Community Blogs
Albert W. Black, Jr.
Northwest African American Museum
Foxy and Jason Davison
Martin Luther King Day Home
Health and Wellness
UW School of Nursing
The Forging of a Black Community
Aguirre_Ricardo
Lying midway between downtown and Lake Washington, the 4-square mile Central District dates to the 1890s and is one of Seattle’s most racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. It has been home to civil rights movements by African American, Filipino American, Japanese American, Chinese American, Jewish, Latino and Native American activists. Based at the University of Washington, the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project is a collaboration between community groups and UW faculty and students.
Some Neighborhood Notables
Northwest African American Museum
The Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) in the Central District was founded in March 2008 with the assistance of UW alums Brian J. Carter, a graduate of the UW’s Museology Program, its education director and five of NAAM’s nine staff hail from the UW College of Arts and Sciences.
The Forging of a Black Community
Research into Seattle’s past by UW historian Quintard Taylor resulted in a groundbreaking history of Seattle’s Central District. The Forging of a Black Community was published by UW Press in 1994.
Cortona Cafe
As co-owners of the Cortona Cafe on East Union Street, a popular gathering spot, community volunteers Foxy and Jason Davison draw on their UW graduate degrees to boost relations among neighbors and educate area youth.
Health and Wellness
In partnership with Work It Out in Central Seattle, undergraduate students from the UW School of Nursing created a health and wellness room where students 16-21 years old that have left high school can learn about physical, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being as they work to change the trajectory of their lives
Martin Luther King Day Home in central Seattle was designed by Environmental Works, a firm established 40 years ago by UW Department of Architecture graduates to practice architecture in the public interest. Child care centers are their specialty.
Ricardo Aguirre
Chicano activist and UW football star Ricardo Aguirre, ’61, helped found Seattle’s El Centro de la Raza social service agency and has served as a speaker, facilitator, instructor, mentor and role model to many Latino students through such programs as the Seattle Public Schools’ Proyecto Saber, the only school district program that serves both Spanish and non-Spanish speaking Latino students.
Community Outreach
UW School of Nursing students under the direction of Associate Professor Doris Boutain have worked with the management team of a supermarket in an underserved Central District neighborhood to help increase customer purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables, based on research indicating that store design impacts buying habits.
Boosting Local Economies
The Community News Lab in the Department of Communication gives advanced journalism students an opportunity to write for community and ethnic newspapers and online news sites in the greater Seattle area, including the Capitol Hill Times.
The Industrial Assessment Center believes that managing industrial energy is a responsibility shared by the entire industrial community. In order to achieve a greater level of energy efficiency, a team composed mainly of engineering faculty and graduate-level students in the University of Washington’s Department of Electrical Engineering provides small- and medium-sized manufacturers with free energy assessments.
The Business Assistance Program from the Foster School of Business serves small business owners in the Central area, offering pro bono legal advising, accounting and financial services, pro bono consulting services and access to additional counsel and business advice. Services for the Business Assistance Program are provided through a competitive application process.