Welcome.
Welcome, everyone.
How is everyone doing today?
On behalf of Africatown Community Land Trust
and our partners, we want to welcome you to the State of Africa.
Town 2026.
Thank you all so much for being here.
We want to also start to make sure
we are grounded in the amazing space we are in.
Please join me in welcoming and welcoming
Ebony Aranda to the stage.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to Langston.
We are gathered here inside the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.
In the heart of the historically black Central District.
For more than 50 years,
this building has been a home for black arts and culture and social justice.
In Seattle.
And by being here
today, we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us
the visionaries, organizers, artists and community members
who ensured this space would exist for us to be able to be here.
Langston is a hub.
It is a beacon, and it is the only building of its kind
dedicated entirely to black arts and culture here and in our region.
Stories are spoken here.
History is carried forward, and community gathers to shape the future of our city.
Our namesake, Langston Hughes,
first visited Seattle in 1932 at first AME church,
and later he came back and spoke at the University of Washington.
He understood culture, as civic culture
and civic life are inseparable.
That the stories we tell and the policies
we build and the future we imagine,
are all intertwined.
His presence here is part of the lineage that we carry forward.
And this year, Langston is turning ten years old.
The nonprofit that stewards this building.
For the
for the past ten years, our nonprofit organization
had the honor of carrying the baton of stewardship for this building.
We step into, the work that began long before us,
and we move it forward with care and intention.
Stewardship here means sustaining artists in our creative economy.
Keeping rehearsal space accessible.
Hosting festivals
like the Seattle Black Film Festival, which has been going on for 23 years.
And the Seattle Black Nerd Festival, which launched last year
and is, is going to be a future legacy, hopefully.
Right.
You never know when you're when you're at the beginning and the precipice
of something like that, when you're when you, you start to build
something that you don't know how far into the future it can go.
And so we are really honored to be able to dream up some of these things.
It means strategizing for long term and working with public
and private partnerships so that this space continues to serve
black arts and culture for generations to come.
This building is civic infrastructure.
It is a site for community power building,
economic activity and democratic voice.
This, we are shifting from momentum to permanence.
And so we're going to be calling upon you over the next year to dream up
what a future of ownership might look like for our community
in this building.
And so today really matters
because the state of Africatown centers a thriving black future in Seattle.
And we are in alignment with that.
And that future requires space, it requires vision,
and it requires all of us.
Thank you for being here this morning. And welcome.
Thank you so much, Ebony.
Now, I would love to make sure that we are grounded
as we need to be with our ancestral practice of libation.
Please welcome to the stage, Nicola.
Ella.
Good morning.
May I have permission from the elders to speak? Yes.
Thank you.
It is my honor and great joy to bring the ancestors in for us this morning.
And for those who are not familiar with the ritual.
It is something that's found
all over the continent of Africa and throughout our diaspora,
and it is a way to bring the ancestors in to bless
the work that we're doing in our gathering.
It is a way to ask them to be with us during that work.
So the way I like to do it is I call on a slate of ancestors,
and then I will pour water into the plant and I will say, I say, and because we are
collective and communal people, when I say, I say, y'all say, say no.
Not like that though
when I say, I say, y'all say
that's right, that's right.
So as we think about
as we think about gathering for the purpose of repair
and thriving of our people here in Seattle, in our black community,
I ask the ancestors to open our hearts to the possibilities that we may have
some internal repair that we need to do with our relationship with ourselves.
I also want them to open our hearts to the fact that we might have
some repair that we need to do with other community members interpersonally,
and I ask that they open our hearts
to initiating those repair conversations and being open to forgiveness
in those repair conversations.
OK
go ahead and take a deep breath.
Oh, one more thing.
I ask that the ancestors make space for our healing love, connection, harmony,
abundance, joy, and thriving at levels that we could not imagine for ourselves.
That was important.
One to mention.
All right, so now consider where we're standing
right now in the building, in the land that this building sits upon.
Imagine a time before an invite.
Uninvited intruders were here.
Imagine all the trees that lined this whole entire place down to the water,
and the indigenous people who were thriving and free.
And when the land was free,
Ashe
Now think about the continent of Africa
as a free place before uninvited intruders,
where the land and the people were free and we were thriving.
Ashe
I like to call in the healers.
From that time
the folks who kept our bodies and our minds right.
Ashe
The elders and the chiefs
who held the protocols for accountability and repair.
Ashe
To the artists in the visionaries who can see the things,
the beautiful things that were not yet there.
Ashe
I want to honor our African ancestors
who were enslaved
and those who evaded slavery or enslavement.
Ashe
To those who didn't make it past the Middle Passage,
those who did not survive, and to those who did survive the Middle Passage.
Ashe
To those who made it to the shores
but didn't survive enslavement, and those who made it to freedom.
Ashe, Ashe
And I like to call in the ancestors who were organizers
in our movements for freedom, our civil rights, black power,
housing, justice, and LGBTQIa, plus movements and more.
Ashe
To our ancestors who kept the barbecue poppin.
Ashe
To our ancestors
who're popularized some of our most precious
cultural self-love practices, our dance, our drum,
our afros, our dashikis and all that fly stuff.
Ashe
And to the ancestors who are our ancestors
who embodied the blackest of black joy.
Ashe
wait, I need it a little louder than that.
Ashe
All right.
So at this point in our ritual,
I want y'all to think about your loved ones who have passed on.
Who would want to be with us today?
Who do you need in this space to do what you need to do?
You go ahead and call their names and I will pour for you.
All right.
We'll start with Sarah Freeman and Doctor Mims.
Usher.
Okay.
Ashe
Ashe. Keep. Keep it coming.
I say Ashe
Tracy. Williams.
Yes. Ashe
Okay. For the last day.
Farm and still fondue for ashe
Ashe
Asher. More.
Ashe
That's right.
Ashe
Okay.
Ashe.
Ashe
Ashe. Yes!
Ashe
Ashe I say
Ashe
- Much love to Nacala for that amazing grounding.
We're going to continue in our opening, y'all.
I'm excited to welcome to the stage, Miss Josephine
Howell.
I ask that you would stand to your feet.
Lived every voice and sing
till earth and heaven.
Read.
Ring with
old deeds of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high.
And suddenly it
God's, let it resound.
Loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song
full of the faith that the dog possessed.
Oh, let's sing a song
full of the hope that the present
has brought us.
Facing the rising
sun of our new day.
Be God, let us
march on to victory
is one is one.
Stony the road who we tried
bitter that chastening hurrah!
So tender days when hope unborn had died.
Yet with the steady
beat have not I we
we feet come to
that place for which have
there is sign
for we have come over a way
that the tears have been watered.
We have come in our path
to the blood of the slaughter,
out of the gloomy past.
Till now we stand
last.
Where the bride leaves her bright side
is cast, is cast.
God of.
I will every years.
God of our silent tears.
Thou who has brought us thus
far on our way.
Thou who has by thy my,
let us into the light.
Keep us forever them in the path
we pray.
Lest,
seeds stray
from the places our God where we met
the less
It's drunk with the wine of this world.
We for getting shot up
beneath thy hand.
May we for her and verse.
Stand true to our God,
true to our native
land.
So let us march on
till bitter.
We woke up.
That's what I'm talking about.
I know everyone in here is feeling that incredible.
What we like to do right now is we want to make sure,
every year at the state of Africatown, there is a space to honor our elders.
With that, I want to ask
that the elders in the building.
Please make your way down if you're able.
If not, please stand in place.
We want to make sure that we are properly acknowledging you,
for our elders who can or you can raise your hand
so we can make sure that our volunteers properly acknowledge you.
For our elders who are in the building, we have some right here in the front row.
Thank you so much.
I'm going to welcome to the stage right now
our Bishop Tyson.
Bishop Tyson, for our prosperity prayer.
Thank you so much.
Can we.
Bow our heads.
You would like to stand.
Please feel free if you're comfortable
sitting all as well.
With every head bowed and with every
eye close.
Gracious and sovereign God,
we stand on sacred soil today.
And on this sacred soil.
God we know it's awarded with tears
tilted by struggle and yet still pregnant
with promise and possibilities.
You are the God who sees harm,
and you are the God who brings repair.
You are the restorer of broken places and spaces
in the rebuild of ruined cities
like Seattle.
Father, we acknowledge the harm,
displacement, redlining, injustice,
stolen opportunities, and a system
that tried to uproot a people from their land.
But we declare and we decree
that what was harm will be healed.
What was scattered would be now again gathered.
What was this?
Minish will be multiplied.
We are black people.
We don't die.
We multiply.
We pray now for economic prosperity with purpose.
Let businesses rise in the black Central district once again.
Like let black homeowners increase.
Let generational wealth be reestablished.
Let vacant lots be vibrant spaces and places
that you hand to africatown.
Let development not erase us, but empower us.
Bless every visionary, every investor
with integrity, every organizer, every elder, every young leader.
Release cap.
Hold on now to Africatown release contracts.
Now to Africatown release creativity now
to Africatown release collaboration in the city.
Let there be divine partnership
and sponsorship that honor community.
We protect legacy all at the same time.
God as the leadership of Africatown
have vision now give them provision.
We gather today not because
we don't have nothing else to do, but because we want to make a difference.
We gather today on sacred ground.
Ground that remembers our footsteps, ground that carries our history.
Ground that still holds our promise.
Lord, you have seen the harm.
You saw the red line drones.
You saw the homes taken.
You saw the businesses shuttered.
You saw the displacement of people who built, prayed and prospered in this place.
Lord, we pray
for repair beyond buildings.
We pray for repair of trust,
repair of dignity, repair of identity.
Restore what harm tried to steal.
Give us the confidence of ownership, unity and hope.
As Nehemiah rebuilt the wall.
Give us strategy as shows up.
Steward it resources.
Give us wisdom as Joshua. Reclaim the land.
Give us courage.
We declare once again and decree the land will not forget us.
This community will not erase us.
This district will have to give us back what it stole from us.
So today we ask you to breathe
on the vision of Africatown and its founders.
Breathe on every plant.
I breathe on every policy maker.
Breathe on every entrepreneur.
Breathe on every family determined to return.
Remain and reveal.
So now release prosperity with purpose.
Release ownership over oppression.
Release equity over inequality.
Release generational wealth over generational wounds.
Let vacant spaces become vivid places.
Let let ideas become institutions.
Let collaboration overcome competition.
Let justice roll down like waters, like rivers.
Let africatown be a testimony of hope.
From harm to
healing, from displacement to development,
from loss to legacy, from survival to prosperity.
We call forth a black and thriving central district once again,
from the deep, spiritually strong, economically empowered,
culturally rich and generational secure.
And when history records this season,
let it be said that Africatown
rose like a phoenix from the ashes,
not in anger alone, but in alignment.
Not just in protest marches, but in prosperity.
Not just from harm, but in holy repair.
And we seal this prayer in the powerful, prolific
name of the Prince of Peace and the God that we serve.
And the people of God responded by saying, Amen.
- Wow. Come on y'all, let's give it up one more
time for Bishop Tyson. Wow.
We have a lot of elders in the building, so we are grateful that y'all are here.
We want to make sure that we are acknowledging
the elders who are also on program here.
