Pacific Northwest Black Pioneers Grants

Pacific Northwest Black Pioneers

Relative of Old Timers (ROOTS) will celebrate its 50th Anniversary on September 4th from 10a.m. to 6 p.m. The celebration will be held at Jimi Hendrix and Sam Smith Parks located at 2400 S Massachusetts St Seattle WA 98144. During COVID, there was a call for recipes to be submitted to develop a 50th Anniversary ROOTS Cookbook. We intend to do outreach during the celebration with information on how to submit recipes to complete the cookbook for publication and distribution as a historical and lifetime remembrance of friends, family, good food and the many stories that accompany these recipes.

Pacific Northwest Black Pioneers

In the early 1970's a dinner invitation went out from long time Black Seattle residents Arline and Letcher Yarbrough to eight couples who had been close friends thirty and forty years before, seeing each other frequently and sharing many interests. The more recent years found them scattered and out of touch. The response to the invitation was excellent. All who were still living in the Seattle area accepted; eager to see old friends again. The result of that gathering was the foundation for Relative of Old Timers (ROOTS) Celebration. This year, ROOTS is celebrating 52 years on Sunday, September 1, 2024 from 10am-6pm. The committee has decided that 2024 will be the last year that we will host this large public celebration. We plan to sunset this event by honoring our elder leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the Pacific Northwest as well as the sense of community this celebration has meant to Black Seattleites over the years. We are seeking NMF funding to do just that.