded about 1,000 different students.
But because we weren't applying,
there was nowhere else to put it.
I've got students right over here,
if they could stand up,
who are very, very hyper successful in their field.
They are the $9 million students, and they want to share
what they know with everyone else in this room.
I promise you there are more than seven qualified students
sitting in this room.
I know there are more than seven across the whole state
and across this whole country.
And it all started with us.
The Black Student Union in the 1960s
created the largest ever cultural center
at the University of Washington's campus.
We call it the Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center.
Our students can go,
and they can learn how to pass their classes.
They can get tutoring, mentoring,
and they can find community there
with the Black Student Union,
with the National Society of Black Engineers,
and with folks in AVELA.
These are the pathways.
We're hosting a hip-hop climate concert.
We're hoping to get discounted
or free tickets for every single student
that signs up for an AVELA class,
and we are hoping to recruit more students into our classes
by enticing them with A-list celebrities.
[ Applause ]
I said discounted or free
because we are looking for sponsors.
You can see the QR code at the top.
That just goes to our website.
But if you reach out to any of these emails,
or you come and talk to some of our students,
we can tell you how you can help.
We need sponsors. We need more classes taught.
We want to reach more of these students
that are in these K-12 schools.
Any of the people that stood up over here
can tell you how we can bring AVELA to that school,
into that classroom.
Thank you for your time.
-All right, we're doing so much in this ecosystem.
We're going to keep this rolling.
I want to introduce Teroshua Thomas
for the Africatown Center for Education and Innovation.
-I think we're all familiar with being a sibling
and the sibling spectrum, right?
So as the oldest child
of the ecosystem Africatown Center for Education
& Innovation, there are things that can get overlooked.
So this is the slide for today. I'm going to work off my phone,
if you guys don't mind.
So Africatown for Education & Innovation was created
and started in 2013.
It was spawned out of the -- out of the understanding how --
of what we just -- all the slides that we just saw,
the young brother shared with us.
And one of the things that we really knew we had to do
was encourage our community to not just do sports,
but to also exercise the mind, right?
And so that is where we sit in this ecosystem
of the Africatown ecosystem.
So I am going to open my slides on my phone
and talk about what we did in -- some of what we did in 2023
and what we are able to do in 2024.
So, in 2023,
we had partnership with bringing some youth
from a school down the street to bring them and partner
with William Grose to do a education and cooking class.
One of those cooking classes specifically talk about --
talked about how we merge education and cooking
and understanding
that we are them.
And we are them is understanding
that we are also those on the continent
and that our history started before we were stolen.
So infusing greens, the concept of greens,
what we cook with,
how we cook greens here in North America,
in addition to the motherland, is what was the huge concept.
In addition to that, we did Black graduation.
So Black graduation in 2024
would be is seventh or eighth year.
I think 2017 is when we started Black graduation.
Last year, we had about 16 scholars from all levels.
We had kindergarten, fifth grade, eighth grade,
high school, trades, and certificates,
and a few classical-taught college students.
And so we're asking that our community lean
into celebrating folks from crossing thresholds
that help them exuberant excellence,
right, help them bring back to the community.
So that is one of the charges that we are asking folks to do.
In addition to that,
we would like to call back our educators to create
and continue an educator think tank
so that we are continuing to understand
that not only do we have curriculum,
but that we have been the best teachers for our children.
We have turned out the most geniuses in our community
than we have allowed to be in -- within the school district,
and any school district.
Doesn't matter if it's charter,
or public schools, private schools.
We, even when we're in those institutions,
are able to infuse the genius that helps them be someone
that stays connected and grounded, confident,
in addition to passing on the baton
to other community members within, right,
the village concept.
And so I'm not sure if I'm missing.
Oh, so -- oh, and Doctor for a Day.
So we just celebrated our 10th anniversary
of Doctor for a Day.
And we spoke to 145 young people.
-Yes, you can clap for that.
-So Doctor for a Day is in partnership
with the University of Washington with the --
one of the cofounders is Dr. Estell Williams.
And what happens on this day is that super melanated doctors,
nurses, medical assistants,
and those in the medical field come onsite
so that young people can see themselves in them.
And they, this year,
they were teaching young people how to do ultrasounds.
Now, having kids like really be focused and not,
you know, playing with each other on the side.
We focused on learning how to do ultrasounds,
learning how to take pulses,
learning how to feel lumps was something that was very,
very near and dear to us.
As we heard earlier in one of the presentations about how,
you know, we are affected most often from things
that doctors who don't look like us don't pay attention to.
So we need ourselves in these spaces, right?
And so talking to these -- it was an array, mostly melanated.
But definitely we were in the building understanding
that the things that affect our heart health was a --
was a thing that affect our heart
are more than what meets the eye, right?
When they talk about people turning red,
they are not talking about us, right?
So there are things that we just get missed.
Our understanding of self gets missed.
So being able to share with them
that the more you know about our community,
what the more you know about ourself,
the more value that people hold us in.
And so that is where we sit within the ecosystem
of the Africatown ecosystem is helping people understand,
well, we offer the world, right?
More than just giving you the seven sciences.
But everything that we touch is gold, right?
We make everything better, right?
Not just spices, not just fashion, not just music,
but we make everything better.
And so when we begin to share that
and have other people share that with each other,
we will be a better people for that.
And so for that, I want to say thank you.
As the oldest child of the ecosystem,
I want you to remember that we are here.
Please come join our efforts.
There is a lot to still be done,
and we can do that better together.
-Up next for some entertainment for you,
really excited to have Champ Boxing in the building.
Let's give it up for them.
-So Champ Boxing stands for Creating Healthy Attitudes
and Motivating our People.
I'm seeing people say come up further.
Come on out, come on out. Come up front.
-That's right.
[ Applause ]
-And it was birthed in an abandoned room
at Rainier Beach High School.
So it started with us clearing out a bunch of junk and debris
and just believing in our young people.
We dare to call them champions not just in the ring,
but out of the ring
because they're champions of our community.
And words are really important. They're really powerful.
So we're really clear when we write about them,
when we talk about our kids.
We don't call them at risk. We don't call them high risk.
We call them good seed. Opportunity youth.
These are kids that need the opportunity.
They deserve the opportunity for us to sow in,
and we dare to call them great.
I want to highlight Dre'Vonn, Kelley Junior, Deuce the Truth,
Jaedin Stowers, a lot of power. And you're a big you, Thomas.
These guys are on the way to Junior Olympics in June.
So in only six months of fighting,
they're on their way to Junior Olympics.
And I'm not just saying it because I like these guys,
but they got world talent and world champion
written all on them.
So when you see them, encourage them.
I didn't know that Wyking want a demonstration.
We would have bought some mitts and did something.
I thought he just wanted to talk about them.
But that's it. You know, that's the program.
We're in -- we're in South Seattle,
Rainier Beach High School area, 9460 Rainier Avenue,
right across from Seward Park deli.
If y'all be going by to get some chicken,
you know exactly where we're at.
Oh, which one?
Oh, every -- thank you -- every Tuesday and Wednesday,
we have a class from 5:30 to about 6:37.
It starts with boxing.
We play our rendition, the Simon Says.
We call it Boxer Says when the kids go Boxer says one,
two, three to -- and then other kids will respond.
It always ends with a circle of encouragement
where each young person is saying something
they're proud of or someone they're proud of,
and we clap it up for him twice.
And I think I talked enough.
I want each kid to just come up here
and say something you're proud of
and or someone you're proud of,
and then you all will go two claps.
Let's try right now. Two claps. Two claps.
All right, let's start with Deuce.
Deuce the Truth. Come on, Deuce.
Something or someone you're proud of.