This is a very special part of the program
because without the work of our elders, we would not be here.
We honor your legacy.
We honor your sacrifice.
We honor your enduring leadership
to continue this tribute.
We now welcome a poetic offering dedicated to our elders,
a reflection of gratitude, memory and forward vision.
Please welcome Kweli Vuur.
- Hello.
Before we get started, I would like every elder
whose name is on this list to stand.
Please.
Yes. If you could come up here and stand, that would be lovely.
So we can all see you.
If you are able.
And if you get tired, please take a seat.
Okay.
My name is Kweli Vuur.
This poem dedicated to our elders is called give Them Their Flowers.
There are times that call for action.
No matter where we came from.
No matter who you can too.
There are times that call for action because a simple thank you
just won't do it.
Had it not been for the grit of pioneers,
the courage of freedom fighters and entrepreneurial tributes,
there would be no legacy to claim or to fight for
our dear elders had it not been for you.
And of course we do.
Thank you.
You know, for the leagues, the camps, the barber shops, well, for all the shops,
the societies, the museums, churches, shelters and masonry and for food.
So good.
Even Oprah and Richard Pryor had to make a scene.
The migrant sharecroppers and showstoppers.
The teachers, lawyers, musicians,
writers and doctors all fruits from the same family tree.
So no, we don't get to just say thank you while crossing bridges
built of hardships, love and integrity.
And it's no less than amazing just how it was all done.
Despite all the hatred and losses which family hadn't suffered.
Please name one.
We got to do better than a thank you
for those who were pushed out, and for those who remain
because they are the soul and the reason Seattle's black heart still beats today.
Blessed are their descendants and newcomers like me,
who've always traveled north in search of opportunity.
Blessed are the poets, the artists, and the scribes
tasked with telling the stories of your black and beautiful lives
must have been hard planting all these Bountiful black seeds
only to be pushed away from the roots of Rainier Valley.
The CD
and Seattle's black CD.
Dear elders, we owe it to you
to give you to our dear elders.
We owe it to you to honor the tradition,
to show our gratitude through our service.
And when you speak, we promise to listen.
Because there are times that call for action.
No matter where we came from, no matter who you can too.
There are times that call for action
much more than a simple thank you.
So let's stand up for our elders.
Come on, let's send them some power.
It's time for us to show it.
Go be it and live it.
That's how we honor our elders.
That's how we give them their flowers.
- Give it up one more time, y'all.
For our elders. Wow.
Thank you so much. So.
I now have the honor.
I'm gonna let y'all settle.
I'ma let y'all settle.
Thank you so much.
Thank you to our volunteers and our youth.
Let's give it up for them.
Presenting the elders with their flowers and gifts.
Thank you all so much.
I now have the honor and the privilege
of welcoming to this stage
our former state Representative,
mama Dawn Mason, to present the Elder of Distinction Award.
Give it up for y'all.
- Hello, everybody.
I love this event and I'm glad it's the last day of Black History Month.
I'm exhausted.
But you know what?
That's a good thing because it means there's been a lot of events.
And I'd
like to say that as we speak about the act and to our my,
sister and brother elders here, I know each of you.
I know what you've done.
I've watched you, we've watched you.
And I also applaud you for helping us do this work.
So as we go forward, I think of the young people.
I heard that,
and they say
they're going to have an event and she doesn't
know where it's going to be in the future.
I will coach Ebony
to teach her how to make sure that it will always be in the future.
I have been saying recently I'm tired of hearing about.
We used to once we have a so the at what I'm going to the Elder
of Distinction award will explain why we won't be doing that anymore.
The Elders Distinction Award was established in 2014
when we started the African-American African Gathering,
which was the listening post for, the incoming mayor.
And, and I, I'd like to know, could our elected
officials and elected officials or appointed officials please do.
Come on.
Council member Rinck. Okay.
Anyone over here? I know we have director,
Chappelle in the room.
Our education director.
Thank you for being here.
Because we need sustainability and passing the baton.
Majola.
I just came and spoke to me that they're meeting.
So I met with, our community.
We have elders of distinction who have passed batons.
The batons get passed to the next generation so we can continue.
And we have to stop
leaving here as elders, with all our knowledge in our
in the baton, in our arthritic hands, and we aren't going to let it
go. So.
And no, it's true.
Oh, we used to have this.
And once it was, whatever.
So, but we need to be able to have.
Because if we make our young people have to dig a trench in every generation
and then climb up that move up, we'll never get ahead.
We'll never meet those goals that we said we're going to make.
We have to let them climb up and they might make mistakes.
They might change some things.
But think about a baby walking.
The baby walks and falls and I will take pictures and send it to grandmas.
In this cute.
And so that's how muscle is built.
And we can't pick them up. Just let them.
And then when they stand on our shoulders, we must stand upright or else fall over.
And we're supposed to ask them one question.
Do you see the horizon says yes.
What do you imagine on that horizon for you?
Don't tell them.
They have to keep what we had on there, but there should be sustainability.
If we have trees, there's always a tree on the horizon,
but it might be a fir tree, it might be a maple tree.
You understand what I'm saying?
Let them grow. They'll make mistakes.
That's how muscle is built.
So with that, I would like to,
we have, the elder distinction.
How is that different than an elder?
And now it's old.
And elder of distiction.
I only did that because he's younger.
These are my contemporaries.
So elder distinction has created a tangible legacy.
Something we can feel, something we can see
that brick, as we've built our community.
And elder distinction has passed on that legacy.
While they could still be a mentor and and teach the next generation,
and that has and has passed on and they're still alive
and they're still well and they're still doing the work.
That's the elder distinction. And,
And we for the past
14 years, we've recognized elders of distinction in this place
where we have our communities so they can see it as a public recognition.
So I will try to do this.
Please.
Oh, it did it. Look at me.
My technology so
big today we recognize and honor.
George Staggers is an elder of distinction.
His legacy is visible.
It helped shape the economic and cultural landscape of Seattle Central District.
Elder staggers served as the long time chief
executive of the Central Area Development Association.
CADA, a culturally relevant community development institution in Seattle.
Martin Luther King County.
Under his stewardship,
CADA became a stabilizing force
during decades of transition
when the African-American presence was experienced.
The travesty of disintegration that the Washington Legislature
and House Bill 1918 describes as the most negative impact realized
by any identifiable population
during this transition.
Label.
I just said that.
Sorry.
Okay.
During this transition.
Label gentrification.
He was ensuring that investment, opportunity and growth
did not totally bypass the people who built our community.
The northeast side of 23rd and Jackson was for years a pile of dirt.
Do we remember that for years? Right.
And Carter expanded it,
improved it, and brought us promenade 23.
He developed the southwest corner
that is now well, Shaw Apartments.
There is more, but I have a time limit,
so I can't name all of the developments that Carter has done.
When I was elected to the legislature and served on the Trade
and Economic Development and Housing Committee,
he mentored my ability to succeed
and bring millions of dollars to the 37th district
for housing development, making possible
the completion of the McKinley Manor and Amani village.
At first place that remain in the black community and under our ownership,
and keeps the Central District future with ties to its history.
He led with consistency,
gave us support to small business development with patience,
his mentorship is evident, evident in Fame Equity Housing
Alliance, that made possible the entry
of black women into the field of housing development.
He continues to advise first place in ways that maintains compliance,
growth and endowed economic stability for this African-American governor
in low income housing and education for families with children.
We recognize
him not only for the projects completed, but for the continuity
he provides, the steady hand, the institutional memory,
the commitment to Africatown Central District and beyond,
where black families, black businesses and black culture can remain rooted
and new, culturally strong ecosystems can emerge.
I present this plaque of recognition
for exceptional, legacy wise mentorship and by his passing,
the baton to the next generations, a sustaining presence.
This award is not an expression of giving him flowers while he lives gesture.
He's not going anywhere.
It is for continuing in
his elder years to be trusted, knowledgeable
and wise in ways that sustain us
as a culturally relevant population.
In Seattle, King County elders, steak staggers.
Please come down and accept this voluntary
recognition for the respect it's given.
And thank you for your continued
contribution from your storehouse of wisdom.
Where is it?
I know you,
I don't where is it?
And so this is 2026,
the African American African gathering.
That's all of you present the Elder of Distinction Legacy
Award to George M staggers as creator of black generational wealth
through housing and community economic development.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very.
Very.
Okay.
And you can go ahead.
Yeah.
I can still bend down, but I can't get up.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay.
- I want to say thanks to the community
for allowing me the honor and privilege to serve.
Thank you.
My service started, actually, when I was at I elementary school
as a school crossing guard.
Fifth and sixth grade.
And I am a student of Doctor Mims.
I don't want to take up
too much of your time because I know we're running a little behind schedule.
I did have something to read, but unfortunately my eyesight is not very good. And,
I just really appreciate all of the
thank you's and all of the
acknowledgment.
Of a struggle that started
when I was very young and I always enjoyed serving this community.
I believe this is
the most beautiful community that anyone could ever serve and live.
It and work it and worship in.
I know I've had my differences
with some, but I've always felt
that everyone deserves to be respected
regardless of their opinions, regardless
of their political attributes and
I look forward to continuing to serve this beautiful community
now and in the near future.
God bless you all.
- Let's give it up one more time
for our elder of distinction, y'all.
Thank you so much.
We have now come to a central moment in our program today.
I'm really grateful for our keynote speaker who is here.
I want to share some background with you all
so we can identify and understand who we have before us.
Okay.
Bernadette Atuahene
is a Harvard and Yale trained property law scholar
whose work focuses on the land
and homes stolen from black people.
She currently holds the Duggan Chair at the University
of Southern California Gold School of Law, and two a.
Hany has served as a judicial clerk at the South African Constitutional Court,
worked as a consultant for the South African Land Claims Commission,
and practiced at a global law firm
called Cleary Gottlieb.
She is the author of We Want What's Ours
Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution Program,
and she directed and produced an award winning short documentary film
about one South African family's struggle to regain their land.
Hoa Hany has won
several accolades and has published extensively in both academic journals
and news outlets such as The New York Times and LA times.
Please join me in welcoming Bernadette
Atuahene presenting Plunder and Repair.
So thank you.
- Very good morning, everybody.
I am so honored and delighted to be here today
to celebrate, the a decade of service for the, and,
so I want to just say,
before getting to this book, I want to, tell you a little bit
about my background and how I came to do this work.
So my parents immigrated to America from Ghana in West Africa.
And when I was a child, I knew I had four career options and four career options.
Only. I could be a doctor,
a lawyer,
an engineer, or a disgrace
to the entire family who.
I was bad at math,
so engineering was a complete and total no go.
The even thought of dissecting a cadaver to this day makes me want to barf.
So being a doctor was not in the cards for me.
And since I was absolutely determined not to be a disgrace,
the law was the only option left.
But I didn't want to be just any old lawyer.
Ever since I enrolled at UCLA for undergrad, I knew that
I wanted to be a change maker, protecting intergenerational wealth in my community.
And y'all, when I commit to something, I am all in.
I worked myself to the bone and made it to Yale Law School
and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for my graduate studies.
Eventually, I became a law professor.
And now I can tell you that 100% of my scholarly research,
writing, and activism has to do with land stolen from black people.
