November 24, 1985: The Colman School Occupation
Seattle’s Colman School, located in Rainier Valley and built in 1909, stood out for many years as a symbol for the city’s African-American community due to the distinction of being the first school in Seattle attended by black students, as well as having hired many black teachers. When it was closed by the Seattle School District in June 1985 due to the expansion of neighboring Interstate 90, many felt the building should have been converted into a black history museum–an idea which had first been proposed in 1981. When a city government task force formed to discuss the idea went in the direction such endeavors often go–namely, nowhere–a group of African-American community activists began, on the date in focus here, a direct-action occupation of the building as a means of forcing the issue forward.
The activists, numbering roughly 40, entered the building, located at 24th Avenue South and South Atlantic Street, through a window that had been broken earlier by vandals. The building had lights, but no heat and no running water. Charlie James, spokesman for the activists, said, “We understand it’s going to be cold and uncomfortable, but we have a mission to accomplish.”
The main roadblocks to the activists’ stated goal of claiming the Colman School for the proposed museum were much more bureaucratic than ideological in nature. While many in Seattle’s city government, including Mayor Charles Royer, openly supported the museum in principle, the Seattle School District was at the time negotiating with the Washington State Department of Transportation for the transfer of the property from the city to the state. Thus, the acquisition of the building was a much more complicated legal task than it would have been had the land still been simply owned by the city. The immediate goal of the occupation was to let the city know that the activists were serious about claiming the Colman School as the ideal location for the museum.
While the school district warned the group of the illegality of the occupation, it refused to arrest or evict the activists for fear of bad publicity. Four of the activists–James, Earl Debnam, Michael Greenwood and Omari Tahri–would continue to occupy the school for eight years, making their action the longest act of civil disobedience in U.S. history to date.
The occupation finally ended in 1993 when the Seattle city government at long last agreed to fund the museum. The dream soon became deferred when the activists found themselves at odds with a group of mainstream local black civic leaders who wanted to use their clout in City Hall to carry the project forward. It would be another ten years of lawsuits and bad blood before Seattle’s Urban League was able to buy the building from the Seattle School District for $800,000. The final result of the Colman School occupation, the Northwest African American Museum, part of a complex that also contains 36 apartments dedicated as affordable housing, opened on March 8, 2008.
–Jeff Stevens. Sources: “African American Task Force Formed,” The Seattle Medium, February 13, 1985; Kathleen Klein and Mary Rothschild, “Goal of sit-in: a black museum,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 26, 1985, p. D 1; Charles E. Brown, “Activists move in at old school,” The Seattle Times, November 26, 1985, p. B 1; Kathleen Klein, “Museum supporters plan to stay at school,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 27, 1985, p. D 1; Connie Cameron, “Takeover at Colman,” The Seattle Medium, December 5, 1985; Trevor Griffey, “A Dream Fulfilled,” Colors Northwest, March 2008; Charlie James, “The Complete History of Seattle’s Newest Museum,” The Seattle Times, March 20, 2008.
Comments
By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall on November 24th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
As you mention, the Coleman School Occupation was the longest occupation in North American History. I participated (as part of the support committee) between 1987-1993 and describe my experiences in my memoir The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.
The Urban League members (including then Mayor Norm Rice) who hijacked the project from the activists who started the first African American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center never accepted the original vision, which was to have both an African American Museum and a cultural center with after school activities, including a basketball court. The purpose of the cultural center was to offer disadvantaged teenagers an alternative to the crack cocaine and other drugs that were flooding the Central Area and Rainier Valley.
These “local back civic leaders,” as you describe them, fully supported the vision of white developers who sought to “gentrify” the Central Area and Rainier Valley and move low income minority residents to their new ghettos in Kent, Renton and other parts of south King County. The last thing they wanted was for groups of dark skinned teenagers to congregate around a local cultural center and spook the white yuppies they wanted to buy their overpriced real estate.
This is the main reason the original activists fought the purchase of the property by the Urban League. The other reason was that both the city and the Seattle School District breached the contract they signed when the occupation ended in 1993, when they sold the building to the Urban League.
We had some very ugly stuff done to us during this period. In my case, I experienced years of phone harassment, stalking, mail theft, break-ins and incidents where people tried to run me down with their cars. I eventually closed my Seattle practice (I am a psychiatrist) and in 2002 emigrated to New Zealand. I describe this in my memoir.