"We are a people torn apart from era to era. It is logical, moral and psychologically constructive for us to resist oppression, united as families...the inner strength and integrity will make us whole again."
(Martin Luther King Jr. 1967)

The fall of 1972 was not the "best of times" for Seattle, the Northwest, the United States or the world at large. Seattle was struggling with the "Boeing bust," the area's worst recession since the 1930's. At one point, someone erected a billboard reading, "Will the last person to leave Seattle, please turn off the lights?"

As fall came, the days shortened, the rains arrived and the air cooled into one of Seattle's coldest winters. A local incident demonstrated how the lines between national and local issues could easily become one. An anti-poverty program had been abruptly defended, sparking an issue that led to the creation of El Centro de la Raza.

Several dozen Latino students of the English and Adult Basic Education Program at the Duwamish branch of South Seattle Community College found themselves without an educational home. On October 11, 1972, core staff, students and their families peacefully occupied the abandoned Beacon Hill School near downtown Seattle.

This incident mirrored the social demonstrations and tenor of the previous four years that began in 1968 with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (following his two decades of struggle for racial equality). The following year, Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay was occupied.

In 1970, Fort Lawton in Seattle was occupied by Native Americans seeking the restoration of their treaty rights, especially salmon fishing and land based rights. Large farmworker strikes were occurring in the Yakima Valley of Washington State. Asian residents in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood were fighting the gentrification of the area.

Most university campuses in the state were experiencing mass demonstrations against the Vietnam war. The entire nation was stunned by the military killings of protesting students at Jackson State and Kent State Universities.

The people who led the peaceful occupation of the crumbling Beacon Hill School had participated in many of these activities and had experienced the value of joining efforts across racial and class barriers.

"El Centro de la Raza" is best translated from the Spanish as "The Center of the People." From the beginning, those who occupied and began to transform the old elementary school were joined by hundreds of previous allies of different races and economic sectors who identified with the purpose. Like the surrounding neighborhood, and Seattle as a whole, they represented the rainbow of humanity.

So, although the founding of El Centro de la Raza was sparked by Latinos and acquired a Spanish name, it began, and remains, "The Center of the People." It is "home" for all people who are interested in making a better and more just world in which, to borrow from Dr. King, "People are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin." El Centro de la Raza provides a community "plaza," or center for Seattle area's otherwise dispersed, and in 1972, largely invisible Latino community. El Centro de la Raza receives all individuals with open arms.

The people who had peacefully occupied the Beacon Hill School created a community, without running water and heat, as negotiations took place with the City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools. At one point it became necessary to occupy the Seattle City Council Chambers to underscore the determination to develop an authentic community center on the site.

One of the key debates raged around the most appropriate location for the Latino center. The occupants were convinced that the Beacon Hill site was the most appropriate because of it's centralized location, availability, and potential for expansion and development.

The final approval from the Mayor to secure the facility came only after the peaceful occupation and subsequent arrest of El Centro de la Raza leaders. The three month occupation, in one of Seattle's coldest winters, resulted in a five year lease of the building at $1 a year.

After the victory, the people of El Centro de la Raza began an extraordinary journey. Over the past two decades people's sweat, equity, songs and study have built one of the largest and most productive community based organizations in the nation. El Centro de la Raza is probably the only organization in the world to hold the Nicaraguan "10th Anniversary Medal of the Sandinista Revolution" (1989), and the "Thousand Points of Light" award (1991) from the Bush administration.

El Centro de la Raza has sought to empower many people and to encourage their participation in basic social change. The provision of a wide range of survival services alone would be a temporary relief for deep societal wounds; it does not address the root of poverty, discrimination, alienation and despair. El Centro de la Raza strives to use social, cultural, educational and civic activities as vehicles to bring together peoples of all races and refuses to separate economic activities from social and human service. The organization combines a strong sense of self-esteem and connectedness to one's family and culture with active participation in community affairs. It has developed an extensive network-locally, nationally and internationally-to join diverse peoples, with common problems, in search of effective solutions.

It is a difficult struggle. The organization squarely confronts problems of racism, sexism and other forms of inequality that have bedeviled the world for centuries. These problems were not created in one day and will not be solved quickly. El Centro de la Raza's dedication to solving them by building a sense of community is best expressed in the words of the last of it's 12 Principles:

To share, disburse and distribute our services, resources, knowledge and skills to our clients, community, visitors and broader human family with all dignity for their individuality, needs and condition. To do so creatively with warmth, cultural sensitivity, fairness, enthusiasm, compassion, honesty, and optimism in all areas of work.

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Revised: November 19, 2000.
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