-Someone I'm proud of is my coach, Kev,
because he always helps me during the hard times,
and he warms me up before my boxing matches
and make me feel like I could --
like I can be myself right where I am.
-Two claps. Two claps.
Jaedin, because you tried to volunteer Kev.
Come up here, Jaedin. There it is.
Something or someone you're proud of.
-I'm proud of -- who am I proud of?
I'm proud of Uric and Deuce.
You know, they always keep me pushing,
and we're all going to Junior Olympics.
Oh, Jaedin Stowers.
-Two claps, two claps. -I'm not a boxer.
I'm just, you know, a part of the group.
-Come on.
-So I be here to support, and I'm proud of Coach Kev
because he's working hard every day.
He's there.
He's taking time out of his day to come in, you know,
support the youth, and make sure all the kids are good,
and he always has a good attitude,
even when he got a lot of hard stuff going on outside the gym,
and that's really inspirational because,
you know, there be a lot of things
going on right now in this crazy world.
So he always keeps a smile on his face,
and that makes me smile, so proud of him.
-It's my oldest baby, love my son.
Two claps. Two claps. You, big you.
Come on, you. Say your name. Say your name.
-My name is Uric Thomas,
and one thing I'm proud of is my parents.
-Big you!
-I'm proud of my parents
because they sacrifice their time to bring me to the gym
even though they're tired.
-Two claps, two claps. Favor, come on, baby.
Say your name. -My name is Favor,
and who I'm proud of is Faith for working hard.
-That's good. Two claps, two claps!
And I'm proud of Favor.
She just got back from California doing the gymnastics.
That's the next Simone Biles, y'all.
Faith, come on.
-I'm proud of the coaches.
I don't know what for.
-Or yourself.
You could be proud of yourself, baby.
-No, I'm proud of the coaches.
-All right, thank you.
All right, she proud of the coaches.
Two claps! Two claps! John John. Come on.
Baby boy, say your name. Say it with your chest.
-My name is Johnny,
and I'm proud of the coaches and the fighters
for always working hard and taking time out of their days
for fights and stuff.
-Two claps, two claps.
And I believe that's everybody except for Coach Len.
We there. I see you. Coach Len. -My name is Leonard Howze,
and I just like to volunteer in the community and come help out.
And I'm proud of just our community for working together
and this team for being so strong and structured.
We travel all over the country and do different events.
And if you just watch these young men
and how they move as best friends
when we're out of state in Mesa, Arizona or in different areas.
I work with my own nonprofit running around doing things
and just seeing the natural camaraderie
that they have makes me have a lot of proudness in myself.
I'm proud of you guys. -Two claps, two claps.
If you guys want to help donate
because we, you know, we're raising the money
to get them to these places.
We got invited to Canada.
They've been invited to Mexico,
and we're going to Kansas, Wichita for Junior Olympics.
It's a whole week.
Our Instagram is Champ Boxing Gym,
so @champboxinggym on Instagram,
and there's a link there to donate
if you want to support their travel and their food, etc.
But thank you all for your time.
God bless you, and God bless these champs.
One more time, clapping up for them.
Thank you.
-Well, we are always ready to uplift amazing talent,
and up next we have amazing talent hitting the stage.
Let's give it up, y'all, for Northwest Tap Connection.
-So we're located in the south end.
If you don't -- for you all who are --
may not familiar with me,
I spent 32 years working with Seattle Police Department.
And our actual strategic plan for Northwest Tap Connection
is called Plantation Living.
We specifically chose to be in the Rainier Beach area
so that we could be in the midst of our people.
We're in the process of getting a new home
because you know that $10,000 a month for rent ain't working,
and it's a bunch of that sharecropping stuff
that's going on.
So definitely we will be having a capital campaign
as we begin to really solidify,
but we are looking at being right on the corner
of Cloverdale and Rainier.
Because what we're doing right now --
and I encourage you to come down --
is that my number one thing is I have a friend named Miss Martha,
and every week we go out,
and we rescue Black artifacts found that the Goodwills
and the Salvation Armys
because a lot of people are turning things back.
And we take them out because they're our history
and put them in a place.
So by all means, come by Northwest Tap Connection,
and you can take a look at
right now we have the gathering of a people,
which is looking at all of the artwork
that comes out of the African diaspora.
All right.
-Talk about Black joy abounding
right here on this stage.
Up next, we have an amazing organization ready
to present to y'all about the foundational work
they're doing in community
regarding really disrupting this school-to-prison pipeline
and giving folks a place that they can call home.
Let's give it up for Coach Dom with Community Passageways.
-Community Passageways is a organization
that we founded about six years ago.
I'm going to tell a quick story.
I might not even get through these slides.
I'm going to try to.
I just like to wing things and come off the top of my head
and go with my heart and the spirit.
One of our first office spaces is on Rainier Avenue
down by the Rainier Beach area, right?
And so I was one of the cofounders
of a organization called Choose 180 back then.
I was a director then.
We were doing misdemeanor diversion in the court system.
We had diverted over 3,000 misdemeanors out
of the system for juveniles. While we were doing that,
I was still seeing a high level of violence in our community.
Our young people were going to prison for felony charges,
and gunplay was at a high level.
It's about 2015, 2016.
One day, I'm a coach, I coach football, track, all this stuff.
I was doing -- I was on my way
to go coach one of my teams in the middle afternoon.
Now, that whole week, it was seven days that week,
five people were shot in seven days
in a two-block radius on Rainier Avenue that year,
that week and right outside my office.
I'm leaving out to go to my practice,
and I see a bunch of fire trucks and eight cars
down the street, yellow tape.
I turn around and go down there.
There's a 15-year-old
that was murdered right off the side of the street,
drive-by shooting.
And that's when I said I got to do something different.
I can't just do misdemeanor diversion.
We have to get to these kids that got these guns.
We have to get to the community
that are being victims of the criminal justice system.
And so that's how Community Passageways came to light.
I started to be a felony diversion program.
And it took me a lot of pushing, a lot of presentations,
a lot of agitating, but over a year,
I finally got the prosecuting attorney's office
to open their door and open their mind
and some defense attorneys and some judges
to open their minds to what felony diversion can look like.
Until this day,
we've diverted over 400 plus years of prison
in jail time off the table for people in our community.
[ Applause ]
And started out being me and a couple of volunteers,
some people that bought into the vision, right,
and they came to the table and said, hey, we want to volunteer.
Now we got to over 80 plus employees full time.
We have three office spaces,
and we have a service center up the street
on 23rd and Jackson right in a little promenade
where the old Starbucks used to be where Black Coffee is now,
where Walgreens is.
And we've been doing a lot of different events,
but our service center is open every day.
We do safe passage for our kids back and forth to school
in the morning at Washington Middle School.
And now we have a team over at Garfield High School.
And what we're doing is making sure that these kids,
before school and after school, number one,
are getting fed so they can come get their snacks in the morning,
healthy snacks from us in the morning,
and healthy snacks after school.
And then besides that, we're there at the school,
and in some of the schools,
we're in four or five schools at this point
where we're doing safety and deescalation.
And we're doing student and family support.
We're also doing events.
Like you've seen our teams out here walking around,
up and down the streets.
If you live in a CD, you see our T's moving around in a --
the bright green neon shirts and hoodies and coats.
And so they're out here making moves.
And we have a critical incidence response team,
where when there's a shooting
that fits in our demographic of young people,
we show up to the scene of a shooting
and make sure that we can gather data and intel
so that we can use it to go deescalate retaliation
and also do family supports, right?
We have a team of people that work at the Harborview Hospital
in collaboration with Harborview Hospital,
so when there's a gunshot victim that fits in our demographic,
they get referred to us.
