Black Lives Matter

Along Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma, the city’s new Black Lives Matter mural unfolds across the 23,000 square-foot Tollefson Plaza in bright colors. The mural cascades down the steps of the plaza and from different viewpoints, it reveals different faces, messages and meanings. The challenging space makes the viewer work to absorb the mural — something lead artist Dionne Bonner wanted.

Later this summer, Tacoma’s downtown Tollefson Plaza will be transformed into the first Black Lives Matter mural sanctioned by the city and other partners. The project is designed to acknowledge police brutality of Black people and racial inequities that came to nationwide attention after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

After receiving a grant, 20 Washington State artists are using their voices and artistic expression towards social justice efforts.The entire museum is…

A new exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of art at Washington State University is shining a light on racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement with the works of 20 artists from around Washington.

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 employment and education.

When Spokane resident Evelyn Woods was a little girl in World War II Germany, she hid in an attic with her Jewish parents. In today’s StoryCorps Northwest, Evelyn’s step-daughter, Robin, asks her how that confinement compares to today’s COVID-19 restrictions. Evelyn, 82, discusses that and the Black Lives Matter movement in this segment of StoryCorps Northwest recorded virtually.

A federal judge said "the court cannot ignore the clear violations" of an injunction limiting the police department's use of the weapons, but added some instances were in compliance.

Washington state lawmakers and activists are setting an ambitious agenda for police reform in the upcoming legislative session, saying they hope to make it easier to decertify officers for misconduct, to bar the use of police dogs to make arrests, and to create an independent statewide agency to investigate police killings.

The thoughtful soprano believes that art is good at questioning, challenging and provoking. But the real question, she says, is: "What happens after the provocation?"

Lewiston resident Lilienne Shore Kilgore-Brown actively takes part in protests now. So did her grandmother Susan Kilgore in the 1970s. On StoryCorps Northwest, Susan tells Lilienne what she was protesting and what she learned from those experiences.