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ABSTRACT
It is now commonplace to weave arts initiatives into community planning and development efforts. One historical foundation for this practice was the U.S. federal Model Cities programme, which promoted a role for the arts in the demonstration projects it funded. The reasons and purposes for doing so were worked out not by federal officials, but by funded projects on the ground in specific places. This essay tells the story of a federally funded performing arts programme in Seattle – Black Arts/West – and the intellectual landscape its supporters navigated to make a case for art’s role in neighbourhood development. That case was based on a belief that the Black Arts could contribute not only job training and consumer dollars to neighbourhood development, but also a cosmopolitan vision of a welcoming and diverse city. Ironically, even as Black Arts/West helped root the Black Arts in Seattle’s Central Area, it helped establish ways of thinking about the arts and diversity that would contribute to the neighbourhood’s gentrification.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my fellow authors in this special section for their support and ideas; to Ben Looker for his suggestions; and to the generous anonymous readers. Special thanks to Susanne Schindler for all the organizing. And thanks, too, to the staffs at the Seattle Municipal Archives, the University of Washington Special Collections, and the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Nina Shapiro, ‘Seattle Street Named for Black Theater Pioneer,’ Seattle Times, November 26, 2020; Gene Balk, ‘Percentage of Black Residents in Seattle Is at its Lowest Point in 50 Years,’ Seattle Times, June 16, 2020.
2 Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts, 5.
3 Among the key works examining this development are Zukin, The Cultures of Cities; Shkuda, The Lofts of SoHo.
4 Stephen H. Dunphy, ‘Model City: Some Answers,’ Seattle Times, November 14, 1971. The most valuable history of Model Cities remains Frieden and Kaplan, The Politics of Neglect.
5 Seattle Model Cities Programme, Planning for a Model Neighborhood, 1.
6 Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community, 5-7, 228.
7 Ibid, chapter 6, especially 175, 194; Sale, Seattle, 217-18; Morrill, ‘The Seattle Central District,’ 316-26.
8 Sale, Seattle, 218; Taylor, Forging of a Black Community, 192-96.
9 Schear, ‘The World the Whites Don’t Know,’ 14-19.
10 Eddy, ‘Government, the Arts, and Ghetto Youth,’ 405; Associated Councils of the Arts, ‘Model Cities Proposals,’ 1.
11 O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge, chapter 4; Whisnant, Modernizing the Mountaineer.
12 Spencer, ‘From “Cultural Deprivation” to Cultural Capital,’1-41; Bloom et al, Compensatory Education for Cultural Deprivation.
13 For other instances of antipoverty programmes navigating cultural deprivation ideas, see Das, ‘Between the “Culture of Poverty” and the Cultural Revolution,’ 981-998; Widener, Black Arts West, 90-114.
14 Seattle Model Cities Programme, planning grant proposal, Part III, F6-7, F11.
15 Ibid, Part III, F11 (emphasis added), H1-2.
16 Seattle Model Cities Programme, Planning for a Model Neighborhood, 12.
17 Memo, Alan Riley to Woody, May 9, 1968, folder 5, box 1, Series 12, Seattle Model Cities Programme Records (SMCPR), Seattle Municipal Archives (SMA).
18 Seattle Model Cities Programme, Arts & Culture Task Force, ‘Preliminary Proposal: Problem Analysis,’ July 12, 1968, 1, 3, 7, folder 1, box 1, Series 12, SMCPR, SMA.
19 Seattle Model Cities Programme, Planning for a Model Neighborhood, Part I, 11.
20 Weekly task force report, October 11, 1968, folder 3, box 1, Series 12, SMCPR, SMA.
21 Weekly task force report, November 8, 1968, folder 3, box 1, Series 12, SMCPR, SMA.
22 Memo, Tucker to Hundley, February 5, 1969, folder 6, box 1, Series 12, SMCPR, SMA.
23 SEEK press release, May 11, 1969, folder 4, box 1, Series 11, SMCPR, SMA.
24 Task force meeting minutes, May 29, 1969, folder 2, box 1, Series 11, SMCPR, SMA.
25 Letter, Gray to Hundley, March 17, 1969, folder 6, box 1, Series 12, SMCPR, SMA; emphasis original.
26 Letter, Hundley to Gray, April 21, 1969, folder 6, box 1, Series 12, SMCPR, SMA.
27 Mary T. Henry, ‘Powell S. Barnett,’ HistoryLink.org, https://www.historylink.org/file/307.
28 Douglas Q. Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West – A History,’ part 1, HistoryLink.org, https://www.historylink.org/file/3921.
29 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 1; Henry, ‘Roberta Byrd Barr,’ HistoryLink.org, https://www.historylink.org/File/306; Wayne Johnson, ‘Various Views of Negro Life,’ Seattle Times, April 18, 1966.
