Seattle's first black resident was a sailor named Manuel Lopes who arrived in 1858 and became the small community's first barber. He left in the early 1870s to seek economic prosperity elsewhere, but as Seattle transformed from a stopover town to a full-fledged city, African Americans began to stay and build a community. By the early twentieth century, black life in Seattle coalesced in the Central District, a four-square-mile section east of downtown. Black Seattle, however, was never a monolith. Through world wars, economic booms and busts, and the civil rights movement, black residents and leaders negotiated intragroup conflicts and had varied approaches to challenging racial inequity. Despite these differences, they nurtured a distinct African American culture and black urban community ethos. With a new foreword and afterword, this second edition of The Forging of a Black Community is essential to understanding the history and present of the largest black community in the Pacific Northwest.

The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

History

Taylor, Quintard

Americas

University of Washington

The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

University of Washington Press

Through much of the twentieth century, black Seattle was synonymous with the Central District - a four-square-mile section near the geographic center of the city. Quintard Taylor explores the evolution of this community from its first few residents in the 1870s to a population of nearly forty thousand in 1970. With events such as the massive influx of rural African Americans beginning with World War II and the transformation of African American community leadership in the 1960s from an integrationist to a "black power" stance, Seattle both anticipates and mirrors national trends. Thus, the book addresses not only a particular city in the Pacific Northwest but also the process of political change in black America.This book places black urban history in a broader framework than most urban case studies by analyzing racial perceptions, attitudes, and expectations in light of the presence of another people of color, Asian Americans. Asians rather than blacks were Seattle's largest racial minority until World War II. Their presence limited African American employment and housing opportunities by drawing blacks into intense competition with the city's Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino populations. Yet the virulent racism of the 1890-1940 era, usually directed against blacks in urban communities, was diffused among Seattle's four nonwhite groups. Consequently, Asians and blacks, admittedly uneasy neighbors, became partners in coalitions challenging racial restrictions while remaining competitors for housing and jobs.Taylor explores the intersection of race and class in a city with a decidedly liberal and at times radical political culture. He finds that while local blacks operated in a racial environment that allowed relatively open social interaction, at the same time they were subject to restricted employment opportunities, preventing rapid growth of the African American population.Taylor argues that black Seattle was poised between two worlds, attempting to meld the values and traditions of its rural past with the requisites of modern urban-industrial society. Thus the community ethos was forged by the process in which the values of the rural, predominantly southern migrants - kinship networks, religious and folk beliefs, and sense of shared community - were transformed in the urban environment.This volume will be of special interest to those studying African American history, urban history and social relations, regional history, and ethnic group relations as well as to scholars of Pacific Northwest and western history.

The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District, from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era (EMIL AND KATHLEEN SICK LECTURE-BOOK SERIES IN WESTERN HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY)

Univ of Washington Pr

Through much of the twentieth century, black Seattle was synonymous with the Central District--a four-square-mile section near the geographic center of the city. Quintard Taylor explores the evolution of this community from its first few residents in the 1870s to a population of nearly forty thousand in 1970. With events such as the massive influx of rural African Americans beginning with World War II and the transformation of African American community leadership in the 1960s from an integrationist to a “black power” stance, Seattle both anticipates and mirrors national trends. Thus, the book addresses not only a particular city in the Pacific Northwest but also the process of political change in black America.

A pioneering illustrated history of the role of African Americans in the development of the American West ranges from the arrival of Spanish-speaking blacks in Texas in 1528, to the growth of the West's black population after World War II.

In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

"An enthralling work that will be essential reading for years to come." ―David Nicholson, Washington Post
A landmark history of African Americans in the West, In Search of the Racial Frontier rescues the collective American consciousness from thinking solely of European pioneers when considering the exploration, settling, and conquest of the territory west of the Mississippi. From its surprising discussions of groups of African American wholly absorbed into Native American culture to illustrating how the largely forgotten role of blacks in the West helped contribute to everything from the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation ruling to the rise of the Black Panther Party, Quintard Taylor fills a major void in American history and reminds us that the African American experience is unlimited by region or social status. 32 b/w illustrations

In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528-1990

W.W.Norton&Company

SOURCES IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY, a new primary and secondary source reader, includes many selections that will be familiar to you, such as THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION or DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING'S LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL. However other documents such as Lucy Parson's 1886 speech, "I AM AN ANARCHIST" or AFRICAN AMERICANS AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY: A MANIFESTO are included precisely because the rarely gain exposure beyond the gaze of a handful of experts in a particular subfield of African American history. This two-volume reader begins with medieval readings from the continent of Africa up to readings related to the events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to encompass the enormous breadth and range of documents that reflect on African American life in the United States.

From Timbuktu to Katrina: Sources in African-American History, Volume 1

Africa

Wadsworth Publishing

From Timbuktu to Katrina: Sources in African-American History Volume 2

Noted historians from the United States and Canada explore society, culture, and change in the resource-laden Pacific Northwest. Essays examine Spanish exploration of the Northern coast, traditional American Indian religion and worldview, the long-term relationship of a fragile Canadian union with its powerful southern neighbor, unique political and constitutional foundations, World War II black and white immigration, growing up Japanese-American in the 1930s-1940s, women's history, and more. Included are contributions by New Spain specialist David J. Weber, Native American expert Alvin M. Josephy Jr., political activist Gordon Hirabayashi, women's historian Susan H. Armitage, Canadian-American experts Kenneth S. Coates and Gerald Friesen, western historian Quintard Taylor, and others. Terra Northwest continues the Sherman and Mable Smith Pettyjohn Lecture Series of publications examining essential aspects of Pacific Northwest history.

Terra Northwest: Interpreting People and Place

Josephy Jr., Alvin M.

Lamar, Howard R.

Armitage, Susan

Coates, Kenneth S.

Dolliver, James M

Hirabayashi, Gordon

McClelland Jr, John

Moreno, E Mark

Washington State University Press

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