[Uwhistory] Events on Civil Rights & the United Farmworkers (fwd)

[Lori Anthony]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:10:22 -0800
From: Labor Center <pcls at u.washington.edu>
To: Labor Center <pcls at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Events on Civil Rights & the United Farmworkers

Please circulate

Labor Center events on Seattle Labor and Civil Rights Project and 
theUnited Farmworkers in Washington State!

1)  HBCLS Labor Studies Colloquia presents Jim Gregory and Trevor Griffey,
UW Department of History, discussing the "Seattle Civil Rights and Labor
History Project."

The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project is a multi-media web 
site that explores Seattle's history of social movements for racial and 
economic justice. The project represents a unique collaboration involving 
UW students and faculty, community and labor groups, and K-12 teachers. We 
will also be using this event to plan the next phase of the Project.

   Thursday April 7th, 3-4:30 pm, Gowen 1A


2)  Launch of a New Labor History Website on the History of the United 
Farm Workers (UFW) in Washington State!!

Researchers from the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies have been 
working for over a year to compile interviews with important UFW activists 
and still photographs of major UFW campaigns and events. These materials 
have now been formatted into a website that can be found at 
http://depts.washington.edu/pcls/ufw/.  We invite you to join us to 
officially launch the website.

   Saturday April 9th, 2-5 pm, Smith Hall 105, UW Seattle campus

     This event will include presentations, a panel discussion and refreshments.

(Detailed descriptions of these projects appear below)

________________________________________________________________________


The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
   See the web site:   http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/civilrights

Mission Statement:

Seattle has a unique Civil Rights history that challenges the way we think 
about race, civil rights, and the Pacific Northwest. Seattle's civil 
rights movements started well before the celebrated struggles in the South 
in the 1950s, and included not just African American activists but also 
Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Latinos, and 
Native Americans. The region's labor movements also played a pivotal role. 
From the 1910s through the 1970s, labor and civil rights were linked in 
complicated ways, with some unions and radical organizations providing 
critical support to struggles for racial justice, while others stood in 
the way.

The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project brings this vital 
history to life in a multi-media web site with streaming-video interviews, 
rare publications, documentary images, movement histories, and personal 
biographies.Here is what we have accomplished so far:

-Streaming-video interviews: So far we have conducted 27 interviews with 
former civil rights activists from the African-American, 
Filipino-American, Chinese- and Japanese- American, and Latino 
communities. Streaming-video excerpts of many of them are already on the 
website and more will be ready soon.

- A unit on "Segregated Seattle" which tracks the history of housing 
segregation and other forms of discrimination. When it is finished it will 
have a clickable map that allows you to check the deed restrictions and 
housing covenants for neighborhoods throughout King County. We have some 
of the restrictive covenants posted already. This is attracting a lot of 
interest in part because the racial restrictions are still part of the 
official deeds on properties through out the region.

- A student project on the School Boycott of 1966; among other elements of 
this project we have online images of letters that 4th graders who 
attended the Freedom School wrote during the school boycott.

--Two more students have done ground breaking work on the Filipino-led 
Cannery Workers union that was founded in 1933. This unit has been 
developed in collaboration with the Filipino American National Historical 
Society.

- We have a huge collection of materials and interviews on Tyree Scott and 
the United Construction Workers campaigns to integrate the construction 
trades in the late 1960s. This unit has been developed in collaboration 
with the UCWA History Project of the Northwest Labor and Employment Law 
Office (NW LELO)

- Other research reports include one the beginnings of Chicano student 
activism at UW; biographies of Suzie Revels Cayton, and her son Revels 
Cayton; a fine historical account of the attempts to pass an 
anti-miscegenation law in 1935 and 1937 and the early civil rights 
coalition that blocked it.

- We will soon have a section on Seattle's Ethnic Press, profiling the 
many different newspapers that over the years have served the different 
communities of color.

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UFW in Washington State
Panelists include Rosalinda Guillen, and Tomás A. Villanueva whose 
interviews appear on the website, as well as researcher Maria Cuevas from 
Washington State University and Eastern Washington members of the farm 
worker community, April and Morena Ortiz. Panelists will share their 
personal stories of struggle for Farm Worker rights in Washington State. 
The grape boycott of the 1960s, the strike and success at the Chateau Ste. 
Michelle winery, and current concerns about legal health protections and 
unionization of other farm workers are some of the topics that will be 
discussed.

.  We are thrilled to be collaborating with colleagues from other colleges 
around the state on this launch. In addition to Maria Cuevas, Washington 
State University faculty member Jose Alamillo is involved as is Dr. Bernal 
Baca from Yakima Valley Community College. In order to make sure that this 
project is accessible to the communities that it is about, as well as here 
at the UW, this launch will also be presented at WSU on April 16th and 
YCVV on April 30th. Please contact us for further details.

             This event is also co-sponsored by the Washington State 
American Federation of Teachers.



Sarah Laslett
Director
Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
University of Washington