By Michelle Merriweather, President & CEO, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle
History would lead us to believe that Black men were responsible for the Civil Rights movement under the leadership of Dr. King. There are many stories about Dr. King and his lieutenants, but history fails to provide the proper context for the role that Black women played in making the Civil Rights movement a success. Certainly, there were more Sheroes than Rosa Parks, and while no one doubts the courage and sacrifices of Coretta Scott King, her contributions and place in history is one that some believe is grossly undervalued. In similar fashion, there have been Black women in the Pacific Northwest that have been answering that call long before it was fashionable, long before it was funded, and long before it was acknowledged.
We are still here. And we are still building.
Black women in this region know what it means to be lied on, talked about, and quietly undermined, while simultaneously being leaned on to save institutions, stabilize movements, and raise the next generation. We know what it means to be told we are too much while being asked to carry everything. And yet, we remain. What the world rarely sees is how deliberately we choose each other.
Sometimes Seattle can feel like an island for Black leadership, especially for Black women. The rooms can be small. The scrutiny can be loud. The isolation can feel heavy. But thank goodness we are our own lifeline. When systems fail, we do not wait to be rescued. We lock arms. We form constellations. We build what we need.
Maya Angelou once wrote, “I come as one, I stand as 10,000.” That is not metaphor to me. It is inheritance. I am a descendant of women warriors. My paternal grandmother had no more than an eighth-grade education, yet she was unwavering in her belief that every one of her children would earn a college degree. She cleaned the houses of white women by day and baked by night turning labor into leverage and love into legacy. She understood something this country often forgets education is not just personal advancement, it is collective defense. My maternal grandmother carried her own quiet revolution. In the 1970s, she purchased and paid for her own home at a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to do so. She stood proudly in ownership not because it was easy, but because it was necessary. Because stability, dignity, and independence mattered.
That lineage lives in Black women across this region. Our leadership is not accidental. Our resilience is not random. It is ancestral. It is practiced. It is deliberate. That same spirit animates the work of the Black Future Co-op Fund. Not charity, but architecture. A living example of what happens when Black leaders, Black women, refuse scarcity thinking and practice collective stewardship. Further, under the leadership of women like Paula Sardinas, whose work insists that Black-led organizations deserve investment at scale; Dr. Angela Griffin at Byrd Barr Place or Leoria Yeadon at the YMCA who each in their own way are strengthening community, building economic power, and bending institutions toward justice, we are witnessing leadership that is not performative, but transformational.
This work is not confined to boardrooms and budgets. It lives in classrooms, too. Leaders like Dr. Mia Williams, Dr. Sheila Edwards Lange, or Angela Jones at the Gates Foundation are shaping what it means to center Black children in public education, not as an afterthought, but as a priority. Black educators across our region are holding space for brilliance in systems that too often fail to protect it. That is nation-building work.
And this vision stretches far beyond Seattle. In December, Black leaders and educators gathered in Accra at the Diaspora District Conference, not to look back, but to look forward. There, Manal Al-ansi helped set the stage for July 25, Global Diaspora Day. A declaration that Black people across the globe are aligned in purpose, possibility, and power. Seattle is not on the margins of that story. We are part of it.
While this reflection centers Black women, it is rooted in partnership. Liberation has never been a solo act. Black men are essential to this work, and many are leading with clarity and commitment to future generations. Leaders like James Williams at Perkins Coie, Marcus Harden, or Gordon Williams,
who is retired from United Way at the end of 2025, or the editor of this paper, Chris Bennet, remind us that progress demands shared responsibility, mutual respect, and love for our people.
Still, we must tell the truth. Sometimes the deepest harm comes from within, from competition disguised as critique, from fear masquerading as leadership. But harm does not get the final word. Commitment does. Repair does. Choosing the collective we over individual recognition does. That choice is where our power lives.
This MLK Day, let us honor Dr. King not with ceremony alone, but with courage. Let us recommit to building institutions that love Black people back. Let us show up for one another, in our organizations, our schools, our neighborhoods, and our movements.
And as we move toward July 25, Global Diaspora Day, let Seattle stand firmly in global Black solidarity—clear-eyed, connected, and unafraid. We no longer need permission to be seen. We have work to do. And we are doing it, together.