Now I do what's called ethnography,
which means I live in immersing myself in the place I study.
And my first ethnographic project was
examining stolen land in South Africa.
And my first book, We Want What's Ours Learning from South Africa's
Land Restitution Program really examine the psychological, political,
social, economic consequences of getting land or money back.
And in that book I developed two concepts.
The first is called a dignity taking.
And that's idea like, if I take something from you
at the moment of compensation, the point is to give that thing back.
But there's other instances where I take something from you
as part of a larger strategy of dehumanization or evangelization.
And those instances I've stolen more than just your property.
I've also tried to steal your dignity.
So I call that a dignity taking.
And the
argument is when this larger harm called a dignity
taking has occurred, mere reparations are not enough.
Just giving you compensation for that physical asset is not enough.
What's required is a more robust remedy that I call dignity restoration.
And that's the process of giving people assets
while also affirming their autonomy in their humanity.
And what that looks like is putting dispossessed
individuals and communities in the driver's seat and allowing them
to determine how it is that they're made whole.
Now, the book was a huge success.
At the official book launch in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The deputy Land Claims commissioner himself attended and publicly announced
that the commission planned to implement 90% of the book's
recommendations.
Now, that first book, while wildly successful,
was actually really uncomfortable for me in many ways
because it was looking at black people as the victims, right?
Black people getting stolen from.
So on my next ethnographic project, I was determined to study black agency.
I want to look at when we were stealing the land instead of being stolen from.
So I decided to study squatting
because this is when vulnerable populations are taking land
instead of again being stolen from and Detroit has one of the largest
squatting phenomenons urban squatting phenomenons happening in current U.S.
history.
So I want a big National Science Foundation grant to study
squatting in Detroit.
And that's how I actually arrived in Detroit, because I'm originally from L.A.
now, a squatter is someone who occupies a property without the permission
of the record owner.
And there's two types of squatters what normal people think of as a squatter.
I call it takeover.
Someone who rolls up onto a piece of property
without, you know, any prior legal relationship to that property.
But I teach I teach at USC, and I teach for I'm teaching property
right now to first years,
and I teach my first years in property about a concept called holdovers.
And those are people who had a prior relationship to the property
but fell out of it.
So for my sample, I had to interview both takeovers and holdovers.
And when I was interviewing the holdovers, one person after the next,
after the next, after the next said I was an owner and I got tax foreclosed
and I
stayed waiting for the new owners to arrive.
Now, as a property scholar, I knew a lot about mortgage
foreclosure, but I knew next to nothing about tax foreclosure.
So I had to really start doing my homework.
And I found that, I quickly
found that since 2009, 1 in 3 homes
has completed the property tax foreclosure process in Detroit.
1 in 3.
We haven't seen this number of property tax foreclosures
in American history since the Great Depression.
So given the graph and just again, I know y'all know this, but let me just say
Detroit is an 80% black city, the biggest, blackest city in America.
Right?
So let me just situate ourselves here.
So, you know, given this, the gravity of the situation,
my work is not theoretical, right, I do it, I'm living.
Those were my neighbors.
I live in the communities I study and my neighbors, their homes are getting stolen.
So I called up NSF and I got to switch from squatting,
to really, understanding the property tax foreclosure.
And so since 2017, I've been living in Detroit full time,
really trying to understand the property tax foreclosure from those I live beside.
But at that point, me again, instead of I was excited to study
black agency, it had me again studying our victimhood.
So in the book, my Risha
Brown is one of more than 150 homeowners who I interviewed for my study.
Now, my Russia is this petite, brown skinned woman with this super cute pixie
cut, and hers is one of the many stories I tell in my book plundered
how racist policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America.
So one cold winter day, my wife and I actually decided
we were going to return to the house
on Baylis Street that she had lost through property tax foreclosure.
And as we walked towards the house, Mary, she was like, dang, professor, I haven't
been back here since, you know, my kids and I were evicted some years ago.
I'm feeling some kind of way.
I was like, don't worry girl, I got you.
We're going to do this together.
And as soon as we stepped into the yard, we noticed that the home was vacant.
And for my risha, this was a
total and complete gut punch because she had worked so hard
to make sure her home did not become a blighted, vacant structure
like so many of the homes on her block
and so many of the homes in the city of Detroit.
As we walked around the homes perimeter, she pointed out all the places she had
told me about in the multiple interviews we had conducted throughout the years.
She's a professor right here.
This is a spot where our garage used to be.
A fire that started next door burned down the garage, she said.
This right here.
This is where my granddad's apple tree used to be.
When he died.
It died and it eventually got torn down
as we
moved from the backyard to the side of the home.
She stopped and peered through the side window to get a better
look at the living room, which was where her grandmother,
who lived to age 102, spent her last days.
And when she was looking through the window,
my Rishi's face just turned ashen.
So I was like, wait, what's going on?
So I ran over next to her to see what in the world was going on.
And can I tell you that we both could not
believe our eyes.
The pipes in the home had frozen and burst,
covering the living room and at least a foot of ice.
My wrist just started wailing
and all I could do was just stand there, hold, hold her and cry with her.
So this home on Baylis Street meant so much to my risha,
because her grandparents fought hell and high water to acquire it.
Despite racial covenants, redlining, blockbusting,
urban renewal and other racist policies in their retirement,
my Reece's grandparents were finally able to purchase this home
and it was without a doubt their dream home.
And what's crazy is the home was in an area
where racial covenants had once, prevented blacks from living.
But when whites moved to the suburbs, blacks moved in.
Now the home on Bailey Street was the only asset
that my righteous grandparents had to pass down.
But by the time my Reece's grandmother passed away, I told y'all
she lived to 102.
Nobody even wanted the home.
No family member even wanted the home because it was no longer a valuable asset.
It had become a money pit.
The home had broken windows that were covered
with plastic to keep the elements out.
There was no functioning shower or bath in the home, and plaster was falling
from the ceilings and the other homes on the block were in equally bad shape.
But what I need you to understand is that when historic and modern day
redlining cut off funds for home improvement,
this type of blight is the inevitable result.
Given the poor shape of the Bailey Street home.
The real question is why in the world was my Resa so eager to inherit her
grandparents home?
And so dedicated to rehabilitating it, when other family members
wanted absolutely nothing to do with the home?
When I interviewed Maria for the first time,
she really gave me some insight into this quandary,
and she shared her life with me, and she told me
that she's the oldest child and a woman.
We've got to talk about gender.
And she was carrying back breaking caretaking
responsibilities on her very narrow shoulders.
Marissa told me that not only did she take care of her own two children,
she also had to take care of their father,
who was in a wheelchair as a result of a carjacking.
She told me she had to care for her sister,
who had a debilitating autoimmune disease, and that sister's child,
Marissa, also had to care for another sister
who had irreversible brain damage and that sister's young son.
Because of our nation's poorest social safety net, women
like my Risha are forced to fill the gaps at great cost
to themselves.
After spending time with my risha, it became super clear
why she couldn't easily abandon her grandparents home on Baylis Street
under no circumstances does Marissa dodge or evade family responsibilities,
no matter how daunting she takes them on head on.
So rehabilitating her grandparents legacy is not something
that my Risha wanted to do.
It's something that my Risha had to do.
Some of my most precious childhood memories happened in Bailey Street,
she said, professor, I remember,
scooping up the apples my granddaddy shook down from the apple trees.
He said, those are some of the juiciest green apples in the whole city of Detroit.
Above
all, my is what I would call a ride to die Detroiter.
She don't play about her city, and she did not want the home
to become a vacant eyesore like so many other homes in the city,
contributing to the story of the city's demise instead of the city's revival.
That's why that day where we both returned to the home on Baylis Street
and she saw the living room filled with at least a foot of ice.
She felt like a complete and total failure.
But I need you to hear me.
My risha failed because individual efforts
are no match for broken systems.
Let me say that again.
My risha failed
because individual efforts are no match for broken systems.
The scientists started when my risha found a yellow bag attached to her porch.
It looks, just like if you guys, I'll be,
with the book.
It's the.
The book cover has this yellow bag on it.
And when she opened the bag, she found a legal notice informing her
that the property tax foreclosure process had begun.
And if she did not pay her debt by March 31st of the following year,
Wayne County would sell her home at its tax foreclosure auction.
After she read the notice, my Rita was flooded with emotion.
She felt scared.
She felt anxious.
She felt depressed.
But most of all, y'all, I want you to know
she felt shame.
She was ashamed because a yellow bag announced the entire neighborhood
that she was behind on her taxes and about to lose her grandparents home.
But when she looked up, surprisingly, almost every other home on
the block had a yellow bag attached to the porch.
So at that point she knew something was awry.
She didn't know exactly what was going on, but she knew something wasn't right.
And when I first interviewed my Risha, she blamed herself for losing her home.
She said, well, Prof.
You know, the point is, clearly I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing.
And most
city officials that I interviewed also explained the property tax foreclosure
crisis, what I call these narratives of personal irresponsibility.
One of them told me, well, professor, the problem is
that Detroit is just don't want to pay their taxes.
Another one said, the problem is Detroiters bought homes
they couldn't afford.
And another city official, I'm calling him out by name,
the Detroit treasurer, Dave Semansky, told me.
And also told a roomful of 900 black people about to lose their home as he's
standing on this day is, unfortunately, when Detroit has had a choice between
buying a purse and paying their taxes, they decided to buy the purse.
Yes he did.
Okay, but my research tells a very different story.
It's not a story of personal irresponsibility.
It's a story of structural injustice and reach and searching this book,
I have interviewed hundreds of homeowners, government officials and investors.
I've combed through reams and reams of tax assessment data, y'all.
I even took a nine month course and passed the state exam
to become a certified Michigan property tax assessor.
Okay, I told y'all when I go all in, I go in.
And my comprehensive
investigation shows that between 2009 and 2015,
in each of these seven years, the city of Detroit overvalued between 53
and 84% of its properties, in violation of the Michigan State Constitution,
which quite clearly says no property can be assessed
at more than 50% of its market value.
And the lowest valued homes, like the home on Baylis Street that,
my risha inherited, were the ones that were most severely affected.
I'm not the only one doing research.
The Detroit News did an exposé, and they found that the city of Detroit
overtaxed Detroit homeowners by at least
$600 million.
Since over 30% of Detroit residents live below the poverty line, many homeowners
didn't have the money to pay for these illegally inflated property taxes.
And what was worse, they lost their homes or property taxes
they weren't even supposed to be paying in the first place.
Because in Michigan,
when you live below the poverty line, you qualify for poverty tax exemption.
But the city of Detroit made this entitlement so hard to get
and did not publicize it, that we had over
30,000 families lose their homes for their failure to pay illegal
property taxes that they should not have been paying in the first place.
So that day,
when my Risha saw those yellow bags attached to every other home, right?
That's what was going on. My God, my God.
And what I need you to know is when a local government takes a family
home for failure to pay property taxes, it's not just taken bricks and mortar,
it's taken intergenerational wealth
is taking priceless memories.
Through the chaos of eviction, families
lose so much
they lose those precious family photos.
They lose grand mama's quilts.
They lose, you know, those height
marks we etched into the doorframes to mark our children's growth?
They lose neighbors who have become like family, right?
