Jean Saliz (left) and Ken Winnick (right) reviewing photos for the Edwin T. Pratt Legacy Archive
Edwin T. Pratt, who was director of the Seattle Urban League throughout the sixties, played a significant role in the unique and untold history of the campaigns for equal housing, employment, racially neutral policing, and school desegregation. Historians have called civil rights leader the "dean of the civil rights establishment," and "the level head." His approach to leadership is the backbone of his life story, offering lessons applicable to today's problems.
Pratt was applauded as he nudged and then pushed Seattle toward equality, only to be assassinated on his front doorstep one freezing night in 1969. His daughter Miriam K. Pratt donated a collection of photos and artifacts to the Black Heritage Society of Washington (BHS) to protect and display it and so students and history buffs can see not only the legacy of her father, but the defining moments of Seattle's 1960's civil rights movement.
The Pratt family
Unfortunately, the Pratt Legacy photos were deteriorating. For example, the original copy of Pratt's eulogy is cracking around the edges and the album that held it had fallen to pieces. The collection included over a hundred relevant photos, about a two-dozen each of correspondence and journal entrees, along with other artifacts (such as awards) from Pratt's life.
Our project team digitized the collection into an archive that shows how Pratt and his colleagues on the Central Area Civil Rights Committee (CACRC) strategized to find jobs and housing for African Americans.
The project team formed after a Shoreline Historical Museum presentation on the life of Edwin Pratt in January, 2018[?]. Project Manager Ken Winnick provided archival support services in cooperation with BHS and MOHAI experts. MOHAI supports BHS as part of an ongoing affiliation. Jean Soliz served as the team historian and provide administrative support. City of Shoreline Public Art Coordinator Dave Francis advised the technical work and wrote a curator-perspective article about the project as a partnership between BHS, 4Culture and the community project team. Francis facilitated a "call for art" and organized an art show centered on the Pratt legacy.
The end result was a reconditioned, safely stored Pratt Legacy Collection acquired by BHS, and an online exhibit that depicts Pratt's life and Seattle civil rights history during the tumultuous sixties. The legacy of Edwin T. Pratt and his civil rights colleagues will forever be preserved and accessible to the public; a learning experience for all ages.
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