30 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 1; John Bell, ‘Budget Blow: Survival of Black Theater Group in Doubt,’ Seattle Times, April 18, 1973.
31 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 1.
32 King, The Central Area Motivation Programme, 7.
33 CAMP Performing Arts data sheet, October 16, 1967; CAMP press release, March 1967; both ‘Black Arts West Performing Arts Dept’ folder, box 34, W. Ivan King Papers, University of Washington Special Collections.
34 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 2, https://www.historylink.org/File/3515.
35 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 3, https://www.historylink.org/File/3522; Peter Blecha, ‘Cirque Playhouse,’ https://www.historylink.org/File/9762.
36 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 3.
37 Quoted in Wayne Johnson, ‘New Theater Opens Double Bill,’ Seattle Times, May 26, 1969.
38 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 3; ‘Racism is Theme of Play at Church,’ New York Times, March 22, 1970.
39 Letter, Barnett and Harold D. Whitehead to Hundley, September 16, 1969, folder 10, box 1; department correspondence, Barbara Laners to Hundley, September 24, 1969, folder 6, box 1; task force weekly report, December 9, 1969, folder 4, box 1; all series 12, SMCPR, SMA.
40 ‘Programme Breakdown Structure: What is Black Arts/West?’ 9-10, folder 9, box 1, series 5411-01, SMCPR, SMA; Cathy Castillo, ‘Seattle Has Come Up with a Success in Black Theatre,’ Houston Chronicle, July 23, 1971.
41 ‘Curtain Rises on a New Season,’ Seattle Times, January 10, 1971; Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 4, https://www.historylink.org/File/3523; news clipping and telegram, January 14, 1971, folder 9, box 1, series 5411-01, SMCPR, SMA.
42 Castillo, ‘Seattle Has Come Up with a Success.’
43 Ibid.
44 SMCP, ‘Performing Arts (African/Afro-American Arts) Project Review,’ August 1971, 2-3, folder 16, box 1, series 5411-01, SMCPR, SMA.
45 Final Report of Training in the Arts Programme memo, L. Richards to Lillian Phillips, June 1971, folder 11, box 1, series 5411-01, SMCPR, SMA.
46 Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 4 and part 5, https://www.historylink.org/File/3524; Bell, ‘Budget Blow.’
47 Bell, ‘Budget Blow.’
48 Ibid.
49 Sale, Seattle, 223.
50 Sale, Seattle, 232-33; Alan J. Stein, ‘Boeing Bust,’ HistoryLink.org, https://www.historylink.org/file/20923.
51 Sale, Seattle, 227, 240-41. See also Mitchell et al, ‘Cultural Geographies.’
52 Sam R. Sperry, ‘Council Shuffles Model Cities Funds,’ Seattle Times, June 5, 1973; Barnett, ‘Black Arts/West,’ part 5.
53 Wayne Johnson, ‘Barnett Resigns Theater Post,’ Seattle Times, July 17, 1973.
54 Maggie Hawthorn, ‘An Ambitious Roster,’ Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 14, 1974; Barnett, ‘Reports on Black Theater, USA.’
55 ‘Car Wash Tomorrow for Black Arts/West,’ Seattle Times, May 26, 1979.
56 City of Seattle, Seattle 2035, 145-151; Puget Sound Regional Council, Vision 2050, 77, 97; Drewell, ‘Integrated Planning,’ 135, 143. Critical takes on diversity in urban development include Hyra, Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City; Lin, Taking Back the Boulevard; and Summers, Black in Place.
57 Morrill, ‘Seattle Central District,’ 322-331; McGee, ‘Seattle’s Central District.’
58 Seattle Model Cities, News Report 2, no. 1 (March 1968), folder 1, box 1, series 6, SMCPR, SMA; Associated Councils of the Arts, ‘Model Cities Proposals.’ The congregation had moved in the years of increasing Black migration to the Central Area; see Morrill, ‘The Seattle Central District,’ 328.
59 Zola Mumford, ‘Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute,’ HistoryLink.org, https://www.historylink.org/File/10909; Langston, ‘About Us,’ https://www.langstonseattle.org/about-us/.
60 Shapiro, ‘Seattle Street Named for Black Theater Pioneer.’
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Mark Krasovic
Mark Krasovic is an associate professor of history and American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark where he teaches classes on the history of the United States, racial justice, and historical research and writing. His first book, The Newark Frontier: Community Action in the Great Society, considered the many possibilities and ironies of decentralized knowledge- and decision-making structures created by US federal social programs in the 1960s. He is currently writing a cultural history of the War on Poverty in the US.