They.
When you go through property tax foreclosure, you lose so much.
And because most tax foreclosed
homes had been inherited and were fully paid off, people
blame themselves for losing mama's home or grand daddy's home.
If they had a mortgage on the home,
the bank would have taken the home before the government got to it.
So during the interviews I conducted with tax foreclosed homeowners,
I really cannot tell you how much shame and self lambasting was going on.
It got so bad that after I finished the interviews,
obviously I couldn't say anything during the interviews.
Tobias the data.
But after I finish the interview, I would call some people back
and I would say, you know what says?
I would say, you know what, my brother, I said, I would tell them
there is no reason to feel shame.
I would tell them systemic injustice was hidden
in these very complex property tax calculations.
I would tell them that racist policies
had you out here trying to slay a dragon with a butter knife.
Now I
use Doctor Ibram X Kendi, who's a dear friend of mine.
His definition of racist policies, which are written and unwritten laws
and policies and processes that produce or sustain racial inequity.
Now, the way property taxes are administered in
Wayne County is undoubtedly qualifies.
Wayne County has 43 cities, 33
have a supermajority of white people, 70% or more in three.
Detroit, Inkster and Highland Park have a supermajority of black people.
And so I did a study, and we found that
the majority, black cities are overtaxed
and foreclosed on at a far greater rate than the majority white cities.
This is racial injustice.
But I now need you to know that this injustice is not at all
exclusively a Detroit problem.
I need you to understand that Detroit is ground zero for a national problem.
A study done by two of my colleagues, Troup Howard and Carlos Abernathy,
early on shows that blacks and Hispanics, on average, pay a 10 to 13%
higher property tax rate than whites for the same bundle of goods,
which equals, on average, 3 to $400
more per year nationally.
So racialized property tax administration
is a nationwide problem that our nation has not even begun to talk about.
And most importantly, this is a quintessential example
of what I call in my book,
plunder Predatory Governance.
And that means when local governments intentionally or unintentionally raise
public dollars through racist policies,
we've seen predatory governance before.
That's exactly what we saw in Ferguson, Missouri.
Beyond what happened to our dear brother, Michael Brown,
there is an excellent Department of Justice report that documents
how police in Ferguson were engaging in unconstitutional policing
and subjecting African-Americans to excessive fines and fees.
Who benefit financially, not some corrupt police officer,
but the city of Ferguson itself.
Predatory governance is what's happening in Detroit
and many other cities where local governments are inflating
the property taxes of black and brown homeowners who financially benefit.
Again, not some corrupt public official, but the public coffers.
So just as
Detroit is ground zero for a national problem,
the part that gives me light and gives me hope and gives me joy
is that Detroit is also the epicenter of the resistance.
Once my research exposed the hidden structural problems,
this information lifted.
The shame allowed homeowners to stop beating themselves up
and made room for righteous indignation so that the fight back could begin.
In 2017, my students and I joined with over a dozen grassroots organizations
to create an organization called the coalition for Property, Tax Justice
and the coalition has three goals and three goals.
Only number one is to stop these over assessments
not only in Detroit but throughout the nation.
Number two is to stop the ongoing foreclosures in Detroit
until we can make sure that people are being assessed,
for what they actually owe.
And number three is to provide compensation because you
can't have all this empirically unchallenged proof of over assessment.
Talk about some. Oops.
Sorry. Okay.
We need some, some compensation.
So by building community power,
we have secured several significant wins.
Now, we've halted roughly
13,000 tax foreclosures by pressuring the Wayne County treasurer
to place a moratorium on homes in 2020
through 2024.
We have helped over
1000 Detroit homeowners successfully apply, for a total of $4.4
million in federal Arpa money to pay their illegally inflated
property tax debt.
My students and I have appealed the property tax assessments
of over 1000 Detroit homeowners, completely free of charge.
And we have secured
$6 million from the city of Detroit to for compensation.
And I told you they stole 600 million.
So I need you to understand that 6 million as a start.
But most importantly, through something we call the Dignity Restoration Project.
Now, this comes full circle with the work in South Africa.
We're raising $10 million to compensate the hardest hit Detroiters
like my Resa, who lost their homes due to their failure to play illegally,
inflated property taxes that they weren't supposed to be paying in the first place
because they qualified for the poverty tax exemption.
If you're interested
in knowing more about the work, you can go to the Dignity Restoration
Project Dawg again, Dignity Restoration Project, Dot org.
You can go there and contribute, and your contribution sends a message
saying, I see you and I affirm your dignity to my Rita
and the other 30,000 people again, who lost their homes
for property taxes they weren't supposed to be paying in the first place.
To conclude.
I'm glad that I didn't become an engineer.
I'm glad that I did not become a doctor.
I'm glad that I became a lawyer fighting against the theft of black homes, fighting
to protect our intergenerational wealth and our dignity.
Both of my parents
have gone on to glory, but I know they are smiling down on me
because somehow, someway, I have managed not to be a disgrace.
It affects. Him.
But more importantly, and let me get serious and more seriously,
people in Detroit and throughout the country who are filled with shame
because they are fighting a losing battle against racist policies.
They are not a disgrace either.
I'll stop there.
Now, can I?
Spirit is moving me to give y'all
one more piece, can I do I have five more minutes?
Spirit let me and let let me,
let me say this because I want a chance to bring this local.
So if I could thank you.
So the book uses
two grandfathers because I'm not trying to tell you.
I'm trying to show you.
So these two grandfathers were both sharecroppers in their place of origin.
All right.
Grandpa Brown was a sharecropper from North Carolina and black and Grandpa
Boots.
He's a sharecropper from Italy in a system called message reia.
And what's interesting is they both come to Detroit at the same time,
between 1903 and 1905, to work at the same factory,
Ford's River Rouge factory, which, if you know anything about the that
that was one of the meanest, dirtiest, most dangerous of Ford's factories.
And so what I'm able to show you
is the trajectory of these men who had very similar beginnings.
Right.
And so what we find with Grandpa Butchie is he at no point had an easy life.
Grandpa Butchie literally had four fingers because one of his fingers
got sliced off in a work accident.
Because before he made it to Detroit,
he worked in France's coal mines and lost a finger.
Okay, grandpa, but he never had an easy life because Grandpa
Butchie was Italian before Italians became white.
Can we talk about it?
Okay.
But even though Grandpa Butchie never had an easy life, at no point
did he deal with racial covenants, which are covenants tucked in deeds
that prevented black people from living in the best parts of the city
and, more importantly, prevented black people from living in the suburbs
where the homes were cheaper, bigger, with better amenities.
Grandpa Butchie had a hard life, but at no point
did he have to deal with redlining, which is because of these racial covenants.
Black people only had certain communities that they could live in
like this community.
And so then the federal government puts a red line around our communities, right?
To say where credit risk.
And that means we're not getting valuable investment like home loans,
mortgages, repair loans, small business loans we're getting.
And so the inevitable result of redlining is blight.
Grandpa Butchie had a hard life, but at no point
did he have to do with deal with urban renewal.
Another process that happened in this very community, right?
Urban renewal.
They razed entire communities.
And not only did they take the blighted homes, but they took the, blighted homes.
They took the productive black businesses and the black cultural institutions.
And instead of living in communities where we were tightly interconnected
and networked,
now, since there were only a few because of segregation, a few places
we could move.
We're now living in communities of strangers.
Grandpa Butchie had a hard life, but at no point
did he have to deal with blockbusting, which is because of redlining.
The very presence of black people could reduce the market value of homes.
And so when black people would move into a neighborhood, white people would sell.
Because of this, phenomenon created by redlining.
And then white people would sell quickly.
Anytime you sell quickly, you sell at a reduced price.
And these real estate intermediation intermediaries
would resell to black people.
And they then, at elevated prices.
So the point here is that when you look at, again,
the difference between Grandpa Butchie
and Grandpa Brown, Grandpa Boots, his grandson, inherited his home.
And his home is worth over $250,000
in a suburb of Detroit called Livonia.
Grandpa Brown's granddaughters, who I was just talking to about my risha
and what she inherited, it was a money pit instead of a valuable asset. Why?
Because of these layers and layers of racist policies.
But the story America tells is grandpa boots.
She got what he got because he worked hard.
I'm here to tell you, Grandpa Brown worked hard to.
And I want to close by just saying, when we look at the black community
and we see these issues and problems, who gets the blame?
Is what's visible.
The black people in the communities.
These racist policies have no shoulders on which to carry the blame.
So our charge as people who love
justice is to make the invisible visible in every conversation.
When you hear these narratives of personal irresponsibility,
the communities like it is because they're having babies
out of wedlock committing crime.
Whatever excuse they want to say.
Your job is to switch the conversation from any narrative of personal
irresponsibility, to point out these layers and layers of racist policies.
That is the work of those of us who love justice.
I'm going to stop there. Thank you.
Now. Who we get.
- Let's give it up one more time for Doctor Bernadette.
Atuahene
Wow. We are so grateful
for that grounding of truth.
The example in Detroit,
which is really making a stance across this nation.
And I want to take a moment here to introduce and welcome to the stage,
president and CEO of Africatown
Community Land Trust, K. Wyking Garrett,
to truly ground us in this local struggle here.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Peace.
Good after.
Good morning. Good morning.
It's the first time I had the, the, you know, the headset.
It's a little where I feel like Drew Square.
Prosper I'm coming down.
Definitely coming down from the ceiling.
Can we, can we give it up again for our dear sister, scholar,
warrior,
Professor Bernadette Atuahene
I know. Yeah.
Yeah.
we have to fight on all fronts.
This has been a beautiful program.
I think I'm going to be able to give about 20 minutes of my speech back
because it's already been said.
Bishop Tyson said
generational wealth over generational wounds.
And that poem by sister Kweli, man
Honoring our Elders and.
The honorable Don Mason never falls short.
The passing of baton
is so critical, and I'm, just appreciative that I have the opportunity
within this marathon to
carry the baton for a little bit.
Right.
Because it's really a relay. It's a relay.
Right.
And so.
Thank you all for being here.
I know it's a lot of uncertainty.
A lot of times it's easier to,
scroll down
and swipe left than it is to show up and stand for what's right.
But we've all showed up to here today, and that matters.
It matters to this neighborhood.
It matters to our ancestors.
It matters to our future, to future generations.
It it matters to our collective futures and the community we love.
And what we're here to talk about today is not a side issue.
It's not a small concern.
It's not just a black issue,
an africatown issue.
This is a Seattle issue.
It's a Martin Luther King County issue.
It's a Washington state issue.
And as we heard, it's a nationwide and a global issue.
Right.
And so we want to always understand the context that we exist in.
And the question that we're asking
is who gets to belong in this city?
Who gets to stay, who gets to return,
who gets to build a future here and call it home?
And our biggest question is,
are there black people in the future?
That's the question
that we asked.
My name is K.Wyking Garrett.
I'm a third generation community builder from the Central District,
but lovingly our africatown right here in Seattle.
I stand here today
not as a policy analyst or organizer
or a developer or a CEO,
but really as a son of the Central District,
the neighborhood that raised me.
Coaches
who weren't related to me
but treated me like family
matriarchs like Beulah Walker.
