Northwest African American Museum
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Northwest African American Museum. For more information about African American history in Seattle, please visit the museum and click on the links and books below.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The museum is located in a historic school that served the Black community and might have been sold by the city had it not been for community activists that pushed for its preservation and conversion into a museum. In fact, some activists physically occupied the school at various times between 1985 and 1993 to prevent it from being sold.
The Colman School was attended by African Americans almost exclusively in the 1960s. The state began purchasing homes around the school and razing them to construct I-90. The construction of the interstate divided the Black population and reduced the viability of several local businesses that served the Black community.