Past as Prologue Archives | Northwest Public Broadcasting

Past As Prologue: End Times Preaching In Seattle And The Politics Of The Apocalypse

By NWPB News February 19, 2021

The Reverend Mark A. Matthews (1867-1940), a southern-born fundamentalist supporter of the Social Gospel movement, came to Seattle in 1902. CREDIT: University of Washington-Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

During the early decades of the 20th century, Mark Matthews became one of the most powerful religious leaders in the United States. His Seattle congregation was the largest Presbyterian church in the world with more than 10,000 members at its peak. Read More

Past As Prologue: Harry Allen In The Northwest And The Slow History Of Trans Acceptance

By NWPB News February 5, 2021

Today we would recognize Harry Allen as trans. That term and concept did not exist in 1912, but there were many people in the past who had been assigned one sex at birth, but later in life transitioned to the sex that they more readily identified with. Read More

Past As Prologue: How The Namesake Of Pullman Tried To Improve Worker’s Lives, But Failed

By NWPB News January 28, 2021

The strike—and the violence that occurred—became George Pullman’s legacy, rather than his attempt to create the utopian worker’s town. When he died, his family buried him in a lead-lined coffin because they were concerned workers would try to desecrate it. Read More

Past As Prologue: ‘What Is An American?’ Asks A Soldier From Pasco Whose Family Was Interned

By NWPB News January 1, 2021

Yamauchi’s family settled in Pasco in 1907. His parents, Harry and Chieka Yamauchi, came to the Tri Cities with their oldest daughter, Lou and had a total of nine children.

In this installment of the "Past as Prologue" series comes the story of a U.S. soldier, Sgt. George Yamauchi , from Pasco. He asked in 1943: 'What is an American?' Yamauchi penned the question in the local newspaper after his family was persecuted. The question defining who is an American is as relevant today as it was then. Read More

Past As Prologue: Remembering A Pasco Civil Rights Protest And Discrimination That Built Tri-Cities

By NWPB News December 29, 2020

Black man in the middle of whites in line at grocery store.

By 1950, 20% of Pasco’s approximately 10,000 residents were Black, almost all living in slum conditions. Few lived in the new atomic community of Richland and none in “lily-white” Kennewick -- a fact of which Kennewick city leaders and police at the time were proud. Not only was housing segregated, but Black residents were forced to endure broad discrimination in Read More