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Spring Fund Drive

The on-air portion of our fund drive has ended, but there's still time to help close the gap in our overall goal by March 31st. If you've yet to donate, please give now! If you've already supported or are a sustaining donor to KBCS, thank you so much!

$110,000 Goal

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Drive ends: March 31, 2024

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Seattle’s Gang of Four – An Interracial Coalition

The ‘Gang of Four’ or ‘Four Amigos’ is a group of four Seattle activists from Indigenous, Black, Asian, and Latinx communities.  They organized and advocated for the needs of people of color from the late 60s and 70’s onward.

Councilmember Larry Gossett is the last surviving member of the Gang of Four. Councilmember Gossett is a former Seattle Chapter Black Panther Party member, Co-founder of the University of Washington, Seattle Black Student Union, the former Executive Director of the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP), and Co-Founder of the Third World Coalition He also founded the Minority Executive Directors Coalition (MEDC) alongside the Gang of Four.  He celebrated his 79th birthday this month.  In this interview with Councilmember Gossett from December, 2021, he reflects on the powerful and lasting work of the interracial coalition. 

Producer: Yuko Kodama

Photo: Gang of Four Book Cover “Gang of Four,” by Bob Santos and Gary Iwamoto

Tribal Canoe Journey 2023 Protocol (aired August 2023)

The InterTribal Canoe Journey, otherwise referred to as “canoe journey” or “tribal journey” are a Coast Salish tribal event to bring back the ancestral cultural ways of using cedars canoes on the Salish Sea as a means to live in relation. Canoe journeys started in the 1980s and have grown over the years.   

Muckleshoot Tribe hosted Intertribal Canoe Journey 2023, welcoming 120 canoes to its shores.  Canoe families came from as far north as Juneau Alaska, British Columbia’s Campbell River and Ahousat areas, and as far south as Southern California. 

On August 6, the 2023 Intertribal Canoe Journey ended with protocol at Muckleshoot.  Listen to sounds and voices of the people there.

Producers: Yuko Kodama, Lucy Braginski and Widder Sessions – Special thanks to Maizy Brown Bear for help with this story

Photos: Widder Sessions and Maizy Brown Bear

Muckleshoot protocol

Line for dinner at Muckleshoot canoe journey protocol

Danny Stevenson – Muckleshoot tribal member

Jenel Hunter Muckleshoot tribal member

Stanley Jones Cowichan First Nations and Katrina “Alex” Johnson Ahousaht/Mowachaht First Nations (British Columbia)

Microaggressions and Mental Health

KBCS contributor and Health Chair of the NAACP Snohomish Chapter, Kevin Henry hosts a discussion on the effects of microaggressions on people of diverse backgrounds.  They also offer approaches on how to best support the community in recognizing and calling out microaggressions in the workplace and in personal settings.  Featured speakers are University of Washington Mental Health Therapist and Cultural Liaison, Antonia Ramos and Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Health Chair of NAACP Seattle King County, Michael Swann.

Producer: Kevin Henry

Photo: Kevin Henry

Indigenous Milk Medicine Week

 
Indigenous Milk Medicine Week is August 8th thru 14th this year.  It’s a part of a series of observances celebrating breastfeeding during the month of August.  Camie Goldhammer is a Social Worker, Lactation Consultant and Founder of the Native American Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington.  She shares this year’s theme for Indigenous Milk Medicine Week. 
 
Resources:
 
 
 
 

Teaching Lushootseed to Toddlers

Lushootseed  is the language spoken by Coast Salish tribes in the greater Seattle area and north to Skagit River Valley near Bellingham and Whidbey Island, and south to Olympia and Shelton. In 1819, Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act to assimilate indigenous youth to western culture.  The policy authorized forcible separation of indigenous children from their families to be sent to boarding schools far away, where they were to be stripped of their language, culture and religious practices.  It wasn’t until the 1970’s that this practice was outlawed.  This caused a severe disruption in likelihood for traditional practices and lifestyles to continue.

Today, members of these communities are reawakening their native tongue through education to everyone from 6 month olds, elementary and high school students and adults.

Jasmyne Diaz is an enrolled Tulalip member and shares a peek into her work of teaching Lushootseed language as a Teacher Assistant to  six-month to two-year old children in Tulalip, Washington through the Tulalip Lushootseed Language Program

Producers: Laura Florez and Yuko Kodama

Jasmyne Diaz

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women 3 – A Story of a Missing Mother

Carolyn DeFord is an enrolled Puyallup member and is from Nisqually and Cowlitz descendants. Her mother, Leona Lee Clare Kinsey has been missing for over 20 years. DeFord shares what she’s come away with from this tragedy with KBCS’s Yuko Kodama (more…)

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women – A Series of Six Stories

A report released by the Urban Indian Health Institute in 2018 shows that over 500 cases of missing or murdered indigenous women have been found throughout the United States – many since the year 2000. 70 women had gone missing or were murdered in Seattle and Tacoma. 6 were reported in Portland. How are indigenous families impacted by this and how are our communities coming together to help? (more…)

Books to read this November

Becky Turnbull of the Bellevue College Library brings you a set of three books to consider reading for November.

(more…)

Tiffany Midge – Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s

Tiffany Midge, of the Standing Rock Sioux nation, is a humorist and writer.  Her latest book, Bury My Heart at Chuck E Cheese’s cuts into and wryly  grins at our world and its microaggressions, through the indigenous lens.

Producer – Yuko Kodama and Jesse Callahan

Photo – Tiffany Midge

Canoe Journey 2019 – Samish Landing

This year’s Tribal Canoe Journey, honoring ancient indigenous traditions is underway.  The Lummi Nation is hosting this year’s festivities by welcoming over one hundred indigenous canoes  to their shores.  Canoe families come from Washington state, British Columbia, Alaska and as far as Hawaii. (more…)