NEWS GLEAMS: Remembering Black Wall Street, Remember & Resist, & More

curated by Emerald Staff

A round-up of news and announcements we don't want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

✨Gleaming This Week✨

• Remembering Black Wall Street
• Remember and Resist: Day of Remembrance, 1942—2022
• Author, Author!

Remembering Black Wall Street

Dr. Phil Armstrong, director of the Black Wall Street Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the guest speaker at the Remembering Black Wall Street in-person and virtual event on Saturday, Feb. 5.

The in-person event will be held at Washington Hall, 153 14th Ave., Seattle, WA, and admission is $25. Virtual program viewing is $10.

In the 1920s, Tulsa's Greenwood District was a prosperous, vibrant center of Black business, culture, and life known as Black Wall Street. But on Memorial Day, 1921, white mobs angered over an alleged slight against a white teenage girl fueled a two-day rampage that destroyed the community and killed hundreds of Black residents. Until recently, stories about the massacre were hidden and buried.

Saturday's event sponsored by Black Dollar Days King County Reparations Project will "remember the history and tragic loss of Black Wall Street" through museum artifacts, performances, and speakers. Performances will be held by NAAM's African American Cultural Ensemble (ACE), Acts On Stage, and local Seattle-area dancers.

For in-person attendance, doors open at 5 p.m. with programming to run from 6 to 8 p.m.; Artifact viewing/social/dancing will be from 8 to 11 p.m. "This is a COVID restricted event. Vaccination cards required at the door. Masks required for individuals 2+ years. Thank you for helping to keep everyone safe!"

Tickets to attend can be found on the following Eventbrite page. Tickets to view the live virtual programming from 6 to 9 p.m. are here.

Remember and Resist: Day of Remembrance, 1942—2022

A Day of Remembrance will be held Feb. 19 in Puyallup marking the 80th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 that forced Japanese Americans to leave their homes and businesses for mass incarceration camps behind barbed wire.

According to the Remember and Resist event press release, "[m]ost Japanese Americans in the Seattle area spent their first few months in detention at the Puyallup Fairgrounds ('Camp Harmony') until their transfer to the concentration camps at Minidoka, Idaho, and Tule Lake, California. The trauma of family separation, child imprisonment, poor sanitation, bad food, inadequate health care, and uncertain futures persists — and continues today at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma."

"Join Tsuru for Solidarity, Seattle Japanese American Citizens League, Puyallup Japanese American Citizens League, Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, Densho, and La Resistencia for a car rally at the Puyallup Fairgrounds and NWDC. Together, we will Remember and Resist these past and present injustices."

Event details are as follows:

• When: Saturday, February 19, 10 a.m.—1 p.m.
• Where: At 10 a.m., meet at the Puyallup Fairgrounds (Blue Lot Parking, 311 10th Ave SE, Puyallup, WA 98372). At 11 a.m., we will move to the Northwest Detention Center (1623 E J St., Tacoma, WA 98421) for a continuation of the program starting at 12 p.m.
• Details: Weather permitting, there will be some outdoor programming. Masks and social distancing required.

The Emerald's planning director, Sharon Maeda, will be the emcee at Remember and Resist.

To RSVP or for more information, contact info@seattlejacl.org

Author, Author!

An expansive array of author events, book discussions, and other literary programs are available live and online this winter from The Seattle Public Library. A wide variety of online author programs are on tap concluding with announcement of the 2021 Washington State Book Award winner.

Events are free though registration is required, and you can sign up at the Library's Authors & Books Event Calendar.

For example, check out this event on Black Women and International Human Rights on Thursday, Feb. 10, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.:

Stanlie James and Guests Discuss Practical Audacity: Black Women and International Human Rights. Join us for a panel about the Black women whose innovative contributions have helped to reshape international human rights scholarship and activism. Stanlie James' book Practical Audacity follows the stories of 14 women whose work honors and furthers the legacy of Goler Teal Butcher (1925—93), a towering figure in international human rights law who advanced an intersectional approach to human empowerment influenced by Black women's intellectual traditions.

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