And we automatically start helping the family
with rental assistance, funeral assistance.
We just got to through -- we've done this a lot of times
where we'll get a phone call,
and we'll hear -- see on social media
that this funeral is being threatened to be shot up, right?
And so we'll have our teams go out there
and station ourselves in front of the funeral,
in front of the churches, in front of wherever,
and we will make sure that we're a shield
between whatever is going to happen,
and we'll make sure that nothing does happen.
So we've been doing these kinds of things, right?
You can go and clap for that, if you want to.
That's putting ourselves at risk, you know what I'm saying?
I'm talking about that,
but we're also doing homelessness work,
mental health work.
We're also working with families
and engaging with the families at a high level.
The court systems that we're working in,
the people that are facing trials and sitting in jail
for -- from all the way from murder, manslaughter,
they still need support.
They're victims too, victims -- it doesn't hold in one box.
Victims are people that have perpetrated crimes
and have crimes perpetrated on them.
Hurt people hurt people, right?
So we try to support people as much as we can
and try to stand in the gap
where we want to just feel that gap.
We want to come into a space and say, hey, we're here for you.
We care for you. We're here to help your family.
We're here to uplift you.
We're here to support you, no matter what you've done.
You're not what you've done.
You are bigger than that.
You're not the crime that they're charging you for.
You're bigger than that.
And we're here to show you that there's support here,
and there's still hope for your life.
And we do that on a constant basis.
[ Applause ]
I want to say, Community Passageways,
we didn't build that to become a program or a organization.
This is a legacy that we're building.
We're building a system within a system.
We want to break the prison industrial complex.
We want to break the school-to-prison pipeline.
We want to break all these structures.
We want to build economic structures.
I have about five businesses I started.
My goal is to employ 500 Black people
in our community is my goal.
Right now I got about 150 employees or so, right?
And at this time,
all the employees that work at Community Passageways
have $100,000 life insurance policy
because I do not want us using GoFundMe
as a life insurance policy anymore.
I'm tired of seeing that.
So we trying to step in the gap economically,
politically, and socially.
We're trying to change the mindsets
of the young people and families
that we work with to say that we have power.
We do have power.
We touch so much money every year.
We are our own economy.
We are our own job builders, right?
We produce more than any other ethnicity in the nation.
We have that.
How do we tap into that?
We got to quit letting our enemies educate our kids.
The reason why we're in this position
and our kids are killing each other is
because this nation was built on violence.
And then they give us organizations
a few thousand dollars or a few couple million dollars
and tell us go fix it in 12 months,
the same thing that they perpetrate.
They perpetrated all the violence on us
for so many decades, right?
And then they tell us to go solve the problem
that they perpetrated on us, right?
And I'm telling my kids now we have Stockholm syndrome.
They're like what is that?
We've taken on the identities of our enemies,
and now we're committing the crimes
that they committed on us.
So how do we pull our kids out of that mindset?
We have to re-indoctrinate them.
We're building a Youth Achievement Center.
I'm working with Africatown.
I'm so proud of Africatown.
These guys are doing amazing work.
I'm so proud to be a partner of them.
But we're building a youth Achievement Center.
And our youth Achievement Center,
we will be educating our children.
Our children will be able to live there.
We'll be able to house up to 76 to 100 youth and young adults.
We'll have classrooms, computer labs, greenhouses,
and we got to quit letting our kids eat
this poisoned food also.
We're going to be growing our own food.
We're going to do horticulture.
We're going to have culinary art kitchen.
We're going to do the whole nine.
Kids will be certified
and be able to get any kind of education
that they want and go down any career path
they want to go down and also live in a safe environment
and be structured every day, have a schedule every day.
We have to re-indoctrinate our children to know
that they are great, that they are kings and queens,
and that they have power, and that our community has power.
All right, so I'm going to say just like this.
I'm stopping right now. Thank you for having me here.
I appreciate y'all.
And I'm so proud to see what we're seeing today.
This is awesome to see these organizations doing
what they're doing.
-Thank you so much, Coach Dom, for all the hard work.
Up next, we actually get to hear now from some folks
who are making sure that our babies are born
in a healthy state.
Let's give it up for Blk Mamas Collective.
-Thank you. Okay.
I am the daughter of Felice, who is the daughter of Imogene,
who is the daughter of Cordelia, and Cordelia was a woman
who healed her family with plants and herbs
from her garden,
and she attended births in her community,
and I carry forward that legacy.
I'm really grateful to share my presentation
with my sister in community, Jazmin Williams.
I am so grateful.
I extend deep gratitude to the Africatown organization
and the -- all the folks that work there
because I feel like Black maternal health
should absolutely be a part of the conversation
on Black liberation.
But we missed that opportunity many times.
People feel like, oh,
because I'm not having a baby
that it's not a conversation that you should be a part of.
But what you should know is that our children are bonded
to us in the womb.
They're hearing everything.
They're feeling everything we feel.
They're eating everything we eat.
So if we want to raise a healthy community,
it starts in the womb.
So please know that this conversation is absolutely
a conversation for you.
Okay, so the Blk mamas collective started because,
well, it is exactly that, a collective.
I was really interested in mitigating the tokenism
and the siloing that happens in our community
is particularly in a community with so much Black gold
that is forced to operate in a very white dominant space.
So I just want to name that some of the images
that you're seeing actually came from an event
that the Blk Mamas Collective organized
in community celebrating Black Breastfeeding Week.
So these are actually women in our community
who are breastfeeding mothers,
and we were able to provide free photoshoots for them
so that they can be celebrated in their honor and dignity
and beauty and grace.
And you see this young mama here,
she wasn't even dressed for a photoshoot.
She just came to the event in her sweats,
but she looks so dignified.
And I absolutely love that photo of her.
And so that's what we do.
You know,
the Blk Mamas Collective is absolutely about celebrating
our community, educating our community,
uplifting our Black birthing families.
And within that work,
we are really about not just taking care
of the Black birthing family,
but also supporting our workforce development
and sustainability. Because as Black birth workers,
we often experience secondary trauma
when we're walking into these medical systems
to support our families.
So yeah, our work is supported around policy advocacy,
our community events.
So April 11 through the 17 is Black Maternal Health Week.
Blk Mamas Collective is organizing our fifth annual
Black Seattle Black Maternal Health Week celebration.
It was here last year at Langston Hughes, next year,
or sorry, this year, on April 14,
it will be at Washington Hall.
And we also provide consultation.
I get the opportunity to work with at every level
of government and with other community based organizations
to help them figure out the best ways
to strategize and organize around
how to serve our families best.
So as you can see, we have 17 partner organizations
that are a part of the collective
that we actively commune with and organize with.
We have had the opportunity
to support 46 businesses and contractors.
And that's mostly out of our work
through Black Maternal Health Week and, in that,
have been able to circulate
when I look back at our data over $61,000
and putting that money directly into Black hands.
So yeah,
so this is some photos of some of the ladies we organize with.
And with that, thank you. I see you.
I'm going to pass the mic to my sister in community,
Jazmin Williams, come on.
-Thank you all.
I was trying to make sure I wasn't going to repeat a lot
of what Rokea was saying
because she is always on point with everything,
and I just love and appreciate her.
But also all the work that we've been doing in community
with each other, but also other organizations,
not just in King County,
but throughout our state because we definitely recognize
that the aggressive gentrification
has definitely pushed us out in different areas.
So we really try to make sure that all the Black families
that we come in contact with get served
and have the support that they need.
But just to give you all a little history about BLKBRY,
I started off as a solo practice.
