It is no secret that Seattle is rapidly changing. When I moved to Seattle in 2004 the city was already changing, but somehow, I found myself in the loving arms of Black communities that have played an important role in making this place what it is now: home.

A Place Where We Tell Our Story

A house is a place where you live. A home is a place where you love, and love is exactly what greets me as I walk into the Northwest African American Museum. A group of geese is called a gaggle. What do you call a group of Black aunties laughing and chit-chatting with arms wide open? A pride? Yes, like a pride of lionesses they are there at the entrance of the museum giving out hugs, big smiles and stern looks as only wisdom can. It takes me at least ten minutes to move ten feet from the door to the front desk before LaNesha DeBardelaben, the museum director, is alerted that I am here for a meeting

The museum director doesn’t mind that I am now late because as she comes out to greet me, she too is embraced by the pride of aunties. We make our way back to her office for our interview. DeBardelaben explains it is mid-winter break and some of the museum staff have brought their children to work. “It takes a village,” she says.

The Northwest African American Museum, known as the NAAM, sits on Southwest Massachusetts street in the historically red-lined Central District. It occupies the historic Colman School, built in 1909, the first to admit Black students and the first to hire Black teachers. NAAM is the only museum in the Northwest dedicated to telling the stories of Black peoples.

It took a lot of work to launch the museum, going all the way back to 1981 when the Community Exchange, a multi-racial coalition, proposed the creation of an African-American museum. The mayor at the time, Charles Royer, was supportive, but by 1985 when the school closed there had been no significant movement.

The impending expansion of I-90 threatened to erase an important piece of Seattle’s Black history. As a result, activists entered the building through a broken window and occupied it, demanding the building be preserved as an African-American museum. The occupation, led by Omari Tahir Garrett, Mona Bailey, Esther Mumford, Ann Gerber, P. Razz Garrison and Janice Cate, lasted 8 years — one of the longest demonstrations of civil disobedience in the United States. In 1993, the city agreed to fund the museum but it was another 10 years before Seattle’s Urban League purchased the building for $800,000 from the Seattle Public Schools District. On March 8, 2008, the Northwest African American Museum opened as part of a complex containing both the museum and 36 affordable apartment units.