After a coma, Jerry and Brown, who opened their homes
to so many of us children in this community.
I grew up understanding that barbershops.
Weren't just places for cutting hair
in the CD.
Barbershops were town halls, newsrooms,
gathering spots, therapy sessions.
Churches weren't just for song and worship.
They were safe spaces, safety nets for anyone who needed a helping hand.
Cornerstones put people over transactions like Jordan's and Mr.
Parnell's.
The original
Right?
It wasn't.
Hurry up and buy,
pick and pay.
It was. How's your mother?
Stay out of trouble.
Keep up the good work in school.
The central district.
The city has never just been a place to me.
It has always been a remarkable ecosystem of care.
A place where black families who were told there was nowhere else
they could buy and plant roots, planted roots
and grew as a beautiful garden,
a garden
that time and time again, as we heard by policies,
has been trampled on.
Seeds that weren't allowed to flourish
season after season.
And as we heard so eloquently articulated.
The harm done was not accidental.
From the
National Housing Act in 1934 that labeled black neighborhoods
as hazardous and denied us access to the single greatest wealth
building tool in American history, the 30 year mortgage, where white families
leverage leveraged government black loans to purchase homes and build equity.
Equity.
Black families were blocked from those same loans and forced
to scramble to maintain stable housing.
The GI Bill opened doors
to veterans in 1944, but those doors were closed
to many black veterans who sacrificed their lives
and came back to face systems
of discriminatory bank banking,
then the Federal Highway Act and Urban
Renewal, or, as James Baldwin called it, Negro removal.
As we heard about earlier, these same neighborhoods
eventually were divested from.
And then became desirable again.
And so the same places that we were pushed to
now that oil was discovered,
became the same place
that we're pushed from.
We're talking about populations.
That's been reported as as high as 90% black, going down
towards 10%.
So we know harm is what
collusion between government and private sectors
did to the bank.
You got the banks on one side, the government on the other side,
and collusion.
Those are facts.
They're very document.
There's been books many books.
But harm is not our story.
Our story is that of resilience.
Of regeneration,
of innovation.
Making a way out of no way
from the East Madison Mardi Gras to the Black Community Festival,
Mojo Fest, Garfield High School to Chi,
from block parties to Juneteenth events
united our community established traditions
that will be passed on from generation to generation.
We may reuniting and connecting
with each other a regular practice.
We may space to celebrate ourselves and uplift one another.
These events were reminders that no matter how hard it gets,
we are not alone.
As long as we have each other.
So as I stand before you
as a child of the Central District, the CD.
And CEO of Africatown Community Land Trust,
I stand here knowing what it was like to be in the CD
before the devastation of gentrification
or BC,
before crack. It.
I stand here knowing what it feels like to be supported
and cared for by your community.
I stand here knowing the transformative impact
that real community has, not only on quality of life, but our life spans.
Ten years ago, Africatown Community
Land Trust was founded on a simple
but seemingly radical belief
if black families can own land, we can stay.
If we can stay, we can build.
And if we build, the whole city
is better and stronger.
That belief has guided our actions for the last decade.
Act actually wasn't something that I set out to build.
My focus really was on protecting and nurturing our youth.
But on that journey,
it came to be clear how central land was to their own trajectory.
Children need a place to belong.
Yet again and again, we found ourselves
displaced in the very neighborhood that we grew up in,
from a major peace center, from Coleman School
of the African-American Heritage Museum to the Peace Center, to Horace Mann,
to black tie.
We found ourselves displaced time and time again
while trying to grow and create and maintain safe spaces for young people.
So it became clear that
new strategies were needed.
And I do come from a legacy where it was clear
that the struggle was for land meeting by meeting,
starting with the Union Street Business Association
and Africatown stakeholders and young people
and artists, creatives, hip hop artists.
Conversation by conversation, things began to take shape.
Resources were nonexistent, but we had each other,
we had ideas, and we had an image of what we wanted for our future.
And so now you go to 23rd, 24th in Union,
and you see proof of what's possible, right?
Liberty Bank building
became a living testament to what happens when we don't give up
advocating, rallying, organizing, and pushing for what
our children and our ancestors and our elders deserve.
When I see that corner, I am proud.
My grandfather helped established Liberty Bank,
Holbrook
Garrett, my father a martyr.
Here, Garrett carried the mantle to make sure that that community,
that corner, came back to our community.
And now acts work ensures that it remains
a fixture for generations to come.
Earl's Communion Cafe
Bowl are more than businesses.
They are living extensions of our black legacy
and culture in the Central District and black communities.
Our businesses are also cultural safe spaces, protecting
and promoting our connections to one another.
After Liberty Bank building.
And Brian Surratt is here and now our deputy mayor
was at the mayor's office at the time and supported
the Liberty Bank and then
the Africatown Midtown MoU,
based on the Africatown equitable
development framework that we developed.
More opportunities
for black businesses were created,
more opportunities for black contractors,
and more connecting our young people
to positive pathways.
Midtown square is now alive with black businesses
like Art in the Jerk Shack, Marjorie's, and the Resole.
That was not an accident.
That was from intentional
focus, imagining, designing
and building the future that we wanted to see.
It said that
the best way to predict
the future is to work,
to create it.
And that's what Africatown Community Land Trust and Africatown is about.
Africatown Plaza was our first project that we led from conception to completion,
a blueprint for development without displacement.
A refusal to accept that gross growth
must cost us ourselves.
And over the past ten years, we've proven something
powerful that community ownership works.
The question is now no longer if it works,
the question is whether we have the courage to scale it.
And so what we are building now.
It's not just buildings.
We always say that buildings don't build community.
People do.
But what we're building is not just buildings.
We're actually
installing and erecting
the infrastructure for a new ecosystem to grow, an ecosystem where
land is secured and community stewardship housing remains permanently affordable.
Youth move forward through a pipeline of developing
their brilliance and realizing their potential.
Black businesses anchor our corridors from Union
to Jackson to Cherry.
Culture is preserved not as decoration
but as a testament to the past
as well as the future.
As a student of history that understands the facts
that brought us to this moment,
I am excited and optimistic
for where we are today.
Seattle has begun through these projects
and many more that have emanated from this work.
Because it wasn't just about
our projects, it was about changing the policy environment, bringing over
nearly $500 million into community through across many different projects,
through the work of folks like Jim Buchanan
collaborating with Jim Buchanan on Community Reinvestment
Program, $200 million, King County Equity now, the $100 million.
And now we just had the recent $80 million working through,
the previous administration and council president, Joy Hollingsworth,
for reparations for housing in our community.
And so when we think about 2050, we can see Seattle,
which when the Space Needle was erected, said, this is a city of the future.
It's a model that looked at that and looked at by cities
not only across this country, but across the world.
Seattle can be a model of a thriving city that has faced this past,
atoned for its wrongs, and invested in new systems
that ensure that the black community can stay and grow and thrive in place.
A city that
leads the nation in positive outcomes,
from public safety to health care.
And we're grateful that the new mayor has said,
this is our city, this is your city.
But we also know that in order
for it to be ours, we have to have some titles,
some deeds and some keys.
Right?
So we want to make sure.
Our work is about moving
rhetoric to reality, to bricks and mortar,
something that you can touch, something that's tangible.
Okay.
And so that's the question that we're faced with.
Right.
What do we do now.
We have a new administration and city.
We have a new administration at the county.
And we have nothing but possibility in front of us.
If we can invest in those things that have already been proven to
show us what's possible.
One of our driving questions,
because we love the work that we've done.
But we also have to come back to this question, and I believe it's
a masai saying in East Africa,
a greeting, actually, how are the children?
And so when we look at just at Garfield High School, only 12% of our students
are proficient in math, 27% in science,
and 37% in English and writing.
That's not a failure of our children.
As we heard before.
It's not individual shame.
It's a failure of infrastructure.
It's a failure of our collective responsibility to our future.
When makeshift memorials
become permanent fixtures in our community.
In contrast to murals about a glorious past.
We know that it's a failure of infrastructure.
When vigils for our young people
become routine events,
we know that the infrastructure for safe passage
to a thriving future is failing.
And so Africatown is about building infrastructure, land, infrastructure,
housing, infrastructure, cultural infrastructure,
economic infrastructure.
And there's a choice
Seattle can keep reacting
to crisis after crisis.
Or we can commit to installing those new systems
that prevent those crises from happening in the first place.
And so the opportunity is to really commit.
We've had studies after studies after studies.
We've been studied since the Kerner Commission in 1967.
And it all says the same thing
anti-Black racism
is the cause of the conditions
that we find ourselves in.
And so a commitment to partnering with Africatown is a commitment
to addressing youth violence by creating safe,
vibrant, thriving communities where our young people are using 3D
printers to create prototypes for products, prosthetics
and not printing out clocks with switches.
Right.
It's about replacing negative technology
with positive technology for creation, right?
Enabling their imagination.
For every 100 high school students in unstable housing,
approximately 30 will have experienced sexual violence in the past year
compared to 11 out of 100 stably house students.
Unstable house students are nearly twice as likely
to have seriously considered suicide or made a suicide plan.
For these and many other reasons, we are building
our focus by 2050 is to build 2500
affordable homes.
At our guest home, at our brand new,
at our brand new community home
balloons in the building.
Right across the street from here.
We've provided
housing to over 500 of our community members coming out of the streets
and not having a place to stay, but not just, again, housing.
It's about dignity, respect and seeing what's possible for them
and not just where they're at.
Wraparound services that have
led to many transitioning into secure, permanent housing.
We are committed to ensuring that our families harmed by redlining,
racial injustice and displacement can stay on and thrive.
Here.
We are committed to protecting the children of our community,
which has been said that children are the greatest wealth of any nation,
and we have to resource and grow it for them to be able to grow and thrive here.
So where are we going?
Over the next
three years,
we're raising $250 million
in combined public and private investments.
To build
200 units of affordable housing across the street,
our Youth Achievement Center, a partnership with Community Passage, ways
and creative Justice, adding housing to the William Gross Center site,
building affordable homeownership and our South Walker project.
And this year,
our focus is $2.5 million to stabilize
what has already been built over the past ten years
because it takes resources.
These dollars will scale the wraparound services
to be able to support our residents, to have positive economic mobility
once they come into Liberty Bank and Africatown Plaza and other,
affordable housing projects.
We don't want them to stop there.
We want them to move towards ownership.
And for some, the number may seem high
$250 million.
Well, for our community, we said we need $1 billion
anti displacement reparative fund.
That's what King County Equity Now said in 2020.
But in the 2023,
the King County Commission to study that said over $5 billion have been stolen
from black community based on discriminatory housing practices,
just housing.
We're not talking about criminal justice.
We're not talking about mass incarceration, just in housing.
So, again, as a professor, share with us that's
just a down payment,
right?
We deserve to be made whole.
And so
for everyone that's here
and those that aren't here, spread the word to them.
We definitely need you to commit to invest.
An investment in Africatown has shown
that it's a gift that keeps on giving, right?
There's many other now our churches shout out to Bishop Tyson and Goodwill.
They just got their homeownership project funded.
Right.
So our churches, instead of selling the land
and moving south because they've been they accepted the narrative that we're gone.
They're now keeping their land and building.
Right.