And it was mainly started
because of the firsthand trauma and harm that I experienced,
almost losing my life through my first pregnancy
and then almost losing my second baby,
which these are both of my beautiful daughters
when they were first born,
but almost losing my second baby in 2019
at a hospital here in Seattle,
thinking I was in a progressive area,
that things were going to be different.
But literally had the same exact experience
as another white woman I met a couple years ago
and realizing how quickly they moved
to make sure her baby was born versus my baby
was dying in the womb and almost lost her at birth.
And through somebody stepping up and coming to me
and telling me that she was a doula
and wanting to help me through that process and experience,
I got into doula support.
And for us, I know Rokea knows me very well that,
up until 2019, I had no clue what a doula was.
I just knew in our community how we show up for each other,
that my mom knew how to show up for me in my birth space,
that my grandma, my aunties,
they all knew how to just come together and support,
making that meal for me,
being able to watch my oldest child
so I could focus on my healing.
But we know that we don't always have that in all of our spaces.
And so through BLKBRY,
we really strive to create a space
that explicitly serves Black families.
Last year, alone, we received a grant
from the Department of Health and also from King County
that allows us to provide free
and low-cost doula support for Black families.
We have a community pantry
that allows us to support our local Black businesses
and other Black businesses around the country.
So we buy from these businesses,
and we give to Black families throughout our state at no cost
because we want to make sure our Black families have
what they need to survive.
[ Applause ]
Another thing for us too is that we really focus
on land ownership as well.
We recognize that with our cultural spaces being developed,
a lot of them, we don't own them.
We rent them.
And that's including a lot of our birth centers.
We want to make sure that we are here,
we can pass that down, and continue that legacy,
and keep these spaces and community
well past once we're gone,
that it is still here for the future generations.
But my next slide had the logos of the other organizations
that we work with
because we know
that it takes community collaborative care to make sure
that our families are thriving.
So while BLKBRY, we're providing that doula support,
we're working with other Black doulas, Black midwives,
Black lactation specialists.
We're working with Blk Mamas in Rokea,
making sure that we have these beautiful events in our spaces,
that we're celebrating,
not just revisiting our trauma and processing our experiences.
But we are bringing joy back to parenthood for Black families,
that we're also acknowledging that the stigma and stereotypes
that, you know,
our Black fathers are active in our families as well
and building out spaces for them.
We recognize that we need access to food as well,
and nobody should have to figure out
whether or not they can get the support and services
that they need or being able to feed their families.
And that's why we work with a Black-founded food bank,
making sure
that we are providing food access to our families.
It's why we also work with elders in our community
as well because we know
that for a lot of our Black birth workers,
that post-traumatic stress that we experience,
a lot of us don't stay in practice
past the fourth or fifth year.
So we love being able to call on our elders,
having them support us, making sure that we're --
that we're taking our teachings and our ancestral practices
and making sure that the next generation has them,
and we're making space for them.
But we also work with Shades of Motherhood,
and Shades of Divinity,
who our sister site's located in Tacoma and Spokane
because we know that Black folks are all across the state.
We know that, in different areas,
what we're facing and that we need to support each other.
And then also with being the village
that is a local support group too,
making sure that we're focusing on Black mental health as well.
But I have come over my time,
but just want to make sure folks know that there are other ways
to be in contact with us,
and we'll also be posting on social media
about our local events, and I hope to see everybody there too.
-This is awesome. I have the hard job.
I'm trying to tell folks we need to move along.
Thank y'all.
We're a little bit over time,
but I'm excited because this is the first year
that the Office of Equity at the state level they're --
we're the only one in the nation
for Washington State's Office of Equity.
So I want to introduce Director Megan Matthews to tell you more.
-Good afternoon, everyone.
I know that time is short.
What I want to say is, the first thing,
is our Black women are not okay.
Nationally, Black women are being attacked
all across the United States.
We need to support our Black women
because working hard we saw many examples of Black women
who have paved the way for us and young folks
who are still coming up and trying to make change.
We need to support our Black women.
And as the only Black woman state director
in Washington state government,
that includes me too.
[ Applause ]
So I could talk a lot about the Office of Equity,
but you all have an awesome connection in Trae Holiday,
who is our director for communications.
We are laying the foundation for a strong communications network
to make sure that we come and meet you.
You all are informed so that government can finally be of,
by, and for the people. So what we are supposed to do
is facilitate policy and systems change.
What does that mean?
We're supposed to help make sure that government's policies,
so the paper, right, what's on -- what's on paper;
the practices, the what we do; and our processes,
how we do it;
are finally bring about equity and justice
for everyone,
especially those who continue to be on the bottom
of this racist racial caste system in America
and in Washington state.
So that is what we are supposed to do.
It means that even our small team of 33 people
is working hard with agencies to make sure
that the outcomes no longer oppress
and continue to oppress people.
And so I wanted to share that I'm excited.
I'm born and raised in Tacoma.
I just want you to know that there are people
inside your government that are fighting for you,
and we know,
and we are having the hard conversations,
and there are a few of us. So we do have opportunities,
and we're doing some things to make it easier
to get a government job.
I remember talking about the firefighters.
We want y'all to come work for the state too
because we need y'all. They need your voice. I grew up.
I was born on Hilltop and didn't have a lot of money.
There's not a lot of perspectives or people like us
in leadership, and so we need you.
So you can come along,
and we don't continue fighting by ourselves
because it's going to take a -- the systems are upheld,
created, and upheld by people.
So if people did it, people can undo it.
And it's going to take all of us.
And I know we have a lot of community members
and organizations fighting and pushing and advocating.
We need -- also need people inside the system
to help facilitate that change.
So I look forward to hopefully working with you one day.
Visit our website to learn more, and I'm --
I'll be around too to answer more questions.
Thank you.
-Yes, that website is equity.wa.gov.
Y'all can go ahead and visit that website to learn more.
Of course, now is the time
that we get to hear from K. Wyking Garrett in the response.
Let's give it up for him, y'all. -Have peace.
Good evening or good afternoon or good morning.
Where we at? We're somewhere.
We're everywhere all over this planet, right?
I do want to thank everyone for coming out today
and staying with us.
We've seen some powerful things going on in our community.
I want to acknowledge the team
that has been working hard behind the scenes, right?
Lynette and Kennesha and Caroline
and the whole Africatown Community Land Trust team.
There's anyone from ACLT, please do stand,
from the Africatown ecosystem,
everyone working in our community.
All right, so I'm here to talk about our vision, Africatown.
Our vehicle,
primary vehicle is Africatown Community Land Trust
because without space, without a place to be, we can't be.
And then the fuel,
what do we need to keep going to get to
where we're striving to go?
And so, you know, we -- this is 11, number 11.
We've been coming to the stage highlighting the brilliance,
the genius, solutions in our community for 11 years now.
It's over 100 different things.
So when people say nothing's going on, they're mistaken.
And the fact that we have solutions,
this is a solution-oriented event, not a problem,
not a venting session.
We acknowledge the problem,
and then we look for solutions
that are coming from our community
and to get our community to be aware,
and not just the community but the policymakers
so that the policy is coming from the ground up,
from the community up, and not from the top down
because we know what -- how that doesn't work for our community.
Let's see.
This is what we were dealing with
when we started really moving Africatown forward.
We see from 90% is what was actually reported,
the Central District, down to below 10%.
What does -- what does that say to you?
We know about Black Wall Street being bombed
and the people being displaced, right?
We know about terrorism and mob violence and Rosewood
and many other places that drove Black communities out.
What we see here, is it happening in another way?
The Seattle way, right?
And it's been through policies and practices
that have produced this.
The effects are the same,
just different ways of going about it.
And slide, please.
These are some of those --
when we started in 2014,
each year, we see numbers get higher for some,
and we seen sometimes our numbers even go down.
