Seattle Times Cover Story

8/4/2019 Seattle Times Cover Story

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/seattle-times-cover-story 1/3

W

8 the seattle times

HEN YOU’RE not from here, itcan take some work to understand

what sort of place you’ve landed in. A job with The Seattle Times lured me to the Northwest

after stops in Cape Town, South Africa, Boston and New York City, and I actually made some of the transition quickly. Istarted running, irted with the idea of commuting by bicycle. And after receiving some admonitory stares, I even learned topolitely stop until given the walk signal before crossing thestreet.

But three months into my new Seattle life, one thing eludedme still: Where was Seattle’s community of young black pro-fessionals?

I looked for them everywhere: At work, shopping down-town, wandering the U District. Coffee shops and restaurants.Online communities, too.

Then one day a co-worker suggested I attend a mixer orga-nized by a local nonprot.

“Oh, heeeere’s everybody,” I thought as I walked in. Seattleand I became a better t.

Yet the question lingered: Why is it that Seattle, with itsgreen beauty, economic opportunity and coolness factor, ndsit so difcult to attract and retain young black professionals?

Quintard Taylor, an American history professor at theUniversity of Washington, says part of the reason is obvi-

ous: Seattle simply doesn’t have the numbers that cities like Atlanta, Houston and New York have. So even though Seattlehas historically been thought of as a place that’s welcoming to African Americans, it’s “not seen as culturally black.”

Fully half of the state’s black population lives in KingCounty, but they’re just 6 percent of county residents. And inthe 1990s, rising property taxes and home prices promptedmany of them to leave their historic neighborhood, the Cen-tral District, for South King County. Consequently, the county reached a demographic milestone: More black people livedoutside Seattle than in it, a fact that remains true today.

Rough census data show that the growth rate of KingCounty’s 20-to-39-year-old black population declined about11 percent between 1990 and 2000, ironically during the ten-ure of Seattle’s rst black mayor, Norm Rice. State populationestimates showed the growth rate of this age group levelingoff through 2008.

But folks like Jeanette James, who relocated from Chicago,say being part of a small black population is “a great prob-lem” to have. “I nd that you can very easily get overcom-mitted with volunteering here because people really want your voice.” Locals like deejay Chukundi Salisbury agree,saying black professionals “have a disproportionate amountof access to services, to people, to public offerings.”

Ed Reed, a criminal-justice professor at Seattle University,says blacks who thrive here typically have some things in com-

In the MinorityBY APRIL SIMPSON • PHOTOGRAPHED BY KEN LAMBERT

Young black professionals are makingtheir place in the pale Northwest

Continued on page 10 >

Chukundi (DJ Kun Luv) Salisbury, CEO of Seaspot MediaGroup, publishes a magazine about the local music scene. He also throws parties for record releases, including one for Erykah Badu’s album “Worldwide Underground.” A poster of the album’s cover hangs in his Central District ofce.

Jeanette James,director of admis-

sion and advance-ment at Seattle

Girls’ School, sitsbefore a student painting on the school’s exterior. A volunteer with several civic groups, James says, “Seattleis a very philan-thropic, civic-mind-ed, community-ori-ented city, so thereare a lot of places

for you to plug in.”

FINDINGCOMMUNITY



10 the seattle times

mon: They’re educated and so are their parents; they’verelocated for jobs, likely with the region’s top companies;they’re connected to social organizations.

Reed’s right. After I attended the mixer, organized by a volunteer and professional-development group Jamesfounded, I took on leadership positions and cultivatedsatisfying friendships during my two years in Seattle.

James and Salisbury are among the black profession-als who’ve planted deeper roots here. Their stories andothers show that despite its challenges, Seattle can be arewarding place for folks to call home.

JANTT JAMS

Director of admission and advancement,Seattle Girls’ School

Jeanette James zipped across the University of Wash-ington’s Red Square on a fall Friday morning in 1994 asa stranger kept pace behind her. Though she was runninglate to teach a communications class, she stopped briey enough for the stranger to hand her a yer for Sisterhood,a newly formed volunteer-oriented student group for black women, many of whom, like James, were transplants.

James, who had relocated from Chicago in 1993, gladly

accepted the invitation.

“When you’re one of just a couple hundred on campus . . .it’s natural to want to align,” she says. “In Seattle, a lot of times we’re experiencing very similar feelings of isolation.”

