As churchgoers celebrated their new house of worship, in 1926, white
homeowners across the street — where the large apartment building,
Lawrence Lofts, stands today — launched a campaign.
As the walking guide describes, they “went door to door, collecting signatures.” Soon all the home deeds on the block carried restrictive covenants that said, in short, they would never “be used or occupied by
or sold, conveyed, leased, rented or given” to Black people.
These covenants, depending on location, also restricted the sale or
renting of the homes to people who were Black, of Asian or Jewish
heritage, and anyone else considered nonwhite.
These covenants drew an invisible line down the middle of 19th, a form
of segregation and discrimination that was sanctioned with the creation
of the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation in 1933.
This New Deal-era, government-sponsored corporation drew maps of U.S.
cities, coloring sections of town red it deemed to risky for mortgage insurance. Those redlined sections were invariably home to communities
of color.
The Central District in 1965. Redlining restricted Black homeowners to
the Seattle neighborhood. The racist housing policy was outlawed with
the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. (Seattle Times archives)
The Central District in 1965. Redlining restricted Black homeowners to
the Seattle neighborhood. The racist housing policy was outlawed with
the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. (Seattle Times archives)
That invisible line of discrimination wound around the Central District.
Redlining was finally outlawed with the passage of the Fair Housing Act
of 1968, which banned racial discrimination in real estate and mortgage lending.
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But the damage had been done.
Lee said redlining “feeds and fuels itself” by first devaluing Black property and neighborhoods. That, in turn, leads to gentrification, and
the reinvestment in formerly Black neighborhoods by wealthier, usually
white, people.
“The Central District is a textbook example of that,” she said.
East Madison Street bustles with pedestrians and cars in 1961. At upper
left is Birdland’s neon sign. The fabled live music club was razed
in 1965. Today a grocery store stands on the site. (F. Herrick /
University of Washington Special Collections)
East Madison Street bustles with pedestrians and cars in 1961. At upper
left is Birdland’s neon sign. The fabled live music club was razed in
1965. Today a grocery... (F. Herrick / University of Washington Special Collections)More
Black enterprise
An example of this loss of Black wealth, and entrepreneurship, is around
21st and Madison.
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For decades, the block was home to Birdland, a fabled live music club
that hosted Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Jimi Hendrix and countless others
before it was demolished, its location now home to a Safeway.
The area almost exclusively hosted Black-owned businesses, including the pharmacy of Russell Gideon, whose contributions to Seattle’s civic life
led to Ebony magazine calling him for years one of the most influential
Black people in the U.S.
Today, DeCharlene’s Beauty Salon is the only remaining Black-owned
business there, according to the guide.
On the walking tour, DeCharlene Williams — who died in 2018 and whose
family continues to run the business — describes in her own words how
she overcame the difficulties she faced looking for work and acquiring a
loan to start her business, thanks to an interview recorded by the Shelf
Life Community Story Project, which seeks to preserve the history of the Central District.
Seattle’s Central District offers new walk through its ‘infamous’ history
A major key about discrimination -
FDR's New Deal
March 22, 2025 at 8:47 am
Merlin Rainwater, left, and Allycea Weil, at Midtown Square in
Seattle’s Central District. Rainwater and Weil are two of the
three collaborators on Seattle’s Infamous Redline Guide, which takes
users on an audio walking tour of the Central District and its history.
(Ivy Ceballo / The Seattle Times)
Merlin Rainwater, left, and Allycea Weil, at Midtown Square in Seattle’s Central District. Rainwater and Weil are two of the three collaborators
on Seattle’s Infamous Redline Guide, which takes users on an audio
walking tour of the Central District and its history. (Ivy Ceballo / The Seattle Times)
By Nicholas Deshais
Seattle Times staff reporter
Merlin Rainwater was, admittedly, “white, liberal, self-consciously anti-racist” when she moved to Seattle’s Central District in the 1980s
and took advantage of the cheap houses for sale.
At the time, the neighborhood was undergoing vast change. In the 1970s,
the Central District was nearly 75% Black. Nowadays, about 15% of the
area’s residents are Black.
Working as a home care nurse in her new community, Rainwater got to know
her neighbors. One woman asked Rainwater to accompany her to the
hospital for a pregnancy-related emergency because she thought she’d be treated better if a white person was with her. Rainwater agreed to go,
but the conversation shook her.
“I was completely oblivious to the reality around me,” Rainwater said.
Not so much anymore. As she discovered — and as she hopes others will
learn through a new smartphone-powered, self-guided audio walking tour
she developed — the history of the city’s Central District is on
display, if you know where to look.