This last one shows we're still at less than half.
The constitution said we were what fraction?
Three-fifths of a person, right?
But the stats today say we're not even half.
But slide, please.
We know that when we're talking about economics and income,
it starts with what?
Education.
So when we see Black children not performing
at proficiency in math, 80% of them,
then we know what the future holds, right?
That's why we have a -- slide please.
All right. So this is employment.
Because this is about the state of things, right?
We want to talk, well, where we at and where we need to go.
And you saw, we've seen some great presentations.
We're a little behind time,
so I won't acknowledge and tell you the story
that I heard from all those great presentations,
but I'm sure you pulled it together.
And so we see that, in key industries,
we are not showing up.
One percent in software developers,
and that's who's making the most money.
That's who's buying the houses in the Central District
where we're, you know, being pushed out.
And even the creative economy, we're still not showing up, even
though we know that Black culture is one of the number one
exports from the United States to the world, right?
But those economics are not coming into our communities,
allowing us to build generational wealth.
It's building generational wealth in other family lines.
Slide. And then homeownership rates.
This just came out from NAREB, the Black real estate,
national Black real estate organization,
showing that, in Seattle, our homeownership,
in 1970, was almost 50% in the Black community here,
and now we're closer to 30%.
But this is a place that is very liberal and very progressive.
Liberal means you're free to be.
Progressive means you're making progress.
But the numbers tell a different story,
and we have to be real about the state of things
so that we can what? Change things.
So...oh.
You didn't get a good education.
You didn't get a good job.
You don't own property.
Where does that leave you?
What's this slide? Homeless.
It says we represent 6% of the county population,
but 30% of those experiencing homelessness.
Right? These are the problems that we've seen showing up.
Whites represent 57% of the population,
and 36% of the homelessness.
So these are -- the math is not what?
Right?
This is a recent study from McKinsey,
which is a big research company.
It says, in all of the counties, less than --
less than 0.1% of Black people live in a county
where there's actual equity, 0.1%, not 1%, 0.1%.
And guess what?
I hate to break it to you,
but Martin Luther King Jr. County
is not one of those counties
where Black people are at par and have an equity.
So we have to move from symbol, right, to substance;
from rhetoric, to reality.
So these words that we hear in this environment a lot,
and this is -- this just came out.
So that's kind of where we've been when we started.
That's really where a lot of things still are.
But the narrative
that there was no possible future for the Black community
in the Central District, in Seattle,
is not one that we accepted when we got to working, right?
And so we said what does a different narrative look like,
where we're thriving, right?
And we said no to the extinction narrative.
You know, in 2014, when the Black Community Impact Alliance,
when Africatown, State of Africatown,
was established,
there was a conversation about the future of Seattle
and anti-displacement and Black people
in the central District were not even a part of the conversation.
It was just a foregone thought that we won't be here.
We're going to be used-to-bes.
And you know used-to-bes don't make what?
Honey, right? Okay.
But we said what does the future of thriving
and vibrancy of Black people look like that
is honors the legacy which you've heard about Dr --
I mean, Chief Harris and many others
who established this community. I see Dr. Norward Brooks here.
I see George Staggers here.
I see many that have spent time striving to serve
and move things forward for our community.
And when they make two steps forward, what usually happens.
Right, but it's our time to take the baton,
take the legacy that they established,
learn from, take the best, learn from the rest and move forward.
And what we're striving to move forward to
is a future Africatown our Black Wall Street
where we are thriving, not just surviving, but thriving.
And the work that Africatown Community Land Trust does
is related to addressing those various different issues, right?
Housing, place to live was first.
If you -- if you have no living quarters in a space,
then you're not going to be there that much.
And if you have no business in a community,
somebody told me you have no business in that community,
right?
So housing, supporting our businesses,
supporting our young people to be on track,
right, to take those jobs in the future,
to not be eliminated by AI,
right, not be replaced by automation,
but to be designing, creating,
and controlling the AI and the automation,
which is what's happening through the William Grose Center
and with partnerships like AVELA.
And then Benu Community Home was established
to address that future as well, addressing our homelessness.
And so can we get there?
Can we get to this place of thriving?
You know, most of us don't show up
because we just don't believe it's going to change.
We don't believe we have any power to make anything happen,
so we just say, well, let's just turn on the TV
and watch the game.
Let's watch Real Housewives.
Let's, you know, let's just escape
when we get a break from being microaggressed
and macroaggressed against every single day, right?
Let me just breathe for a second
and then get back to get my whips, my lashes, right?
But I think what our work is,
and this is something that Dominique said as well.
It's not about a nonprofit.
It's not about a program.
We are not going to program
or nonprofit our way out of our current circumstances, right?
But we have to think about how resources are deployed
and how they connect to get us to the place
where we're striving to go, right?
So we love our ribbon cuttings and our groundbreakings
and, you know, different things like that.
But what is the sum?
It's a vibrant and thriving community.
That's what we're striving to get to, right?
And transformative impact.
We have to move from transactions to transformation.
Transformation means what?
To change the form of something, right?
And if you go to 23rd and Union today, you can see evidence.
You look at all the corners where we were not involved.
And you don't see Black businesses.
You don't see Black people live in the buildings.
And then you go down to 24th.
And when we really got in, you see,
oh, Liberty Bank leased up 90% Black.
You got Earl's still there.
Not displaced out of the community at 30 years.
Cafe Avole, and you see Communion,
world-recognized restaurant, right?
Right there, you go across the street.
You got Arte Noir there now.
You got Jerk Shack there, right? You saw some of these images.
Re-Sole, right?
So we see a transformation, the beginning.
We see a renaissance, 10 years later.
You see -- you see the actual fruits of what?
A lot of difficult labor.
Against what? All -- -Odds.
-That's what Tupac said, right? He had a poem.
It said the rose that what?
Grew from the concrete.
Africatown is a rose growing through the concrete, right?
All of the businesses --
all of the businesses that you see coming up,
reemerging, this Black business renaissance,
these are all roses growing that found a crack in the concrete
and they're growing through, right?
But we want to -- we have to continue to water that.
We have to continue to move that forward.
Liberty Bank, a rose growing in the crack -- building,
a rose growing through the crack in the concrete.
William Grose Center bringing us into,
you know, the innovation economy.
We know we were always innovative.
From time immemorial we were innovators, right?
We created civilization.
And when we came to this country,
we were innovators because we were doing all of the what?
We were doing all the work,
so we figured out a better way to do the work.
Okay?
Jazz, Jimi Hendrix, hip-hop, I mean, it just goes on
and on, the innovation, the creativity,
the entrepreneurial spirit, right?
But we have an innovation economy growing around us,
and we're not -- there's a disconnection.
That's why the William Grose Center was created,
bringing our community back together, replanting the roots.
These are -- this is proof of our possibilities,
what's possible.
Our young people need to know you can envision something
and build something and own something in our community.
You can make things happen.
It doesn't just have to happen to you.
And we have to embed that in them, and they have to see it.
They have to be able to touch it.
And they need to be connected with the legacies
that exist in their own families,
in their own communities, not just in history books.
Every family has a history book, okay?
And this is about building what?
Our legacy what? Together. All right?
So those are some of the, you know,
proof of concept is what we look at it.
You know, our work is really to go to impact at scale,
real transformative action.
Impact, right? Changing, shaping the future.
But what we know, now that we have a proof of concept,
to get to impact at scale, what's it going to take?
-Money. -What's it going to take?
Pay the what?
-Fee.
-Pay the fee, right? We know it can be done.
We know how to do it. We've showed you.
Over the last 10 years,
we've shown what is possible on one corner, 23rd and Union,
but it doesn't have to be limited to that one corner.
