'Where Are The Black People?' Struggling To Stay Connected

What is it like to be black in the fifth whitest major city in America? It’s not an easy question to answer. Seattle’s black population hovers around 8 percent, with more leaving every year. I was at a friend’s house off Lake Washington over the summer, saying goodbye to one of those friends. The sun was out, there was a breeze in the air, and everyone was dressed to the nines. Kids were running around, laughing, and friends were catching up. By the end of the night, there were close to 200 people here. It was rare to see so many black people in one place.

We were sending off my friend Benita Thomas, who was moving to Charlotte, N.C. In Charlotte, 35 percent of the city is black. Me: So Benita, why are you moving? Thomas: Because I want to expand my horizons. Me: Seattle not good enough for you? Thomas: No. I need some black experiences! Me: What do you mean by black experiences? Thomas: I need to go to a place where more African Americans are rising to positions of power, and things are more positive, and you find a lot of them, not just a couple of them. Thomas is my third black friend this year who said Seattle wasn’t cutting it for her. There weren’t enough black people in general, not enough black men (she’s single) and too few opportunities. Her move magnifies a larger issue that plagues the black community in Seattle: After 35 years of living here, Thomas felt like an outsider. Depending on where you live in the city, you can go days or weeks without seeing another black person. Staying In The City

There are those who stay, of course. Margaret Hardin, age 100 and two months (yes, that’s right), refuses to sell her Central District home. Hardin moved to Seattle from New Orleans in 1926 to work for a white doctor’s family, ironing handkerchiefs and answering phones. She was 14. At 16, her work for the doctor ended, and she found herself out of work. “It was just me and the world,” she recalled. She found an extended family through the First A.M.E., the city’s oldest black church, which still stands today, just east of Capitol Hill. Even though she didn’t know many people at first, just about everyone she met in the black community was friendly and eager to help her. “For us, we were a little closed society more or less,” she said.

Most blacks lived the Central District at the time, because restrictive covenants excluded them from living north of the Ship Canal, in neighborhoods like Queen Anne, Green Lake and Magnolia. Outside of the welcoming Central District, Hardin faced a far less welcoming world. “One thing I remember – and it hurt me to my heart – the Bon Marche needed a maid in the beauty shop and I wanted that so bad because I needed a job,” she said. “But they didn’t take you if you was too brown. So this girl that got the job was fair, of course, and that just hurt me.” Decades later, after being denied positions at department stores in “the front of the house” as a clerk or seamstress, Hardin rose to become a supervisor with the Seattle Public School’s transportation department. She and her husband bought a house in the Central District, at 28th and Republican, where she has lived for 50 years.

When I was interviewing Hardin, the doorbell rang. Standing there was a man who asked if she was interested in selling her house. She told me that happens often, but she won’t sell. Her black neighbors have taken offers though. Others just couldn’t afford to stay. Now she’s the only black person on her block. Making The Effort To Connect Gentrification of the Central District sped up in the 1990s and early 2000s, as Seattle became home to companies that employ tens of thousands of people. The Central District is just a few miles from downtown, and close enough to the I-90 bridge for a quick commute to the Eastside, home to Microsoft, Nintendo and T-Mobile US.