So, in turn, is the story of Black Seattle.
The digital walking tour — Seattle’s Infamous Redline Guide, available
as an app — takes people on a two-hour outing around the neighborhood, generally circling around 21st Avenue and East Madison Street, a once
thriving intersection of Black-owned businesses and culture.
Merlin Rainwater shows a map from Seattle’s Infamous Redline Guide. The
app takes users on a two-hour outing around the Central District, where
they learn about the story of Black Seattle. (Ivy Ceballo / The Seattle
Times)
The tour has 12 locations, and takes people from the founding of the
Central District by William Grose, and through 20th-century efforts to
exclude Black people from homeownership and its related wealth-building.
It ends at Africatown Plaza and the Wa Na Wari art center, where the
guide describes current efforts to reverse years of disinvestment and celebrates the people who made the neighborhood what it is today.
As Rainwater and her project collaborators — local filmmakers Malika Lee
and Allycea Weil — detail, there’s much to celebrate, even while acknowledging the devastation brought by a racist housing policy made
law by the federal government, commonly referred to as redlining.
Mount Zion Baptist Church has been a fixture in Seattle’s Black
community for more than a century. (Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times,
2018)
Mount Zion Baptist Church has been a fixture in Seattle’s Black
community for more than a century. (Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times,
2018)
Invisible lines
Lee, the tour’s creative director and curriculum consultant, grew up in
the Central District and attended Mount Zion Baptist Church as a kid.
She remembers her grandmother, every Sunday, checking her account at the
credit union associated with the church.
At the time, it was nothing to her. Now she sees it in a different
light, one where a community is blocked from accessing things that
others take for granted. Bank accounts. Homeownership.
“Working on this project really connected some dots that had shaped my upbringing,” said Lee, who was the assistant director on the 2020
documentary “Keepers of the Dream: Seattle Women Black Panthers” and now lives just south of Columbia City.
A
“One of the things that really stood out for me was that at one time,
Black homeownership in Seattle was amongst the highest in the nation,”
Lee said. “Now we’re amongst the lowest.”
Mount Zion, which was established in 1890, has its own unfortunate
connection to this chapter in Seattle history.
In the 1920s, the church built a new brick chapel for its congregants at
19th Avenue and East Madison Street.
As churchgoers celebrated their new house of worship, in 1926, white
homeowners across the street — where the large apartment building,
Lawrence Lofts, stands today — launched a campaign.
As the walking guide describes, they “went door to door, collecting signatures.” Soon all the home deeds on the block carried restrictive covenants that said, in short, they would never “be used or occupied by
or sold, conveyed, leased, rented or given” to Black people.
These covenants, depending on location, also restricted the sale or
renting of the homes to people who were Black, of Asian or Jewish
heritage, and anyone else considered nonwhite.
These covenants drew an invisible line down the middle of 19th, a form
of segregation and discrimination that was sanctioned with the creation
of the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation in 1933.
This New Deal-era, government-sponsored corporation drew maps of U.S.
cities, coloring sections of town red it deemed to risky for mortgage insurance. Those redlined sections were invariably home to communities
of color.
The Central District in 1965. Redlining restricted Black homeowners to
the Seattle neighborhood. The racist housing policy was outlawed with
the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. (Seattle Times archives)
The Central District in 1965. Redlining restricted Black homeowners to
the Seattle neighborhood. The racist housing policy was outlawed with
the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. (Seattle Times archives)
That invisible line of discrimination wound around the Central District.
Redlining was finally outlawed with the passage of the Fair Housing Act
of 1968, which banned racial discrimination in real estate and mortgage lending.
Most Read Local Stories
Fired in the name of efficiency, now the VA’s paying them not to work
Signs of the shameless times pop up in Seattle
Frank Chopp, former WA House speaker and tireless advocate, dies at 71 VIEW Columbia Basin copper mining has clean-energy promise, risks WATCH
Seattle was told it was ‘disappearing’ its top students. Did SPS hear?
But the damage had been done.
Lee said redlining “feeds and fuels itself” by first devaluing Black property and neighborhoods. That, in turn, leads to gentrification, and
the reinvestment in formerly Black neighborhoods by wealthier, usually
white, people.
“The Central District is a textbook example of that,” she said.
East Madison Street bustles with pedestrians and cars in 1961. At upper
left is Birdland’s neon sign. The fabled live music club was razed
in 1965. Today a grocery store stands on the site. (F. Herrick /
University of Washington Special Collections)
East Madison Street bustles with pedestrians and cars in 1961. At upper
left is Birdland’s neon sign. The fabled live music club was razed in
1965. Today a grocery... (F. Herrick / University of Washington Special Collections)More
Black enterprise
An example of this loss of Black wealth, and entrepreneurship, is around
21st and Madison.