Twenty-third and Cherry, Martin Luther King and Union,
Martin Luther King and Cherry,
Yesler, Jackson, Henderson, Genesee, right?
Impact at scale.
That means we need the resources.
We use reparations, repair rations, right?
We need the resources for repair.
We need them invested properly to get to scale.
Now, this says that a recent study right here in King County
estimates that between $5 billion and $16 billion
has been stolen from the Black community, right?
So when we talk about reparations,
we're not just -- we're not looking for a handout.
Just pay us what you owe us, right?
It's not a handout. Reparations is not charity.
Okay, we've given more charity to this country than anyone.
Okay, so we just want to make sure we get our resources back
in our generation
because the generational wealth from our families are --
is being created or circulating in somebody else's family.
Somehow it ended up in your account.
We just need to, you know, Zelle us, Cash App,
however you want to do it.
Just make sure you pay the fee.
Venmo. What you need? PayPal, doesn't matter, right?
So in 2020, we said we want to start
with a billion dollar anti-displacement fund, right?
We'll say the Africatown Black Wall Street redevelopment fund,
right.
And people, they, I mean, they got shaky about that.
They really -- a billion? What? No, that's what we talk.
I talk to Don, Honorable Mason. We used to talk millions,
but now we talk billions.
That's where the world is at.
We can't talk about $100,000 grants.
One FTE is $150,000. Okay?
So we got to help people think bigger because they get to us,
and they think real small.
Okay, so we got to expand their imagination
and let our children know, yeah,
your great-great-great-great grandparents,
they paid the fee for you.
You just got to go collect.
I think Dr King said we're coming to get the what?
-Check. -Get the check.
He said that -- they don't talk about that at the speech.
They talk about the dream.
They don't talk about we coming to get our check.
So that's what we want to focus on.
But guess what?
We told Seattle, King County,
Washington state we need you to put in
to get this thing started.
You know, they did every trick in the book.
They said yes.
Then they said not for development.
We're going to make it in programs because they know,
two years later, all the program is going to be what?
That budget is going to be expended.
But if you got land and buildings,
you can work with that. You can leverage that, right?
So watch out. They give us program money.
That's a short-term solution to get us -- it's like a pacifier.
You know, we went off.
When we go off, we go off.
Then they give us a pacifier.
It's not the first time.
Twenty twenty wasn't the first time, okay?
So they done let Portland now jump ahead of us.
What we -- what they couldn't figure out,
Portland now has a fund going.
Phil Knight and his wife put up $400 million on their own
to start the fund to rebuild the Albina in the Northeast
and the Black community in Portland.
So our policymakers that are here in the building,
we tried to give you opportunity to leave.
Some of you are new, so you can,
you know, do what others didn't do.
But we strive to give you a opportunity
to lead right here from this stage.
Matter of fact, it was from the streets
because we were in the streets, right?
And...I know Seattle.
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Amazon,
Costco, Starbucks, Nordstrom,
they not going to let -- we not going to let Portland,
right, one up us
and put up $1 billion and start rebuilding the Black community.
And they want to give us few million here,
few million there for affordable housing.
We striving to get to ownership, right?
So I just want to set some context of what's possible.
The other thing I have to say,
my time is, you know, we're a little behind,
but I want to make sure that we understand what is possible
and what we should be asking for.
Now, there's $227 million that at stake right now
because what the previous mayor did when we said $1 billion,
she said, okay, we'll do $100 million over,
you know, a year for 10 years,
knowing she probably wouldn't be around --
-Right.
--- 10 years later,
and then it's going to be for programs, right?
This was just for development, right?
Then it went from Black to what?
-BIPOC. -BIPOC.
We seceded from the POC coalition
because we weren't getting, you know, mutual benefit from that.
And we said we got to talk about Black issues.
Then they say, well, what about Indigenous issues?
Well, yes, that's a real thing, but go talk to them.
You got some things going.
You got some reservations and gaming rights
and different things to give them.
You know, if they want more,
if they want their land, then they have to make that claim.
We want to get paid for our labor.
Okay?
We want what you stole from us from our families
because the thing about America is generational wealth,
being able to pass it on.
Okay, so every disparity you see is
because our great-great-great grandparents were robbed.
But really, our grandparents were robbed.
Then our parents were robbed,
and we still getting robbed
because if you got Black people on your wall
when you get an appraisal, you might lose $500,000 in equity.
That's happening right now today,
stealing equity and capital from Black family.
Okay, so what are we going to do for them?
What are we going to do for them?
It's very important for us to put these shovels in their hand
and these hard hats on their head
so they know that they own something.
But one of our big threats is,
as I'm saying, right now, there's $200 million
that was fought for Jim Buchanan,
the Washington state Cannabis Alliance in King County equity
now fought to get $200 million to start to address some
of the harm done to our community
through the war on drugs,
which was a war on Black community we done
see started right here in the country, started right here.
And you can see who was identified as weeds
and who was identified as what that?
That graphic showed you 90% to 9%.
Okay? So and then you saw $5 billion, $15 billion.
It's more than that.
But we'll take this study.
We didn't do the study.
So $1 billion is just getting us started.
That $200 million, and then there's the money that Durkan,
the previous mayor, put out,
and there's still $27 million of that that's at stake.
And what we see the money is now being raided, right?
It went from Black to BIPOC,
but it seemed like the "IPOC" is often on the back
of the Black, okay?
And we have to -- we have to stop.
We're all about coalition and everybody benefiting,
but we have to have coalitions and relationships
based on mutual respect and interest, right?
That's very important.
So when you ask about Black,
and then someone responds with BIPOC
to redirect the conversation,
well, really to redirect the resources,
that is a form of -- that's no different than we said --
when people said Black lives matter, and then what they say?
Well, all lives matter. Okay, that is anti-Black, okay?
And you just need to stop it right there
when we address these things.
And so we should not be competing with organizations
that are not based in and rooted in our community
for resources that are supposed to impact our community.
We're about control over the resources
that are supposed to impact our community.
So right now the $200 million,
and Honorable Don Mason spoke to this, is under attack.
We have a Senator Bob Hasegawa put in an amendment
to redirect the resources put -- they put --
we started -- Black people did all the fighting.
Okay? Then they say, oh, well, we need to add into this.
They were negatively impacted by these statistics.
And then we need to add the Latin community.
They were negatively impacted.
And now we need to -- so now we're back to the same game.
But when the work was being done, nobody was --
no one was fighting these issues.
Okay, so that's disrespectful,
and you can't have a good coalition
when there's disrespect.
We have to start with mutual respect.
We want to work with everybody,
but it seems like everybody wants to work us.
Okay? We're not doing that, going forward.
Okay? All right?
So you need to -- there's going to be information coming out
so you can let your elected officials --
the one thing about being spread out now,
we got representation in all these different places.
So you send your elected official --
if you're in Skyway, Bob Hasegawa is -- he's District 11.
Okay? Let them know this is unacceptable.
Anti-Black policy, which this amendment is, is unacceptable.
Okay? And so -- and then from there,
all of the resources that are supposed to be
for our community,
we need to -- we need to protect those resources for them
because they'll get to the time that come to the --
come to the lunch counter,
and there's no food left after their family
did all the fighting to get the food.
That sounds familiar. What does that sound like?
Thank you. Okay? Thank you. And we're past that, right?
So I just wanted to, you know,
when we talk about the State of Africatown,
I want to just let us know it's still state of emergency
for Black people in this city, in this county,
and in this state,
but we do have, you know,
when the pandemic started, they went working to get what?
A vaccine, to get a solution.
Then once they got -- they found a solution,
they put the resources behind it to get it to everybody.
