Karyl Winn, Manuscripts and University Archives
A project has been completed in Manuscripts and University Archives to establish public access to oral history interviews which document the black communities of Seattle, Tacoma, Roslyn and Spokane, Washington.
These interviews were recorded between 1964 and 1976 when standard policy restricted access to "serious research use." Under this policy, undergraduates, community historians and other interested researchers without academic credentials could not use the interviews. Over the years, division staff have become increasingly uncomfortable with this situation, but limited resources prevented the effort needed to locate the original interviewees, most of whom it was assumed were deceased, and persuade them or their heirs to modify the terms of access.
In November 1995, Avril J. Madison, a manuscripts librarian with experience in the management of oral history programs, volunteered to undertake this effort. Madison recently moved to Seattle from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, where she worked for the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. Madison's efforts succeeded in liberalizing access to interviews which document a significant portion of black history in Washington from the 1880s to the early 1970s. The interviewees discuss a range of personal experiences living and working in several areas of the state. Many of the oral authors also included family histories passed on to them by parents and grandparents.
Of particular interest are interviews that discuss the role of black workers as strikebreakers in the early coal mining industry, and their struggle to open up jobs on the docks of Puget Sound port cities. Several longtime residents of Seattle also provide vivid testimony of the effect on the black community of defacto segregation policies in employment and housing. The Colored Marine Employees Benevolent Association, the Seattle Urban League and the Black Panther Party of Seattle are also discussed in some of the interviews.