Sponsored
Skip Ad
Skip Ad
Skip Ad
Skip Ad
For decades, the block was home to Birdland, a fabled live music club
that hosted Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Jimi Hendrix and countless others
before it was demolished, its location now home to a Safeway.
The area almost exclusively hosted Black-owned businesses, including the pharmacy of Russell Gideon, whose contributions to Seattle’s civic life
led to Ebony magazine calling him for years one of the most influential
Black people in the U.S.
Today, DeCharlene’s Beauty Salon is the only remaining Black-owned
business there, according to the guide.
On the walking tour, DeCharlene Williams — who died in 2018 and whose
family continues to run the business — describes in her own words how
she overcame the difficulties she faced looking for work and acquiring a
loan to start her business, thanks to an interview recorded by the Shelf
Life Community Story Project, which seeks to preserve the history of the Central District.
Rita Williams, left, reads the Seattle Medium while Louise Oliver
peruses The Facts at DeCharlene Williams’ beauty shop in 1985.
Today, DeCharlene’s Beauty Salon is the only remaining Black-owned
business around 21st and Madison, according to Seattle’s Infamous
Redline Guide. Williams died in 2018, but her voice can be heard on the
guide. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times, 1985)
Rita Williams, left, reads the Seattle Medium while Louise Oliver
peruses The Facts at DeCharlene Williams’ beauty shop in 1985. Today, DeCharlene’s Beauty Salon is the only remaining... (Alan Berner / The
Seattle Times, 1985)More
The tour uses audio from numerous oral histories, many collected by the
Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. Rainwater said the team
also relied on retired University of Washington professor Quintard
Taylor‘s masterful book, “The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District From 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era.”
The tour ends near 23rd Avenue and Union Street, where it shifts from
the past to the present, detailing the work of the Africatown Community
Land Trust, which with Community Roots Housing built 126 units of
affordable housing there.
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The tour praises the state Covenant Homeownership Program, created in
2023, that offers homebuying assistance to Washingtonians who faced
housing discrimination in the early to mid-20th century and their
descendants.
These efforts, in some way, seek to repair past wrongs, but there’s
still more to do.
Weil, who worked on the technical side of the app and helped gather and
take photos for the project, moved to the neighborhood with her two teen
boys about five years ago and is currently working on a documentary
called “Critical What?!” that follows a handful of local kids as they struggle with issues like homelessness, tech inequality, gender bias and
book banning.
Like Lee and Rainwater, Weil said people shouldn’t dwell too much on the past, but instead focus on the present.
Merlin Rainwater, left, and Allycea Weil, right, show off Seattle’s
Infamous Redline Guide in Midtown Square last week. The digital walking
tour generally circles around 21st Avenue and East Madison Street, a
once thriving intersection of Black-owned businesses and culture. (Ivy
Ceballo / The Seattle Times)
Merlin Rainwater, left, and Allycea Weil, right, show off Seattle’s
Infamous Redline Guide in Midtown Square last week. The digital walking
tour generally circles around 21st Avenue and East Madison Street,...
(Ivy Ceballo / The Seattle Times)More
Weil said she gets her undercut maintained at Earl’s Cuts and Styles barbershop, loves getting Ethiopian coffee at Avole and buying gifts at
Arte Noir. She said the best jerk chicken she’s ever had is at Jerk
Shack Kitchen in Midtown Square.
Spending money at these Black-owned businesses is her own way of making history, she said.
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“We’re living history,” she said. “How you move in this world will impact another.”
App launch party
A launch party for the Seattle’s Infamous Redline Guide is happening 2-4
p.m. Saturday, March 22, at Made Space, 2002 E. Union St. The project’s developers will be there to talk about the guide and connect people with housing and community organizations working in the Central District, as
well as Black-owned businesses in the neighborhood.
For more information: SeattlesInfamousRedline.stqry.app
For Rainwater, she’s glad the digital walking guide is coming out now,
as the Trump administration seeks to purge government websites of
references to diversity and inclusion.
“Some of the things that have happened in the last few weeks, especially
the erasing of Black people from the historical record, reminded me why
I did this in the first place,” Rainwater said.
And that was exactly why she did it — to restore a history many of us
never learned, or didn’t want to remember. Including herself.
“As I did this,” she said, “it became more and more clear that it was me who I was educating.”
Nicholas Deshais: 206-464-2932 or
[email protected]. Nicholas
Deshais covers transportation for The Seattle Times.
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