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
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
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
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…)
