Seattle movement facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Seattle movement |
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Fair housing protest, Seattle, 1964
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The Seattle movement was a local part of the larger Civil Rights Movement in the United States. It happened in Seattle, Washington, during the 1960s.
This movement involved many different groups of people working together. These included Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Jews, Latinos, Native Americans, and working-class people. From the early 1900s to the 1970s, the fight for fair labor practices and civil rights were often connected. Some worker groups helped with racial justice, while others made it harder.
Seattle's population grew a lot in the 1800s. Early Black residents started the first Black churches, businesses, and civil rights groups in the city.
Contents
History of the Movement
A Segregated Past
For much of its history, Seattle was a city where people were separated by race. This was called white supremacy. People of color were often kept out of many jobs, neighborhoods, schools, stores, restaurants, and even hospitals. This unfair system in Seattle, like in other western states, affected not just African Americans. It also targeted Native Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, people of Mexican heritage, and sometimes Jewish people. However, African Americans often faced the worst treatment because there were fewer of them.
During World War II, many Black people moved to Seattle from the South. They came to find jobs in factories that made war supplies and in shipyards. This was part of the Second Great Migration. Because of this, the number of African Americans in Seattle grew from 3,700 in 1940 to 15,000 in 1950. The local NAACP group, which fights for civil rights, also grew from 75 members to 1,500 by 1945.
Fighting for Fair Housing
In 1956, a group called Seattle's Civic Unity Committee started the Greater Seattle Housing Council. Their goal was to get people who supported open housing (meaning housing open to all races) and the real estate industry to talk. At first, these talks didn't lead to much.
The next year, Washington State passed a new law. It said that housing built with government loans could not discriminate based on race. In 1959, this law was challenged in court.
The civil rights efforts in Seattle became stronger in October 1961. Campaigns like "shoe-ins" and "shop-ins" encouraged people to buy selectively to support fair employment. Around the same time, the NAACP asked for a law to ensure open housing. The Seattle City Council held a public meeting about it on December 11, 1961. But they decided not to pass the law. Instead, they suggested that supporters try to get the law passed through a public vote, called a ballot initiative.
Instead of focusing only on a new law, supporters of open housing tried a different approach in 1962. Twenty-four organizations created the Fair Housing Listing Service (FHLS). This service helped Black people who wanted to buy homes outside Seattle's main Black neighborhood, the Central District. It connected them with white homeowners who were willing to sell to minorities. By early 1965, FHLS had helped with 50 such home sales.
On December 17, 1962, the Mayor's Citizen's Advisory Committee on Minority Housing suggested that an open housing law be sent to the city council. However, the mayor and council delayed any action for a year. That year turned out to be very important.
The Urban League and NAACP left the Greater Seattle Housing Council. They felt it wasn't doing enough about housing issues. A new group was formed, called the Central Area Civil Rights Committee (CACRC). On July 1, 1963, 400 people joined a protest march. Also, 35 young people from the Central District Youth Club held Seattle's first sit-in. They stayed in the mayor's office for almost 24 hours. On that same day, the city council and mayor suggested creating a Seattle Human Rights Commission. This commission was officially started on July 17. It was given the power to write an open housing law. But this didn't stop another sit-in from happening in the council chambers on July 20.
Changes in Public Schools
On August 28, 1963, the same day as Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1,000 people marched in Seattle. They walked from Seattle's First AME Church to the Federal Courthouse. Also on that day, Seattle Public Schools became the first major school system in the country to start a voluntary plan to end segregation in schools. This is called desegregation. A week later, on September 3, 1963, the Seattle Human Rights Commission recommended a law against discrimination in housing sales, rentals, and financing.
The Open Housing Bill
On October 20, a march supporting open housing drew 1,200 people. Five days later, the city council held a public meeting about the open housing bill. This bill was suggested by the Seattle Human Rights Commission. The council approved the bill by a vote of 7 to 2. However, they removed a special part called the "emergency clause." This clause would have made the bill law right away, without the public being able to vote against it. The bill was then sent to the full council for a final vote. The two council members who voted against the final version, Wing Luke and Charles M. Carroll, did so because the emergency clause had been removed.
On November 27, 1963, the council approved the bill again by the same 7–2 vote, still without the emergency clause. On December 9, 1963, the bill was put on the ballot for voters to decide in a general election on March 10, 1964.
However, the chances for the bill didn't look good. On February 12, 1964, voters in nearby Tacoma, Washington rejected a similar law by a 3-to-1 margin. On March 7, just three days before Seattle's vote, over 1,500 people attended an open housing rally. They marched from different parts of the city to Westlake Plaza. But on March 10, the open housing law was defeated by voters, with 115,627 votes against it and 54,448 for it. Also, J. Dorm Braman, who was against open housing, was elected mayor of Seattle, defeating John Cherberg, who supported it.
Continued Efforts for Equality
In the summer of 1964, the Freedom Summer project was happening in Mississippi. Also, on July 2, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Seattle, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) started a campaign called DEEDS (Drive for Equal Employment in Downtown Stores). Their goal was for minorities to make up 24% of new hires in downtown stores. These stores faced boycotts until January 1965. CORE also organized protests and sit-ins at local real estate offices. However, a court order stopped these protests.
The Freedom March
Thirteen days after "Bloody Sunday" (March 7, 1965), when civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama were violently attacked, more than 600 people in Seattle held a "Freedom March." This group was even larger than the Selma-to-Montgomery march itself. Led by the NAACP, they marched from the First AME Church to the Federal Courthouse. They demanded open housing laws and equal job opportunities.
Seattle's open housing movement faced a setback on May 15, 1965. An airplane crash killed Sidney Gerber and city council member Wing Luke. Gerber had started Harmony Homes, which had built 15 homes for African Americans in neighborhoods that were previously all white.
The movement gained new energy two years later. On June 8, 1967, the Seattle Urban League started a three-year project called Operation Equality. This project helped minorities find housing, offered educational programs, and worked with fair housing groups to list available homes. It was the second project in the United States to receive a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Later that year, Sam Smith won a seat on the Seattle City Council in the November election. He became the first African American to serve on the council.
The Civil Rights Act of 1968
On April 11, 1968, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. This law made fair housing a federal policy across the country. Seattle had missed its chance to pass its own fair housing law before the federal government did. Eight days later, on April 19, 1968, the Seattle City Council finally passed a fair housing law unanimously. This time, the law included an emergency clause, making it impossible for voters to challenge it through a referendum.
Over the years, this law was expanded even further. In 1975, it became illegal to discriminate based on sex, marital status, sexual orientation, and political beliefs. In 1979, parental status was added. In 1986, creed (religious belief) and disability were included. And in 1999, gender identity was added to the list of protected groups.
See also