Those feelings didn’t go away with her participationin Sisterhood or even after she left the UW for SeattleGirls’ School. Years later, James and a still small groupof young black professionals would nd themselves ask-ing not only how to better connect with the city’s Afri-can-American community but also “how can we betterconnect with Seattle?” So she organized and served as

inaugural president of the Seattle Urban League Young Professionals, a now 6-year-old auxiliary of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.

Auxiliary members network and volunteer. Whilethe group has grown into somewhat of a refugefor black professionals, James makes it clear thatmembers shouldn’t isolate themselves in the group’sbubble.

James, 41, offers her volunteer efforts as exam-ples: She’s a graduate of Leadership Tomorrow, aleadership-training program, volunteers with thehistorically black Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, andis community outreach manager for the JuniorLeague of Seattle. The two organizations have “rad-ically different” racial demographics, James says, yet similar structures and aims.

Seattle is a very philanthropic, community-oriented city, she says, so you can find places toplug in “once you gure out what you’re passionateabout.”

CUUNDI SALISBURY

CEO of Seaspot Media Group

Chukundi “DJ Kun Luv” Salisbury considershimself an “urban shaman,” a provider of enter-tainment with the power to “call people to peace.”For him, that’s meant using his deejay booth toremind partygoers, “We came in peace, let’s leavein peace,” and to dismiss the don’t-snitch mental-ity that discourages reporting violent criminals tothe police.

Besides presiding at parties that draw crowdsfrom as far as Vancouver, B.C., and Portland, Salis-bury devotes his time to working with young peo-ple. As a trails coordinator for the city of Seattle,he’s in contact with hundreds of kids.

He runs Seaspot, his publishing and entertain-ment company, from a nondescript building onSouth Main Street. Photos dating back to the early 1990s of Salisbury posing with hip-hop luminarieslike The Fugees and Big Daddy Kane share a wall

with news articles about him and Seaspot.“Our young people are inundated with this BET

lifestyle,” Salisbury says of the cable network thatoften glamorizes the lives of entertainers. “Weought to be using entertainment as a tool for behav-ioral modication.”

So he uses his platforms to engage kids. Forexample, his All City Teen Dance, a partnership of Seaspot, the city, Seattle Center and several com-munity organizations, is f or the high-school crowd.To participate in the free event, attendees sign apledge committing to a peaceful summer; studentsmust get a teacher or other community leader tosign the pledge.

“I’m trying a bait-and-switch,” says Salisbury, 40.Raised in the Central District, he credits his moth-

er, the Rev. Harriet Walden, with teaching himsocial responsibility. Salisbury speaks at schoolsand community centers to share his story of perse- verance. Graduating from Gareld High School in1987 with a 2.3 grade-point average, higher educa-tion appeared out of reach. His teachers pushed himtoward vocational training. But Salisbury enrolledat North Carolina’s Elizabeth City State University,his father’s alma mater, and earned a bachelor’s

degree in computer deejaying, he returne

DAvID PIRR-LOULucid Jazz Lounge own

As he greets patrobar and chats with meblues set, David Pierrneeds to be done nex

Tonight, and mostJazz Lounge in the U white people, a fact t whose parents are fro

In his business, he sa way you look, your ag

That business phunending restless

In the Minority

Continued from page 8

After being laid off, David Pierre-Louis took a risk with hisretirement funds to open Lucid, a live-jazz lounge in theUniversity District. In other cities, he says, his club wouldbe heavily patronized by African Americans. Here, “color istruly becoming a nonfactor in the decisions I make.”

On Microsoft’s Redmocomfortable, even thoumeetings. A native of Sto other young black p



14 t he seattle times

enabled him to open Lucid.His early businesses didn’t always ourish.

The carwash he owned while attending Bet-hune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach,Fla., folded in its rst two years. His unsanc-tioned one-man, soul-food outt at Long IslandUniversity was shut down. Yet he chalks upeach failure as teaching moments that wouldbring the Brooklyn, N.Y., native to Seattle.

Pierre-Louis moved here for a sales job andbecame a regular on jazz nights at CapitolHill’s Faire Gallery and Café. Five years later,he changed jobs and was laid off. It was justthe bad news he needed to make another risky move: Cash in on his 401(k), hold severalfundraisers and solicit friends’ support to openLucid in November 2008.

“Being in Seattle has taught me to embracethose who embrace what I’ve created,” saysPierre-Louis, 32. “Color is truly becoming anonfactor in the decisions I make.”