But in 2015 when we started, we didn't believe.
We said, oh, you know how the movie going, black person get killed.
First we're out of here, but now we're reconnecting
right across the community.
We didn't have black developers.
Now there's multiple black developers building, right?
But we need to get our developers to scale.
So when we invest in Africatown, it keeps going, right?
Changing policies at the Washington
State Housing Commission to prioritize buying for.
Right.
So that's many communities benefiting from this
to our city and county
leadership treat Africatown as core infrastructure
because that's what we are to philanthropy leaders.
We appreciate the annual grant opportunities,
but 2026 and beyond, we look to you to broaden multi year
commitments, opportunities that match the scale of the harm
and the scale of the rebuilding opportunity
to our community.
Thank you for showing up.
Please continue to shop, keep holding us accountable,
keep building with us.
To the ACLT
Africatown Community Land Trust Board
employees, contractors, vendors and volunteers.
Can you please stand up and be acknowledged?
All of our board members please
our staff Africatown Community Land Trust,
William Gross Center,
Africatown center for education Innovation
the whole ecosystem.
Working tirelessly every day I thank you.
We are because you are.
They told us the Central
District was a has been for black people, a past reality
to be memorialized by plaques and murals
and statues.
Because of you,
we've built living memorials
where the activities of the past are honored by activities.
Today, we honor our entrepreneurs like Charlene by having spaces
where the next de Charlene can be cultivated to be an entrepreneur,
the next Lewis of Ezelle’s
right, the next Jacob Lawrence.
I received a book today
and I'm so grateful I have, this is from our great historian,
Esther Mumford, and it says the the Man Who Founded a town.
I have all of her books, Black Victorians, calabash.
So I encourage you, she has documented our history right here in Seattle.
But we honor those who founded towns
by founding, sustaining and building our towns.
That's all Africa towns about.
We've had our Black Wall Street, we've had our Rosewood, and we can do it again.
And that's where we want to engage our young people in.
And so
my conviction has never been as strong.
I'm an optimist.
And for me,
it's not an if.
It's not a how.
The black in thriving Seattle
that we had glimpses of as a child
is what we need to make our now.
And we can do it.
Let's do it together.
Let's build together.
Thank you, thank you.
And I have one more thing to say.
I have one more thing to say.
Any policy agenda?
This is probably the most important thing that does not include repair
for the descendants of American shadow
slavery that migrated to this area
and then endured decades of anti-Black racism
while claiming to be about equity
and social justice
is completely inadequate
and not acceptable.
And so we have to be recognized for what we've given to this country,
what we've given to this city,
what we've given to Martin Luther King County.
And we should never be on the back seat because of any issue,
because we've been dealing with this for 500 years in this country.
And if we can't get justice, nobody will get justice.
- Wow. There it is.
Oh, let's give it up one more time for Kiki and Gary.
My goodness.
Of course, now,
with all that has been said, we do have elected
officials in the building so that we can hear directly from them
and understand how they will address the need
and the sign of the times we are in, in the building.
We have our Seattle City Council president, Joy Hollingsworth,
please come to the stage.
We have our King County
Executive, Girmay Zahilay our ally in the building.
Please make your way to the stage.
And we
have the new city of Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson.
Please make your way to the stage.
We will allow you all
to address the needs and what you have heard today,
and to be centered on your commitments
to the people of this great city and for you,
the people of the county.
- Do I go to the the state, the platform I can okay, awesome.
Thank you. Good.
Is it afternoon. So good morning.
It's afternoon.
So I can't say Grand rising to everybody.
Some of us just got up Saturday.
Well, well, first off, it is such an honor
to be here with you all today and to see all the melanin in the room.
I just want to sit right.
Thank you, Africatown, for the opportunity.
That was phenomenal to hear our keynote speakers.
Kiki and Garrett.
Triana.
All the people. Elder Mason cannot forget her.
You got to say her name or us. Elder Mason.
Amen.
Okay, because I'll hear it after you did not
recognize me.
Sorry.
So I come to you.
Come on. In. My series.
Don't don't play.
All right?
And, you know, she'd be on the phone for, like, an hour or two,
and you gotta be like, hey, my mama's on the other line.
I got to go.
It's the only excuse I can get to get off the phone with you is
my mama is on the other line.
So I come to you today.
I always say I'm a fourth generation, Seattleite from the Central District.
And I remember when I was running, people would always say,
why do you always say you're fourth generation?
Why do you always, you know, talk about that?
Because that's when our family moved from the South to Seattle
and place for a new life.
And that was the new beginning of our family.
And that's why I always talk about it.
That was our our fourth generation.
And I always talk about my grandmother.
She was born in South Carolina, in 1920, and she moved from in the same land
in which her family was enslaved on in 1920, in Bishopville.
And she moved to Seattle.
And I talk about her a lot, but also talk about my grandfather.
My grandfather was born in Oklahoma, went to Langston University.
I'm a product of a bunch of people who went to historically black
colleges and universities, Payne College, Langston.
My mom went to Xavier University in New Orleans.
And so when we are,
for the last two years, I'm in my third year
of being on the Seattle City Council and representing the Central District,
First Hill, Capitol Hill, Madrona district three is very, very wide.
And what I saw
for the last two years, when people when I go out to the community
and people were asking about things,
whether it was Africatown or the different groups, black community,
it was a ton of talking about land,
homeownership, joy, we want the what would you say
we want the deed, the the whole thing, the titles and the keys.
But you said you said it better.
Why can't how did you say it was the keys?
Thank you.
The keys in the title and the in and everything.
Every and everything.
Everything.
All the stuff that was.
That's what I constantly heard about is people talking about
I want homeownership, I want to own my business.
I want economic mobility, all the issues that we were having.
And so, what what we did was we talked about we
we put together
some we put together kind of like this plan, this framework,
this had nothing to do with the city of Seattle.
It was just our office.
So we could figure out framework
when we have when we're doing and we're talking about, budgets.
Okay.
I have my district three budget and then I have my black budget.
So I got to budget every time I go to Council Member Dan Strauss.
Every year I have my district three budget and then a black budget.
And I think it's important to understand, and we've heard about it
where we started and then where we are right now.
So just walk just whole with me.
So in 1865, black people were 13% of the population.
90% of us lived in the South.
We had no legal protections.
We had 1.5% of the wealth
in this country in 1865.
Fast forward to 2026.
We're still 13% of the population.
We are 58% of us live in the South.
The key to this, which is key, we only own
4% of the overall net worth in this country.
That is, 160 years later, that's between 6 to 8 generations later.
4% of the overall wealth in this country.
In Seattle, our black population is 7%.
Our households, 28% of black households own their homes.
That is down from 1970. We were 50%.
We had the highest black homeownership rate in the country.
The the median household income for a black
family is $55,000 in this progressive city.
And it's been like that for ten years.
And it's the thing that I'm always talking about,
and I know that my king always tells me about this.
The average household income compared to white families, which is $130,000,
black businesses account for 1% of the businesses
in the city of Seattle, and they generate 1% of the overall wealth
due to redlining.
White King talked about it.
$5 billion has been extracted from, black community.
32% of black households are food insecure,
compared to 7% of our white counterparts.
Blacks accounts for 19% of the homeless population,
but we're 7% of the overall population.
And last but not least, 20% 28% of black
male students are at a third are our, excuse me,
28% of black male students, are at a third grade reading level.
So at third grade, only 28% can read.
So where are we going?
You've seen the stats. Where are we going?
There's five points of progress that we've identified for black community
to make sure that we are progressing.
Number one is through housing.
Number two is education and the arts.
You cannot have.
Thank you.
You cannot have education without without the arts.
Third is health health and wellness.
That's your food insecurity.
That's that is thank you.
Health health it as I get older health as well you know we get out of bed.
You put that sav on.
You try to try to get going.
The fourth one is economic mobility.
We talk a lot about you know, equity.
I always say equity spelled monie y.
That's kind of like my thing.
But you'd been spelling it wrong, as I always say.
But that is going to be
key for our community as we see our average household.
Income.
And last but not least, the workforce trades.
We are going to dirty hands, clean money for our kids.
We're going to have to make sure that our kids know how to be plumbers,
how to be electricians, how to work on the yard.
That's going to be our way to the pathway.
So where are we going?
I heard about, housing in Detroit.
What up? Doe? Okay. Yay!
What up?
I got some Detroit friends. What up? Doe.
And then also heard
from the the state of Africatown about.
Hey, this is what we want.
We want money, we want funding.
We want investment for our community.
The year before this, I came here and you said,
why can't you say we are not going to grant our way out of this?
Okay, I heard that those were things that I, that I took from that.
And so what we did last year, we had a black budget day.
And let me just tell you how this played in
we called it I told some people, I called them, I said, hey,
I need y'all to come down to the budget to testify.
Well, why are we coming down?
Well, it's it's, you know, it's our budget.
And so then I said, we're going to brand it Black Budget Day.
And so now everybody was like, girl, I'm going to Black Budget Day.
And we are down there.
And we had over 70
black folks and we all were in here in this room is Preston was in here.
We had 70 black community members where we advocated
for funding and dollars for our community.
So our council members could see that we can speak for ourselves.
Number one,
number two, that we can speak for ourselves
and we can speak right now.
And then also that that black community is alive and well in Seattle.
Right.
Which is important that they see us, that they hear us, that we just don't show up
for certain things, that we are down here advocating for us.
There are political parties in Seattle, and I believe that if black people can
be together, we can be the most powerful political party in the city of Seattle.
We have to coalesce our, our our power.
And so we set up so this is what we did this year.
And then we're going to be able to advocate for next year.
And I definitely want to sit down
with Africatown and the team to talk about how this incorporates your vision, how
this for the community, how incorporates what, what we're trying to push as well.
So on that we have a Central District and South End fund,
which was in a preservation fund,
which is for and this is in the amendment, African descendants
of the enslaved lineage through chattel slavery.
Okay, that is written in that amendment.
So that was the that was the first thing.
And it might not seem like a lot, but is
it is a separate fund where we can start funding more money for that.
Okay.
So the second thing that we did is we set up a black advisory council,
that is coming to Seattle, which the, our indigenous brothers
and sisters have an advisory council that talks about different policies
for the city that's going to get set up to Department of Neighborhoods.
And we also, funded the expansion for the reparations study.
And this is why this is important.
The reparations study was just for housing.
We expanded that city because there were things
that were extracted out of our community that have access to housing.
Just because you took
housing away from people doesn't mean it just affected housing.
It affected their job.
It affected their education.
It affected their schooling, economic mobility.
So all we talk about is study, study studies.
So we're getting a report. Why? King okay.
We're getting a report to talk about how we can expand those investments
for community. And I see that my time is up.
And so I'll be sitting down with Africatown and community to find out
how we're going to fund and continue to invest in the visions
of Africatown and holistically for our for our community as well.
So thank you all.
Thank you.
- Okay.
All right.
King County executive,
Girmay Zahilay
- Jazzy.
Jazzy. Can everybody say hi? Jazzy.
On three. One.
Two. Three.
She's tired.
All right, well, she's making her way over here.
Jazzy, you want to come sit right here on this table?
This chair.
Okay. She's fine.
All right. I'll let her be.