So we're in the crisis,
but we found what?
Solutions.
Last 10 years, we've been putting solutions on this stage.
You saw more solutions on this stage, right?
Now we need the investment to make sure
that all of our community can feel the impact of the solution.
It takes resources, and there's resources.
There's billions of dollars out there.
There's public,
and we live in one of the richest cities and regions
in this country that says it wants to be progressive.
We're here to help. Okay, we're here to help.
Right? Stop freaking what? Call beacon, right?
Call Africatown. Call our community.
We got this.
But we saw our young champs get the stage,
and they gave us an example.
The first thing when you learn in boxing,
and I appreciate Kevin, and I take my son over there,
and they just do nothing but show him love.
The first rule of boxing is what?
Protect yourself at all times.
Okay, and we have to get back to not just protecting ourselves,
but protecting our children because there's people
that they don't have no regard. Okay?
And so in the spirit of Champ Boxing,
we're going to be champs for our children and not what?
Chumps. Champs not chumps.
Let me hear you say champs.
Not chumps.
We're done being chumps.
Malcolm X told us we get treated
like a chump political football every election.
It's an election year. Okay? So the agenda has to say Black.
Then it says reparations. Then it says tangible.
Okay? My time is up.
But there's also a $1 billion housing levy
that just paid -- passed.
One thing we didn't tell you about Africatown Plaza
is that we got over 50% Black contractors awarded
on that project, over a $60 million project, right?
A Black general contractor in the -- in the prime JV.
They say they want it,
but they just haven't been able to figure out how to do it.
All of these projects
that are going into this billion-dollar levy,
they need to have their numbers up.
Now, what's that going to create?
Businesses, generational wealth, jobs in the community, right?
So this billion -- this is money that's on the table now.
I know we have some city council members in here, right?
The mayor is not here today.
But we need to look at how this billion dollars,
which is actually going to be leveraged
into probably about $5 billion in development
because the city puts its money in,
and other money comes in, right?
And how is that going to help make sure
that we have a thriving Black community in Seattle,
in the one Seattle?
We don't want one Black person left in the one Seattle, right?
We want to -- we want to be thriving here with a community.
So these are some specific things.
When we talk about the State of Africatown,
we see our challenges, but we also see our what?
Opportunities.
And we have to seize the opportunities.
Two-hundred million dollars at the state right now,
$25 million at the city in a participatory
that was supposed to be allocated
to the Black community.
Okay, do we got a billion-dollar housing levy?
And there's a lot more.
There's a behavioral health levy that just passed,
probably another billion dollars.
So we need to go and make sure that we get our share of that
for our community.
And if others support us and love us,
which you should because we show y'all, everyone, a lot of love,
then don't be afraid to say, yes,
the Black community needs that. They need focus.
They need dedicated resources to address the unique experience
that we've had in this country.
Okay? So new agenda.
We're on the champs, not chumps agenda going into '24.
Our board vice presidents came back from Africa with Dr. Kwesi.
She said, Sister Jacqueline, she said, "More in '24."
Let me hear you say more.
In 24. All right, thank y'all.
[ Applause ]
-Let's give it up for councilmember
for this district right here, Joy Hollingsworth, y'all.
-Good afternoon. I know we're afternoon.
We started the morning.
Now we're afternoon, and I know we're a little over time,
so I'll be very brief. Thank you, Africatown.
This is one of my favorite events
to come to because we get to network, connect,
build community,
hear the state of our community and Black community.
I'm not scared to say Black.
That was one thing on the campaign trail.
I was always talking about Black issues.
One of the things last year when I came to here,
to Africatown, one of the things that stuck out with me,
and this is in my office right now.
So down on the second floor, in my office,
I have the average household income for Black families.
We saw it up there. It was $42,500.
The average household income, $42,500.
The average net worth for a Black family is $25,000.
Fifty percent of Black families in our city have 0% net worth,
and those numbers are literally in my office
because when we're talking about homelessness,
when we're talking about affordability,
generational wealth, health disparities, education,
it all stems from the income wealth gap within our city.
And everyone has an important role.
I, when I would talk to Black leaders,
they would tell me, well, what's your Black agenda?
Even Wyking said to me,
"What's your Black agenda?"
What's your -- what's your agenda for the Black community?
This is going to be our agenda for the Black community.
What can we figure out how to move forward?
And I just saw it from all the people speaking today.
I saw it from Wyking speaking today.
What are we doing to move it forward?
Where we are now on how we're moving --
how we're moving forward.
And for me, the biggest thing is economic mobility.
How do we figure out how we're going to continue
to invest in our people,
for people to be able to have economic mobility,
for us to move out of where we're at right now?
And our city has a ton of plans.
We have our Seattle Transportation Plan.
We have a comp plan coming up.
We have a move levy coming up.
We have Sound Transit 3 that puts in $12 billion all the way
-- from that's going to do West Seattle
all the way over to Ballard.
We have all these investments coming in.
And one of the things I'm constantly asking how many
Black contractors do we have connected to these projects?
How many Black people do we have connected to these projects,
contractors, developers, architects, community folks?
How many Black folks do we have connected to these projects?
Because right now we have a ton of money in our city.
There's a lot of investments going on.
But a lot of times,
our community is left out from these integral projects,
and it's important because that money that goes,
when that Black contractor is on that project,
that goes right back into our community big time.
And so the five people -- five things that I have on here
that I heard, homeownership.
Shout-out to Chukundi.
Black Legacy Homeowners,
when I was knocking through the Central District,
I'd see all these signs around here.
Black homeownership is going to be huge in our community.
How do we retain homes?
How do we purchase homes?
And how do we pass them down?
I'm lucky enough to live in the house
my grandmother bought in 1947 still on the corner.
I am lucky. I am so lucky.
But I know that a lot of people don't have that.
And so how do we be able to put that back into our community?
The second thing is small businesses,
small businesses for our community,
the sectors that are incredibly profitable.
So understanding that's construction, building,
trades, contracting, tech,
spaces we don't see ourselves in
that we need to see ourselves in.
Third thing, workforce development.
The one thing I heard from the William Grose Center
that I'm so glad that you guys brought up,
and I saw I have two minutes,
or less than two minutes, so I'll be fast.
The average age of a farmer --
and this is what is so important --
average age of a farmer in America is 65 years old.
By 2050,
we're going to have to grow double the food
that we have in the country. When Bill Gates got divorced,
and his assets were on the table,
we got to see the amazing amount of wealth.
But the one thing that we missed
was he is the largest landowner of private farm
in the entire country.
What does Bill Gates know that we do not know?
We have to get back to farming.
There are people right now in California
that are buying farmland in Yakima Valley
because they know that climate change is shifting,
and they are going to be looking to Washington and Eastern Oregon
to grow a lot of the food that's going around.
We have to grow our own food.
That's going to be really important.
Education, after-school and in-school
mentorship is going to be incredibly important.
My grandmother was born in 1920 on the same land
in which her ancestors were slaves.
And she -- her young family moved to North Carolina,
and her mother worked in the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco factory.
And the family didn't have a lot of money.
My grandma said, hey, I want to --
I want to make money with you, Grandma -- Mom.
I want to be able to provide, and she said no.
A place like this will end your dreams.
You have to go to school.
And she got a -- got a scholarship from the CME
which is the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church,
and she was able to get a scholarship
to go to Paine College in Atlanta and moved here in 1947.
That seed was planted so our family could be able to survive.
And that's why I'm so big on education
so we can know our history to reveal our potential greatness.
-Identify your grandmother and what she did for this community.
-My grandmother was Dorothy Hollingsworth.
She was amazing. She was 101. Passed away in 2022, in August.
