Title Info: Bicentennial Oral History Program, Black Project, 1975-1976

As part of the United States' Bicentennial celebration, the Washington State Archives conducted an oral history project which focused on the Black community in Seattle and King County. These 69 interviews were conducted in 1975 and 1976 by noted local historian Esther Mumford and include audio, transcripts, and negatives. Transcriptions were created shortly after the interviews took place. Negatives can include portraits of interviewees, as well as images taken of photographs, clippings, and other items belonging to or relating to interviewees.

While these interviews were conducted in the mid-1970s, interviewees discuss events as early as the 1880s regarding homesteaders, farmers, and strikebreakers. The majority highlight the years between 1900 and 1945, and relate to early housing, employment, education, recreation, and the changing Black community in greater Seattle.

The Washington State Archives’ Bicentennial Oral History Program included six projects, each involving several interviews. These include the Black Project, the Filipino Project, the Kittitas Project, the Pacific Project, the Wahkiakum Project, and the Whatcom Project. Each project was an investigation of a particular way of life, based on interviews of people with a number of things in common such as geographic location, occupation, race, time-frame, etc. The results are snapshots of life as it was experienced by a number of people within a given context.