Tag Archives: black lives matter

E Pine Black Lives Matter mural vandalized

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(Images courtesy Converge Media)

A year after the neighborhood’s rainbow crosswalks were sloppily vandalized, paint and markings have marred the Black Lives Matter street mural stretching across E Pine south of Cal Anderson Park.

The Seattle Department of Transportation tells CHS it is looking into the situation:

The BLM mural on Capitol Hill was recently vandalized sometime between Saturday, September 27, and Monday, September 30. SDOT was notified by the muralā€™s artists, Vivid Matter Collective, on September 30. White paint was spilled across several portions of the mural, affecting multiple letters.

“Weā€™re working closely with Vivid Matter Collective to restore the artwork as soon as possible,” the statement from SDOT says. “The artists were onsite today to assess the damage, and our crews are coordinating cleanup efforts that will include hydro-blasting and pressure washing to remove the paint.”

SDOT says it “remains committed to preserving this important piece of public art and ensuring it continues to be a space of pride and reflection for the community.” Continue reading →

City, community groups creating ‘Memorial Garden’ in MLK Way’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park

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“The park features Robert Kelly’s 30-foot-tall sculpture inspired by King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, which was gifted to the city by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Committee in 1991″ (Image: Another Believer/Wikipedia)

While the public process around a planned art installation honoring the Black LIves Matter movement at Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park has gone quiet, an effort to create a new memorial garden in MLK Way’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park is busy.

This summer, the MLK Memorial Garden Development Project is beginning with an effort to create a garden and “enhanced park space” that promotes “healing, solidarity, and sustainable living.”

“By centering community voices throughout the design process, SPR seeks to co-create a garden that honors Seattleā€™s Black diaspora, celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.ā€™s enduring legacy, and provides a dedicated space for reflection and remembrance of those lost too soon to gun violence,” Seattle Parks and Recreation said about the project as it kicked off earlier this summer. Continue reading →

Five years later: CHOP and the 2020 protests in Seattle

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Five years ago this week, CHS began what would grow into months of day by day, night by night coverage of the 2020 protests in Seattle. It was a neighborhood story. Continue reading →

Seattle Parks working on plan for new memorial in Cal Anderson marking CHOP and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests — UPDATE

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The CHOP “raised fist” remained for a short time following the camp’s clearance

This May will bring the five year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota cop. June will mark five years from the Black Lives Matter protests that followed across the country and in Seattle centered around the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone and Cal Anderson.

This spring, the Seattle Parks department says it is working on a plan to create a new art installation in the popular Capitol Hill park “to commemorate the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, honor Seattleā€™s Black and BIPOC communities, and memorialize those lost to gun violence.”

The new project will join the nearby E Pine Black Lives Matter mural in marking the area’s place in 2020’s unrest. It follows the late 2023 removal of the Black Lives Memorial Garden from the park.

This year’s project will create a new memorial. Continue reading →

City says annual repainting of Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter street mural to take place this month — if weather cooperates

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(Image: CHS)

The City of Seattle and the group of artists that shepherd the creation are hoping for a run of dry October weather for the annual repainting of the Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter street mural.

The Seattle Department of Transportation says the collaboration with the Vivid Matter Collective to care for the mural remains intact along with help from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture to gather every year to clean up and repaint portions of the street-tall E Pine mural.

SDOT crews were spotted at work on the the clean-up around the mural in September but a planned repainting event never took place due to rain, the collective said.

The city says the repainting “to restore the muralā€™s colors and vibrancy” requires good weather and is hoped to take place the weekend of October 19th or October 26th depending on the forecast. Current forecasts call for stretches of drizzle that could further delay the effort.

Vivid Matter Collective has yet to announce a new date for its 2024 effort

The Vivid Matter Collective shepherds the long-term responsibility of maintaining the Black Lives Matter mural created by artists and activists in 2020 in the first days of the protests in Seattle. Continue reading →

SDOT includes E Pine Black Lives Matter mural touch-up in late summer round of maintenance on Seattle streets

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Thanks to a CHS reader for the pictures

CHS has received a lot of worried inquiries around the presence of a work crew at the E Pine Black Lives Matter mural. Don’t worry. They’re just sprucing it up.

Thanks for the questions and reports from the scene. Crews are cleaning and touching up the pavement artwork as part of Seattle Department of Transportation work across the city. Continue reading →

‘Was Summer Taylor negligent?’ — State not liable in lawsuit blaming troopers for Black Lives Matter protester struck and killed on I-5

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Taylor and loved ones (Image: Stritmatter Firm)

A jury has found the State of Washington was not negligent in the death of protester Summer Taylor who was struck and killed in July 2020 on I-5 by a motorist who had driven around state patrol blockades.

One of the final major legal cases around the fallout from the damage, deaths, and flawed law enforcement responses to Seattle’s 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the Taylor case was brought on behalf of the Capitol Hill resident’s family and blamed the stateā€™s ā€œfailure to properly and fully close the freeway that nightā€ for allowing the driver to enter the roadway by driving the wrong way up an off-ramp before striking and killing Taylor as a group of protestors filled I-5. Continue reading →

Wrongful death trial blaming state for Black Lives Matter protester struck and killed on I-5 set to begin

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Taylor (Image: The Stritmatter Firm)

The wrongful death trial against the State of Washington in the crash that killed activist Summer Taylor in a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest on I-5 is set to begin, the law firm representing Taylor’s family announced.

The Stritmatter Firm says that the stateā€™s “failure to properly and fully close the freeway that night” allowed the driver that struck and killed Taylor as a group of protestors filled I-5 to enter the roadway in the deadly incident.

“The state could have prohibited protests on the freeway. Instead it allowed the protests, told the protesters it was closing the road, but failed to fully close the road,” the firm wrote in an announcement on the case, adding that the state “closed the freeway on 30 different occasions to allow the protesters to occupy the roadway on 19 different evenings.” Continue reading →

Hollingsworth joins in raising red, black, and green of the Liberation Flag for Seattle’s Black History Month

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(Image: @CMJoyHollings and @CMRobSaka)

Seattle City Council representative for Capitol Hill and the Central District Joy Hollingsworth marked Black History Month by joining in a ceremony with Mayor Bruce Harrell to raise the red, black, and green Black Liberation Flag above Seattle City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

Hollingsworth was joined in the ceremony by West Seattle rep Rob Saka. The two first-year city legislators are the first Black councilmembers in Seattle since Harrell left office in 2019. Continue reading →

After Black Lives Memorial Garden removal, UW studio taking academic approach to sorting out community uses in Cal Anderson

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(Image: Juan Jocom)

By Juan Jocom

The Black Lives Memorial Garden has been cleared from Cal Anderson Park but efforts to mark the events of the 2020 protests and create a lasting connection to the movements and communities that centered around this Capitol Hill public space that summer are continuing.

A University of Washington professor who successfully helped lead the transformation of the International District’s Hing Hay Park with community elements and expanded features is continuing a process to harness student ideas and design concepts that could someday do the same in Cal Anderson.

Jeff Hou, Landscape Architecture Professor at University of Washington and the director of the Urban Commons Lab, is moving forward on a studio project this winter to take action on creating inclusive solutions for Cal Anderson.

ā€œWe need to be respectful of multiple interests and identity and we want to bring as many people to the table and making sure that the design can serve a wider audience,ā€ says Hou.

Others aren’t waiting for a design studio.

Late last Thursday night, Seattle Police stood by as Seattle Parks rangers cleared the park in a rare enforcement of Cal Anderson’s posted 11:30 PM closure time. A “mutual aid” group that had put up canopies and a fire pit near the area of the cleared garden refused to budge.

Continue reading →