Good afternoon everybody.
How you feeling today?
So good to see you all. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Joy Hollingsworth, for those amazing remarks.
I don't know if many of you know this, but Joy is my family.
So my younger sister and her younger brother are together,
and somewhere out there in the world, there is a political super baby
that is,
That is,
literal Hollingsworth Xilai baby exists and his name is Ivy.
Just so you guys know. Yeah.
I'm gourmets.
Ally, this is my baby, jazzy.
She is, almost two years old, and she just became
a new big sister.
I used to be the council member for this district.
And now I'm your new King County Executive.
That means I lead our regional government of King County.
And it is such an honor for me to serve in this role.
I care about this community so much.
I know that White King associates me with the South End.
But did you know that I graduated from Bailey Gatzert elementary
right down the hill from here. And,
I lived in Yesler Terrace.
And it is true that once I became a teenager, I did betray the CD
by graduating from the best high school in Seattle.
Do we have any?
Do we have any Quakers in the building?
Yeah.
Let's go.
Quakers.
Oh five.
That's right. Oh, yeah. Kids. Yeah. That's right.
We just we just came back from our, Was it our 20 year high school reunion?
Kendra. That's right.
Some of you have heard my personal story before,
how my family came to see in Seattle when I was three years old.
We lived in public housing.
We lived in poverty.
We experienced homelessness.
But something that we don't talk about enough
is that despite all of those hardships we experienced,
it is undeniable that I was still born on third base.
I was born on third base because the United States
that my family immigrated to
is not the United States that generations of black Americans had to endure.
I never
had to attend legally segregated schools.
I never was excluded from purchasing a home because of my race.
My family was never sold into chattel slavery
or brutalized by Jim Crow laws.
Those freedoms that my family and I enjoyed.
When we moved to King County in 1990 as black immigrants were purchased
through the blood, the sweat and the tears and the lives of black Americans
who have been in the United States for generations.
My ability
to become the leader
of our state's largest local government was purchased through the struggle,
the innovation and the brilliance of many elders in this room.
Thank you.
And this is my opportunity
to shout out elder Dawn Mason Wright.
And guess what?
My daughter who is here will benefit from the work of generations
of the current leadership people like
White King and Joy and Erica Evans, who's in the building.
That's who she's going to benefit from.
It is a relay, sir.
But the legacy of all those, all of those unimaginable harms
that I described before live on today, that legacy casts a shadow on our nation
and in particular, continues to harm the descendants of those who were enslaved
and systematically removed from opportunity in 2026.
I believe that being an effective policy maker requires us to grapple
with and address those harms through a lens of that racial justice.
For those of you who witnessed my inauguration, you might have heard me
talk about the top four priorities of my new administration
what I call the four BS for a better future.
Number one, breaking the cycle.
There is a cycle affecting of our communities of addiction
and homelessness and trauma and crime and incarceration.
We want to break that cycle.
Number two, building for affordability.
We have to build the infrastructure
and the economy that is needed for our growing population.
Number three, putting boots on the ground, making sure that our government
is out there in the community, building relationships and showing people
tangible outcomes for their tax dollars.
And number four, advancing a better government, more equitable,
more transparent, more efficient,
and all of the ways that better serve our communities.
But we have to be clear to be successful
in advancing any of those four BS, those four top priorities.
It requires us to address the ongoing harms of anti-Black structural racism.
We cannot break the cycle without addressing the fact
that 40% of the population
experiencing those overlapping harms is black.
Out of a 7% population in King County, 40%
we are represented in that population 40%.
We cannot build for affordability without addressing the fact
that black wealth is marching towards zero, and there exists extreme
income disparities by race, with black communities at the bottom.
Putting boots on the ground requires us to prioritize connection
between government and the communities who have been most removed from access
and opportunity and creating a better government.
The final B means we do that with an eye toward sharpening our problem
solving skills for the communities who are most overrepresented in the issues
that we are trying to solve.
For, it feels as though our society was beginning
to recognize how important this lens is.
During the peak of the 2020 racial justice movements, but I have heard
from many communities in recent years that we have begun backsliding.
This is what Wai King was talking about, that the issues facing
and the priority level given
to our foundational African American communities have taken a backseat.
I understand where that feeling comes from, and my administration
will absolutely not contribute to that backsliding.
Here are just
some of the actions that we will take to tackle the issues facing King County's
multigenerational black community to repair harms and expand opportunity.
Yes, baby.
Here you can have anything you want.
Okay, you want to bend to
number one?
First of all, my team will be reflective of this community.
A whopping 50% of my department
directors are Black and African American.
So I will bet my bottom dollar
that you cannot find another government of this size 18,000 employees
that has more black leadership at the highest levels than King County.
Many of them are here today.
Please stand up to our King County leadership.
Thank you.
From the head of our public defenders, Matt Sanders, to my Chief legal officer,
Chris Sanders, to my Deputy communications director, Carissa Braxton,
to the head of our Department of Local Services, Leon, over there.
So again,
we will reflect this community at the highest levels of leadership
and any of our other hard working King County staff.
Raise your hand because we want to know who you are.
Please raise your hands. Hi. Introduce yourselves.
Thank you.
To our community.
To members who are here.
Please meet them. Form those connections.
We know that progress moves
at the speed of trust and trust requires relationship building.
So please meet each other and exchange contact information with my team members.
Number two, our administration will work with African
American communities across the entire region.
Of course, we will work with the Seattle mayor
and the president of the Seattle City Council to invest in and support historic
Seattle neighborhoods like the Central District and South Seattle.
And it is also true that my jurisdiction as King County Executive spans
the entire 39 city and unincorporated area region of King County,
which gives us an incredible opportunity to reach and build
with our African American neighbors across the region,
especially those who have been displaced out of Seattle city limits.
In just the past couple of weeks, I have visited and shared partnership
with communities in Kent in federal Way,
in Skyway, in White Center in Renton, and much more.
We have to have a regional outlook for the betterment of our future.
Third.
Everybody's keeping an eye on her, right?
You got like 200 aunties and uncles watching you, jazzy.
Third, we will establish the first ever African American Advisory
Council representative of the full region.
It is wonderful
that King County has commissions and advisory boards for immigrants
and refugees, for women, for people with disabilities,
for Lgbtqia+ communities, and much more as it should.
And it is also a glaring omission
to not have an advisory board for African Americans
who are.
Who are foundational to this nation and also face
the brunt of many of the issues that we need to solve for as a society.
This advisory council will make recommendations
to policymakers and represent your community voices.
Third, we will establish a policy lead position in my executive office
that is specifically focused on issues affecting the descendants of U.S.
chattel slavery living right here in King County.
This is not a future plan.
This is a position
that has already been budgeted, budgeted for in my executive office
for the first time in the history of this government, to my knowledge,
we will have an African American affairs policy lead directly
in the office of the executive to help us liaise
with the African-American communities of this region, guide local policies,
and ensure that we are applying reparative strategies to our budgets,
to our levies, to our policies, and to our actions.
Forth, we will apply that reparative racial justice
lens to each of the four BS that I described before breaking the cycle
building for affordability, boots on the ground, and better government.
We know that each of those issues, if we're going to advance them
effectively, if we're going to problem solve effectively,
we need that reparative lens across all of our policies.
And I know that the advisory council and the policy position in my office
will help lead us there.
So just to recap,
we will make sure that our leadership and staffing is reflective
of the community we will build alongside African American communities
across the 39 cities and unincorporated areas in King County.
We will launch the first ever King County African American Advisory Commission,
and we will hire an African American policy lead in the executive office,
and we will apply a reparative and racial justice lens to each of
the four BS from breaking the cycle to building for affordability.
These are just a few,
just a few of my key priorities on a long list of actions
that the 18,000 hardworking people
that make up King County will embark on in collaboration
with our community members, right here in this room.
I also want to make sure to share with you
that we plan to collaborate across governments.
We know that the scale of the reparation that is needed
is something that requires collaboration across city,
across county, across state, and across federal government.
And we are ready to do that to be your lobbying arm to other
levels of government, so we can truly meet the scale of the needs that are here.
So our King
County teams will be ready for that collaboration and will join you
in those lobbying efforts any time we are called on.
Thank you for the opportunity to join you, and we look forward to
working alongside you to keep the state of Africatown strong.
We have nothing but possibility in front of us.
Thank you.
- Now let's give it out one more time for King County Executive Girmay
Zahilay
Up next, let's welcome
the mayor of the city of Seattle, Katie Wilson.
- Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Okay.
It is an honor to be here with all of you today.
Thank you to K. Wyking Garrett and Africatown for your leadership,
your dedication,
and your hard work to strengthen Seattle's black communities and our whole city.
I'm very
glad to be here today, and glad that I've been here to listen.
And that's what I and my staff are here to do.
But I also know that listening is not worth much without accountability
and action, and I'm here for that too.
And I want to start by recognizing some members of my team who are here today.
My deputy Mayor Brian Surratt.
And from our community relations team,
Dominique Stevens and Artie.
And ,
who has just joined our team in the mayor's office.
And I also want to recognize that Dwayne Chappelle is here,
our director of Department of Early Learning and Education.
And I also want to acknowledge that I am
not the only elected official here in the room.
In addition to my, Co speakers,
who is here to listen and who is committed to action,
I see Council member Alexis Mercedes rank in the audience.
And I support Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa.
I see our city attorney, Eric Evans.
And I guess it's my turn to recognize
a former elected official, Dawn Mason.
I wasn't going to forget that.
And now I'm.
I'm afraid that I might have forgotten someone.
So are there any other elected officials or former elected officials in the room?
Okay.
Thank God Great.
So I'm here as your new mayor
and as your mayor, I carry with me our city's complicated legacy,
including the history of the Central District and the fact that more than 70%
of the black population in this neighborhood has been pushed out.
And we know that what we see today
in the Central District is a policy decision, or rather, a series of policy
decisions, past and present, as we have heard today at all levels of government.
It's the product of a racist system
that brought redlining and disinvestment, and then the extraction of wealth,
a system that has brought housing crisis
after housing crisis and displaced thousands of people,
all in the name of exclusion and profit and power.
And the fact that these were decisions
is a stain on our city's history and our nation's history.
But I believe that it is also a reason for hope and for a commitment,
because it means that we can and we must make different
policy decisions for the future.
And I know that that's possible because the Central District, of course,
also carries an extraordinary legacy of resistance
and community and leadership, a tradition that is carried forward today
by so many of you in this room who are part of Africatown.
The vision of Africatown
includes so much that is part of my vision to expanded access to shelter
and services, affordable housing,
care for families and elders, and collective
stewardship and control of resources to benefit the community.
As you probably know, the city has a constrained budget right now,
but we also have extraordinary resources
and extraordinary influence on how neighborhoods are shaped,
who can afford to live here, and who feels like they belong.
In my state of the city address
a couple weeks ago, right here in this very space,
I announced an affordability agenda for our city with four pillars
affordable housing, affordable childcare, affordable access to food,
and an affordable city to build and run a small business.
And I know that Seattle's black families, particularly here in the Central
District, are feeling all those aspects
of the affordability crisis acutely.
And that to make a difference, a one size fits all approach is not good enough
that the city
and my administration will need to pay attention to
and address the specific needs of the black community.
