August 3-9
August 4, 1952
On this day, Seattle’s burgeoning African American population kicked off a six-day celebration of community and culture. The festival was named Mardi Gras as a salute to the centuries-old New Orleans-based events of Mardi Gras. Seattle’s Mardi Gras remained a fixture into the mid 1960s, when it was renamed the Pacific Northwest Black Community Festival.
August 4, 1989
On this day, Governor Booth Gardner and 26 Washington tribes signed the Centennial Accord. The accord affirmed the sovereignty of Washington’s federally recognized tribes and called for clearer communication and better collaboration between tribal and state governments. It marked one step forward in a long history of conflict between the tribes and the state dating back to the 1850s, a conflict that came to a head in the fish wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Tribal leaders agreed to work with the governor and other state agencies, and the Centennial Accord was negotiated and signed. Although it does not resolve all state-tribe conflicts, it shifted the direction of state policy and set the stage for improving government-to-government relationships.
August 4, 1990
On this day, Pista sa Nayon, an annual Filipino American celebration featuring traditional food, arts, crafts, and entertainment, was held for the first time in Seattle at the Rainier Playfield, at the corner of Rainier Avenue S and S Alaska Street. The name of the event, roughly translated from Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines, means “town festival.” Relocated to the amphitheater at Seward Park in 1995, it drew thousands of people each year for what Cindy Cawaling, chair of the 2010 Pista, has called “the essential family reunion on a wonderfully grand scale” (www.pista.com).
August 6, 1990
On this day, dedication ceremonies were held for the Seattle Peace Park. Quaker peace activist Floyd Schmoe conceived the park as both a monument to world peace and a way to beautify a garbage-strewn, overgrown vacant lot. For the past four years, Schmoe led hundreds of volunteers in cleaning up and developing the small park at the north end of Seattle’s University Bridge. The park features a bronze statue, by Daryl Smith, of Sadako Sasaki holding a folded paper crane. Sadako, who died at age 12 of leukemia caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, made paper cranes an international symbol of peace through her effort to fold 1,000 cranes before her death. The Peace Park dedication marked the 45th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
August 7, 1986
On this day, the U.S. Forest Service took action to protect the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) from decline and extinction by limiting timber sales in mature portions of National Forests, which the animals need to live in. The immediate impact was outcry from the forest products industry and from environmentalists. The industry complained that the measure went too far and would cost thousands of jobs, and environmentalists claimed that not enough was being done to protect the species.
This post is in partnership with HistoryLink, and Warren Seyler, former chairman Spokane Tribe of Indians, the Black Muse Resource Center, and the Living Arts Cultural Heritage.
We encourage you to engage in further research through your local historic societies, museums, archives, and community.
