How a young Black family fought and changed Seattle

May 8, 2021 8:44 PM

In 1959, at a dentist’s home in Seattle, a housekeeper was told to leave early. Her employers were hosting a neighborhood meeting that evening. As she left, she overheard their discussion: They were plotting ways to prevent a young Black doctor and his family from moving into the new Modernist house across the street. They had a secret weapon: real estate titan John L. Scott.
posted by ShooBoo (7 comments total)

This is a good article. Thank you for sharing it!
posted by limeonaire at 10:16 PM on May 8, 2021

Brings to mind the situation renowned chemist Percy Julian faced with his neighbors in 1950.

(I recommend making time for his story on the episode on PBS' Nova: Forgotten Genius.)
posted by fairmettle at 10:20 PM on May 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

Excellent article, thanks for sharing it. Gene Luan Yang’s graphic novel “Superman Smashes the Klan” is a similar story of housing integration for older children and interested adults.

The Nova show “Forgotten Genius” is excellent as well. They recently did “Picture a Scientist” about gender and behaviors that limit opportunities.
posted by childofTethys at 6:27 AM on May 9, 2021

Willie Mays just had his 90th birthday and I was reading about how he was initially prevented from buying a house in a San Francisco neighborhood because of racial covenants.
posted by shoesietart at 7:08 AM on May 9, 2021

This reminds me very much of a similar situation in the town where I grew up.

Don’t let the happy ending for the Harris family fool you, though — the effects of racism are still visible all over the community. Too often, white people (of which I am one) are all too eager to point to situations where a few white people did some good once to justify their own inaction in the face of ongoing bigotry.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:51 AM on May 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Oh wow, this explains so much for me. We moved around a lot, in Western Washington and to other states, so my parents were always buying houses in the '60s and '70s in this area, when they finally settled down in one place. And my mom just loathed John L. Scott real estate, like, she would see a sign on a house and demand that my dad go past it when we were out driving around for open houses. I could never understand why she hated them so much and I was just a kid, so I didn't understand what she meant by "practices." We lived in a lot of really diverse neighborhoods, so she was probably aware of this, and those covenants as well. (I sort of picked up her hatred by osmosis, when I was looking at buying a house, I remember just sort of automatically checking John L. Scott off my lists, which drove my agent bananas.)
posted by kitten kaboodle at 12:09 PM on May 9, 2021 [12 favorites]

All of this shit and so much more has kept Black people from having nice housing, nice schools, and participating in the (income-tax-subsidized) housing market, which has been a wealth-generator for many. More than a few people I know have found restrictive covenants in their deeds.

If you have not read it, read The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic. John L. Scott's heirs should pay reparations.
posted by theora55 at 4:31 PM on May 9, 2021 [7 favorites]