Evidence of this embrace was demonstratedafter a massive earthquake struck Haiti lastJanuary. Pierre-Louis traveled there to findhis mother (the journey was featured on theCBS Evening News), but she refused to leaveher friends and neighbors suffering. So Pierre-Louis organized the Inside/Out Jazz Awardsat Benaroya Hall, which raised $5,000 for hisnonprot, L’Union Fait la Force, or StrengthThrough Unity, to help rebuild his mother’sneighborhood.

This year, his focus has shifted to launchinga nonprot to boost pay and expand access torecording opportunities for local musicians.

MIYA MCCLAINSoftware-design engineer, Microsoft

When Miya McClain was accepted at MillsCollege for women in Oakland, Calif., it wasdifficult for her tight-knit Christian family

to bid her farewell. Receiving one educationfrom her mother’s home school and other lifelessons from a pew at First African MethodistEpiscopal Church, McClain, the second oldestof six, was the rst to move away from Seattle.

After she delivered a presentation attendedby Steve Ballmer during her rst year of college,the Microsoft CEO personally asked the 18-year-old computer-science major to intern with thecompany, which she did for th ree summers. As if that weren’t unlikely enough, landing a full-timegig with Microsoft as a software-design engineercame as a surprise even to McClain.

She thought she was more likely to relocateto Atlanta — considered a mecca for young, African-American professionals — where she’dspent a college semester. “It was easy to seeblack leaders and black people in high posi-tions in a company,” she says.

McClain characterizes Seattle’s black profes-sional community as “disjointed.” “Most peo-ple feel like they’re squatting here. It’s hardfor them to get invested in the neighborhoodsthey’re in because they feel like they’ll be herefor ve years max” before going home.

Sometimes, black colleagues are surprised

when McClain tells them she grew up here;

she spends a lot of time dispelling myths. Now27, she’s raising a toddler with her husband inColumbia City.

McClain says she’s often both the only Afri-can American and the only woman in theroom at Microsoft. That’s why she joined theboard of the Technology Access Foundation, which prepares children of color to becometech leaders and is the very organization thatpiqued McClain’s interest in the eld. McClainalso works with a group called IGNITE (Inspir-ing Girls Now in Technology Evolution). Shesays she routinely sees female colleagues,especially blacks, overworking, as if they havesomething to prove. Her advice to women con-sidering these elds: Persevere — and “realize

that you’re good enough to be where you are.”

CRAIG SIMSChief of the criminal division,Seattle City Attorney’s Ofce

Craig Sims was just 4 years old when, sport-ing a lopsided Afro and burgundy pinstripe suit,he gave his rst public speech before an EasterSunday congregation. “I did not come here tostay. I only came here to say, have a happy Eas-ter day,” he remembers telling the crowd.

Needless to say, his recitations have evolvedsince, but the values he developed as a youngcongregant have remained. Now 38 and stilla sharp dresser in his 53rd-floor downtownSeattle office, Sims offers a quotation fromspiritual leader Marianne Williamson: “Thereis nothing enlightened about shrinking sothat other people won’t feel insecure around you. As we let our own light shine, we uncon-sciously give other people permission to dothe same.”

Sims is quick to credit the mentors, col-leagues, friends and organizations whose“light” guided him to the powerful positionhe holds.

One of four children, he graduated fromhigh school in Beaverton, Ore., and earned afull academic scholarship to the University of Oregon, where he studied English and sociol-ogy. One day after graduating from college, hestarted at Seattle University Law School.

That momentum nearly came to an abrupthalt during his rst year when Sims ran out of money, which prompted a weekend escape toPortland to contemplate whether he’d be ableto go on. But Sims would return to his studioapartment to nd a refrigerator full of grocer-ies and an envelope bursting with cash on thekitchen counter. A note from “the crew,” said,“you can lean on us any time.” In that moment,he learned the meaning of Williamson’s quote.“When you’re a young guy like that, you’reproud, and you don’t want people to know youneed help,” says Sims, who kept the envelopein his back pocket until he nished law school.“But it had become clear to me that no onegets through this life alone.”

April Simpson, a former Seattletimes.com Web producer,is a 2010-2011 U.S. Student Fulbright Scholar research-ing new media in Gaborone, Botswana. Ken Lambert is a

Seattle Times staff photographer.

Continued from page 11

p

In the Minority

Documents

Seattle Times Cover Story