The six blocks of occupied Seattle streets now known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or “Chop”, have become a focal point of the nationwide anti-racist protests, eliciting both encouragement and concern.
But for this pacific north-west city, it is far from the first time in the radical spotlight.
Inside Chaz, Seattle’s police-free zone: ‘We’re proving the world can change’ – video
Seattle has a long and storied history of social movements and protests, dating back at least as far as a 1919 general strike. The peaceful, six-day event involved so many workers walking off the job to push for better labor conditions that it brought the entire city to a halt.
It “put Seattle on the map as a place that had a strong labor movement and a burst of radicalism,” said James Gregory, a history professor at the University of Washington. “Ever since then the city has managed to mostly maintain that reputation.”
By the 1930s, Seattle and the rest of Washington state had earned such a distinct reputation that the postmaster general, James Farley, is said to have joked: “There are 47 states in the Union, and the Soviet of Washington.”
Since then, there have been rallies by the Black Panther party and anti-war demonstrations led by the Seattle Liberation Front in the 1960’s and 70’s, and, after students at Kent State University were shot in 1970, thousands of people protested by blocking the city’s freeway.
In 1999, Seattle hosted the World Trade Organization conference, and drew national attention when attendees were greeted by 50,000 protesters opposing the entity they considered a threat to everything from worker protections to the environment. Police shot teargas and projectiles at activists, and ultimately arrested more than 500 people.
Today, with the creation of the community-controlled space of Chop, Seattle has once again lived up to its reputation.
Chop, initially named the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or “Chaz”, was founded after a series of dangerous clashes between protesters and law enforcement culminated in police abandoning their precinct building in the area.
The streets of the self-proclaimed police-free zone are now lined with gardens, a medic station, a wide array of free food and supplies, a meditation station and an area filled with couches called the “Decolonization Conversation Café”. In the evenings, there are often speeches, movie nights and teach-ins.
There are signs throughout the space with such messages as, “This is just the beginning” and “Remember who we’re fighting for.” And of course, across the main road in the encampment are three words written in large, colorful letters: “Black Lives Matter.”
A variety of demands have been raised during the course of the occupation, but the main three involve defunding the police, using that money to invest in community health and services, and dropping criminal charges against protesters.
Larry Gossett, a former King county council member and key civil rights leader in the area called the occupation “powerful”, but also, given the city’s history of political movements, “not totally a surprise”.
“I like the alternative people’s culture that’s been manifested particularly in the autonomous zone around Capitol Hill,” he told the Guardian. “I like the variety of people working together, creating, self-policing.
“It’s really quite peaceful. Absolute opposite of what Trump said,” he added.
Since Chop was founded, there has been a wide array of misinformation spread by the rightwing media and conservative politicians, some framing the community as a genuine threat to the country. In one particularly egregious example, Fox News published a photo that was digitally altered to show a man holding a rifle in front of a broken window.
Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that “Antifa and other Far Left militant groups” had taken over the city “without barely a wimpier [sic] from soft Do Nothing Democrat leadership.”
Chop is located in a part of the Capitol Hill neighborhood that has a long history of being an “alternative space”, according to Michael McCann, a political science professor at the University of Washington.
It’s a magnet for protests and speeches, and is known as a hub for the LGBTQ community, he explained. Crosswalks have been painted rainbow and Cal Anderson Park, where part of Chop is located, was named after the state’s first openly gay state legislator.
It “has always been a scene for various types of counter culture, including LGBTQ and youth politics of various sorts, along with its proximity to the African American population, which is further down in central Seattle,” said McCann.
When discussing the alternative community during a recent press conference, Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, said she had been going to Capitol Hill for nearly half a century and that “it’s been autonomous my whole lifetime and anybody who knows and loves Capitol Hill knows that to be true”.
Kshama Sawant, a Socialist city council woman, has been one of the the most vocal supporters of Chop. Her district includes Capitol Hill, and last week, she announced on Twitter that she will be introducing legislation to convert the East Precinct into a community center for restorative justice.
“Our movement needs to urgently ensure East Precinct is not handed back to police, but is turned over permanently into community control,” she wrote.
With each day, Chop seems to only become more robust. It’s success raises the question, why do these types of alternative movements seem to spring up in Seattle?
Gregory said the answer may lie in the city’s reputation. The stories of the 1919 strike or the World Trade Organization protest can encourage future generations to follow suit, and even attract young people interested in radical activism to the city.
“Reputation and migration have tended to perpetuate or at least bring the possibility of new fluorescence of radical energy,” he said.