She was one --
she was the first female Black woman elected
to the Seattle Public Schools.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Sometimes I get that wrong, but that's what she did.
Amazing influence in my life and understanding
about education and life. And it says please stop.
This is the last thing I'm going to say.
Health and wellness,
access for our community about health and foods.
And last thing,
some people ask me like what's your north star joy?
And I watch a lot of documentaries.
I was wondering how, and I'm going to bring it back,
so follow me with this.
Domino's Pizza is able to keep their pizza at $6.99,
and they're very profitable,
and people wonder like how are they able to do that?
That's because they own their entire supply chain.
And my north star is Marcus Garvey.
Marcus Garvey, Universal, UNIA,
Universal Negro Improvement Association,
the Black Star Line,
where he started all these ships,
Phyllis Wheatley, the Frederick Douglass.
He also had Negro World News that Malcolm X's dad,
Reverend Little, was the editor for.
Right, you talk about Malcolm X,
you got to talk about Marcus Garvey.
The Negro Factory Corporations.
This guy was ahead of his time,
and the FBI had the first Black -- the first Black agent,
Double Agent Zero.
His main job was to infiltrate the Marcus Garvey movement
because they knew that if we could break that piece
up about economic mobility,
they could try to break our community.
And so I will leave you all with this.
Okay? I'm elected official. I'm eight weeks on the job.
I need, yes. Eight weeks. But here's the key.
Shout-out to Adrian. Adrian did my campaign video.
It was phenomenal. We need -- I need your help.
If I call you and say, hey, I need you to come down
and testify for this bill, guess what?
You can do it on Zoom now.
Or if I need you to speak up, send emails, I need your help.
And then I also need you all to hold me accountable for stuff
that's going on in the community,
whether I need to come talk, you need a letter,
you need information, whatever it is.
Like this is a two-way street, right?
It's not my agenda for the Black community.
It's our agenda for the Black community
and what that looks like.
So that's what's going to be important.
If I need you, I call you. I need you down at city hall
so we can talk about moving these bills together
because Seattle has been incredibly performative equity.
And I believe our time is really now with certain people in place
that we can really make a dent in this.
So thank y'all so much. -Thank you so much.
Let's give it up, again,
for Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, y'all?
One more time.
All right, to close us out today,
I have the pleasure of introducing
the ACLT board chair, Margo Jones.
-Wasn't today great?
Give it up for all the presenters, all of our partners.
Before I get started, I want,
if there are any of our board members from the ACLT board,
can you please stand up?
I see you Miss Jacqueline, my vice president, my ride or die.
Give it up for Miss Jacqueline and our board.
I don't see anyone else here, but we do a lot of hard work.
And I just wanted to make sure we acknowledge
the hard work of the board
because the board oversees the organization,
and we hold the organization accountable.
So that's the work we do.
So I just want to say greetings and good afternoon to everyone,
to my beloved community.
But before I start my remarks,
I want to give thanks and acknowledge the Lord
and my ancestors for being,
for blessing me with such a honorable
and incredible opportunity to be the board chairwoman
of Africatown Community Land Trust for the past eight years.
I don't -- thank you --
I don't take this, my role and responsibilities,
lightly and have committed myself
to doing this work unselfishly because of my great love
for the community and the people that lived here
and live here for many generations.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Margo Jones.
I'm a Seattle native. I'm a grandmother.
I'm a mother. I'm a daughter. I'm a business owner,
and I'm a Black Legacy Homeowner in the Central District
for three decades.
Today, as I pondered on what I wanted to share with you,
all I had -- I had so many thoughts.
But the words that I kept hearing were vision,
inspiration, hope, unity, and responsibility.
As I kept having these flashbacks of the CD
and what it used to be,
I just had like these thoughts of where I wanted it to be
and how I wanted to go back.
One thing about me is I'm super-duper old school.
And I have this thing about keeping things
the way they used to be.
I'm sure I'm not the only one in here
that can relate to wanting to see the CD or Seattle
the way it used to be, right? Something I want to do
is ask everyone to close their eyes for a moment.
Now, with this exercise, I might go over a few people's heads,
but have -- that haven't lived in the area for over 10 years.
But please know that this exercise is not to exclude you,
but to help you feel the presence of what
our great community used to look like.
Now let's think about some of our great landmarks
and favorite places we used to visit.
Do you remember going to Jordan's
to get your prescriptions late at night?
Or going -- or when Grocery Outlet used to be Rogers?
-Yes.
-I know you remember the promenade with Red Apple
with Joy Unlimited Bookstore, Welch's Hardware,
or being able to go pay your light bill
at the neighborhood service center.
Do you remember BJ's Beauty Supply?
Do you remember Frank's Corner Store?
Do you remember R&L's Good Bar-B-Que or SOIC
before it was SVI?
Who remembers Eddie Cottons, the Cotton Club, Oscar's,
Deano's, Sammy's, or Miss Helen's Diner
when you wanted some good food or a good time?
Who remembers that? And who remembers
when MLK Junior Way used to be Empire Way?
I see you, ma'am,
but I'm going to say what I got to say today.
I waited a long time.
You know I could stand here all day
and talk about so many other great businesses and landmarks,
along with so many great pioneers that have gone to glory
and paved the way
for me to be standing in this very place
in this very moment right now. I want to honor our legends
and our icons Miss Dawn Mason and Miss Evelyn Allen
and Dr. Mimms and DeCharlene,
women that have came and paved the way
for me to be standing here today.
I want to acknowledge you and thank you.
I don't take that lightly.
Thank you. Now let's imagine us today.
Our city and our community,
as we know it, has changed. Midtown used to house one
of the largest post offices in our zip code.
The legendary businesses like Earl's Cuts and Styles,
Mana Beauty Supply, Music Galore, Black Dot,
Vogue Beauty, the 99 Cents store,
the laundry mat have now been replaced
by the Midtown apartments and our newest project on 24th
and Spring, Africatown Plaza.
Give it up for the plaza. The vision for ACLT
was to provide our community a way back to our neighborhoods
as well as retain homeowner legacy and develop housing
that was affordable
for those displaced community members to come back home.
The businesses, excuse me, the inspiration we are seeing with,
excuse me,
the inspiration was seeing so many people losing
their homes and businesses
and leaving the area that felt like we were being erased,
and we weren't going to be able to let that happen.
We have a responsibility to grab the baton
that was placed in our hands
and moving unity to help us keep what was once a very prosperous
and thriving community alive.
My hope is that we can continue to do this through your support.
Since the beginning of ACLT in 2014,
we have become recognized as a leading voice
with a compelling vision for an inclusive Seattle
with forward-thinking initiatives having real impact
with and having real impact within our community.
The next several years promise to be exciting ones for ACLT.
The organization will continue to have a positive impact
on the communities we serve,
and our board of directors and trusted advisors
will play a central role in that important work.
If you wish to be considered as a candidate
for the board of directors or advisor,
please visit our table out front
and inquire about an application.
Our program comes -- as our program comes to a close,
we reflect on the stories of impact shared
and the milestones created,
excuse me, celebrated this past year.
The road to transformative impact is laid only
and paved by the contributions of each of you.
These numbers, data,
the stats all fall flat without the lives
that continue to touch and impact.
Let's continue to build our legacy together with
every donation making a difference.
Remember too, it's never too late to contribute.
As they said earlier, in some kind of way, we need volunteers.
We need supports financially,
but we, most of all, need people on the ground.
Please stop. Okay.
We need people on the ground to help support us.
Together, we are laying the groundwork
for generations to come.
Thank you for sharing your time with us today
and your continued support working together,
as we imagine and create Africatown.
Thank you.
[ Cheers and applause ]