In partnership with community leaders, black led organizations like Africatown
and black owned businesses, and in partnership with our Council
President, Joe Hollingsworth, and the entire City Council.
And my commitment to all of you is that we will do that.
We need to accelerate shelter.
We need to build more housing that people can actually afford.
And actually, I want to say a little bit more
about housing, because we know that housing is so core
to this city actually being a home.
So building wealth, building opportunities
for affordable homeownership, there's a lot of parts to that.
And, you know, I came in partway partway through the,
our keynote and,
I heard you talking about taxes, property taxes.
And we know that, you know, we have property
tax discounts for elders, for lower income elders.
And we also know that only about a third of people who qualify for
those discounts actually are getting them or know about them.
And that means that there's a lot of black elders in our community
that are paying more than they should be paying in property taxes.
And so one of the things that we can do is we can do more outreach,
and we can resource organizations to do more outreach, and we can make sure
that people are getting what they deserve.
Creating opportunities for affordable homeownership
also means keeping homeowners in their homes by making sure
that they have assistance with repairs and upgrades, making sure that people
are protected from predatory homebuyers,
and making sure that people have the ability
to develop their own property if they want to, to add backyard cottages.
And I know that the city has been doing some work on all of these things already,
and it is my intention to support and expand that work, because we cannot
keep having people be displaced from this neighborhood.
And I'll also say, obviously,
part of this too, is creating new opportunities for homeownership, right?
Because we want to build that wealth.
We want to make sure that even though the black community has been excluded
from building intergenerational wealth from so long, for so long,
that that is not the future. Right?
And so that means down payment assistance.
And that also means creating opportunities for homeownership,
where a home does not cost half $1 million or $1 million or $2 million.
And I also want to say, as someone who's a renter,
that renters deserve stability to.
And we don't have to choose.
It's not homeownership or stability for renters.
We need to do both.
And we also need to recognize that black people in our community and our city,
because of that history of exclusion from wealth building,
are disproportionately renters, and they deserve that stability.
So. One thing that my office is working on right now,
we put out a survey for renters.
We had over 9000 responses trying to learn some of the struggles
that people are facing,
not just around the cost of rent, but around hidden junk fees
that you don't see when you sign that lease.
You see the sticker price of your rent,
but you don't see all the hidden fees that you're going to be paying month
after month.
Well, I intend to introduce legislation,
and I know that some of my council colleagues
here, too, are interested in doing the same
to regulate and ban those fees so that people know
what they are going to be paying when they sign a lease for an apartment.
And I also want to say something about social housing.
So Seattle's new social housing developer,
is just getting its first infusion of revenue.
$115 million from a tax that was approved by voters last year.
Now, this is a progressive tax.
This is a tax on corporations that are paying people in our city over $1
million a year.
And this is significant because when we talk about taxes,
when we talk about property taxes, when we talk about sales taxes,
regressive taxes, that can sound very academic.
But what that means is that black people, because of that history of exclusion
from wealth, because of our income disparities, that means that
those taxes disproportionately affect the black community.
And so it is significant
that we are going to be funding social housing with a progressive tax
that does not disproportionately impact the black community.
And I'm proud of that.
But the other thing to say about social housing,
this is permanently affordable, publicly owned housing
that if social housing does not work for black people, it does not work.
And so that means that means working.
And my administration is going to be working with our social housing developer
as it starts to, acquire and develop property in our city.
And we are going to make sure that the black community is
part of that project.
Right.
Okay.
Back to the regularly scheduled programing here. Okay.
So we we need to build housing that people can actually afford.
We need to make this a great place
to build a business, to raise a family and to pursue your dreams.
And we need to make sure
that when we say when I say when we say, this is your city,
this is your city, that it rings true to everyone who calls our city home.
And we need to do this all in a way that reduces displacement
and begins to repair some of the harm that our city has done to black people.
And yes, that means reparations.
My office is with you in that work,
and I know that thanks to the efforts of, Council President Hollingsworth,
the city last year set aside those funds to establish a black advisory council
housed at the Department of Neighborhoods to help us guide that work.
And we will be working closely with that department and with our council president
and with all of you here to find the right people to serve on that body,
who can advise the city on the programs and the investments
that we should focus on to begin to turn the tide.
So with that, thank you again for inviting me to participate here today
for all of your leadership and your hard work.
I'm looking forward to working alongside you alongside Africatown,
to build stability, resilience and belonging for black
and African-American communities in the Central District and throughout our city.
Thank you.
- Let's give it up one more time for Mayor
Katie Wilson.
All right. Now,
I want to thank all of our elected officials
for being here for their response as we close out,
I get to welcome to the stage a beloved community elder,
my auntie and board chair for ACL t
Jacqueline Armstrong.
- I want to say Grand Rising joy, but I know
we've moved into the afternoon hour, but it feels like a grand day to me.
But good afternoon community.
I appreciate your introduction, Triana.
And yes, I'm affectionately known as Auntie.
However, more importantly, I am the ACLT board chair.
I take that so seriously because I am like Wyking
who was a son of the CD Joy, who is a daughter of the CD.
I too am a daughter of the CD.
My parents came here in 1947 from Louisiana.
My father had a third grade education.
They purchased a house in the CD where my husband and I
are fortunate enough to still reside there today.
And so,
professor, I have to say that I was deeply moved by your message.
I understand, and I'm reading your book.
We want what's ours.
I cannot put that book down.
So thank you for speaking truth to power.
Let me just begin by saying thank you.
Thank you
to White King for leading with courage and clarity.
Job well done.
Keep the faith.
Thank you to our speakers, performers,
elders, youth, elected officials and partners.
And I will say again, good morning and to the elder of distinction, Dawn Mason.
So I'm going to follow suit.
I also recognize that Elder Robert Stevens,
you were not here earlier, my brother, but for your tireless work
in the community, it's always so important to be recognized.
And of course, that of the elected officials.
I have to say, Joy, you will always be Dorothy, Miss Dorothy's granddaughter. So
there it is.
There it is.
Thank you to the staff and volunteers who made this event possible.
Thank you to a CLTV Board of Directors who stands with me in this work.
Thank you for, to save your knowledge, emeritus.
And also Margo Jones, madam chair emeritus,
showing up as a choice.
That's right.
Showing up is a choice.
And today you chose to show up for all of us.
And the generations to come.
For that, I say thank you.
As a multigenerational Central District resident,
this work is personal for me.
I have seen what this neighborhood was, I have witnessed what was taken,
and today I see what is possible.
Gentrification, may I say, is traumatic and I am a survivor of gentrification.
I understand when you live through that, what that feels like.
I am moved not just by the history we acknowledge,
but by the system we are building.
Because Africatown is not simply preserving a memory of the past.
We are an essential part of this neighborhood
and this city and region's future.
We are securing land
and securing land is how we ensure black families remain
and continue to keep coming back for many generations to come.
I just have to pause here because for those of you that are no longer in the CD,
we left the lights on.
So if you're traveling down the street, that's why we love the lights on y'all.
We have in this thing.
So if you're traveling down 23rd and you just happen to be visiting
on the corner of 23rd and Union, Vivian and Jasmine, they left the lights
on over there and Art, an award, you can go across the street.
Damon and Christy, they left the lights on at communion.
You can go up the street while he left the lights on.
So we are still here.
We are leaving the lights on. Welcome home.
Welcome back.
And so again,
securing land is how we ensure black families remain and continue
to come back for many generations to come as our Purpose States
Act secures permanent land ownership in Seattle Central District
so black families can remain in the neighborhood and city.
They help to build and prevent future displacement for generations to come.
We have all witnessed the harm engineered that resulted in systemic displacement
of black families.
The repair must be systemic driven to.
That is why Africatown operates
a four part system land acquisition and stewardship,
permanently affordable housing and ownership pathways,
cultural preservation, black
business development and africatown.
We believe something simple and powerful.
Black ownership is a cornerstone
of a stable, thriving city.
When black families have secure land, stable housing, cultural anchors
and economic infrastructure, the entire city benefits.
This is not, as White King said, a black issue.
This is a Seattle stability issue.
We are not starting from zero.
We have hundreds of permanently affordable
units developed or are underway.
Youth pathways through the William Growth Center, one of my favorite places to be.
I love to be around young people, sparked a renaissance of black businesses,
cultural institutions, anchored land
already under community stewardship.
The question is not whether this model works.
The question is whether and how fast we can scale it.
The Africatown 2050 vision is measurable and specific.
2050 while I'll be well, I hope I'll still be here.
I'm 73, y'all, so I'm shooting for it.
I'm shooting for it.
2020, 2050.
Yeah.
Hold me in your prayer because I'm living for this white king 2050 come on y'all,
we aim to create more than 2500 permanently affordable homes
to significantly increase black home ownership, to anchor stable
black business corridors, to secure official
African district designation.
Excuse me.
Africatown district designation.
We have a record of success with transforming,
Transforming this place
and transformation requires capital.
That's where you all come in.
And I'm grateful to see our elected officials,
philanthropic donors and community partners and members fill this room today.
Now, y'all don't run out. This is not like church.
While I'm a lock all the doors, but hold up.
So over the next three years, Africatown seeks $250
million in combined public and private investment.
And this year, as Wyking mentioned in his presentation,
we urgently need 2.5 million.
This is a bridge investment.
It will stabilize operations, strength and leadership capacity.
Activate Africatown Plaza,
support families facing housing instability
offset delayed reimbursements on existing grants.
So, as the chair of the board, I want to be clear
this is a committed to purpose driven organization.
This is a mission anchored board.
This is a leadership team operating under non-negotiables.
We ain't playing with this y'all.
Community must secure and steward land.
Structural forces must be repaired.
Long term stability requires permanent affordability
and access to opportunity to our city and county leadership.
Treat Africatown as core civic infrastructure
to a thriving Seattle, King County,
Washington State and beyond.
Because we are.
That's right y'all, because we are too philanthropic.
The scale of harm requires multiple year
bold commitments that match the scale of repair.
And to everyone in this room, we have, a QR code on the screen.
Please scan it, or you can come up to me,
White King, or any member of our team afterwards
if you have the opportunity to collaborate with us.
Today is the moment to move from alignment to investment.
If this work resonates with your values, invest.
If you can stretch, stretch
if you can introduce, introduce
you, if you can host, host
and if you can advocate, advocate, support a system that brings
black families home because funders always have a choice.
Support the system that push families out
or invest in the system that brings them back.
The Central District was once more than 70% black.
Today, it is less than 15%.
I know this well.
The city victory is not inevitable.
It is reversible.
And the speed of that reversible depends on what we do next.
It is not.
If it is not even a how, it is a when,
and that when is shaped by our collective courage.
Let's build permanence, let's secure
land, let's anchor ownership.
Let's protect culture.
Let's invest at the scale this moment demands.
And before I bring Triana up, I want to say that
I am a product of the 1984 Rainbow Coalition.
And so in the in the words of our late Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson,
repeat after me and say it like you mean that power to the people.
Keep hope alive.
And in the words of K, Wyking Garrett,
title deeds and keys.
Ashe.
- That now y'all see why she's a board chair.
Come on, let's give it up one more time for Jacqueline Armstrong.