Moving Closer to the World of Repair:
Seattle-King County African American Reparations Committee

Every day brings more bad news, including attacks on communities of color. It can be overwhelming and discouraging. But we must not overlook the steady progress being made by dedicated organizations such as the Seattle-King County African American Reparations Committee (SAARC).

PSARA has issued a policy statement supporting Black reparations -- the need to redress US chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism, and their long legacy of harm to Black Americans. Across the nation, federal, state, and local governments have taken steps, albeit slow steps, to achieve reparations.

Several years ago, PSARA Executive Board member, civil rights leader, and former King County Councilmember Larry Gossett convened meetings that brought local elected leaders and over 30 organizations in the African American community together to create a reparations movement in the Seattle-King County area. These efforts led to the creation of the Seattle-King County African American Reparations Committee (SAARC). Larry, together with PSARA Executive Board member Claude Burfect, a long-time leader in the Black and labor communities, brought volunteers together to plan and grow SAARC. Both Larry and Claude continue to guide SAARC.

SAARC eventually grew into today’s organization, which advocates for Black reparations. SAARC recently published its 2025 Housing and Labor Report. The report focuses on King County, noting that King County has the state’s highest number of Black residents, but “has one of the state’s sharpest degrees of wealth inequality, far exceeding national rates.” The report points out that housing discrimination has been a major factor in creating wealth inequity. Practices such as redlining, underinvestment by local governments and banks, and other forms of discrimination deprived Black communities of home purchases, a major source of generational wealth. A study cited in the report calculated that the financial impact of discriminatory housing practices in King County ranged from $5.4 billion to $15.8 billion from 1950 to 2019.

SAARC’s report cites the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Center for Health Justice, which reported in 2024 that 22 local jurisdictions “have approved a reparations commission or task force, and eleven states have introduced legislation to create one.” The AAMC also cautioned that “reparations, even when broadly defined and not limited to cash payments, are not supported by most of the public,” and that “those committed to health and racial justice must do a better job of connecting the dots between historic injustice and modern-day inequity.”

But despite the seeming national lack of support for reparations, a study recently commissioned by SAARC indicates that over 58 percent of King County residents support reparations (compared with 30 percent nationally). Interestingly, the study found that messaging regarding a need to remedy redlining and restrictive covenants received stronger support than did messaging about economic justice. So there is much cause for hope, especially in King County, for repairing the harms of generations of racial discrimination in housing. Furthermore, SAARC’s advocacy has led to state and local government support for a study that is being administered by the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs.

SAARC has identified a number of research and policy recommendations; hopefully those will be considered and incorporated into the upcoming state study. SAARC’s “immediate policy recommendations” are for: direct compensatory payments; housing reparations; and county funding for Black/African American entrepreneurs. SAARC has also identified future policy recommendations that address education inequities, health inequities, criminal justice and policing, and environmental racism and displacement.

Davida Ingrahm, SAARC Executive Director, notes that SAARC is engaged in building partnerships, including intergenerational partnerships, to identify the policies and common ground that leads all of us into a world of repair. How do we live well together?  She urges us to look into the future and focus on what we care about – if we can do that, it is what will happen.  

Larry’s hope is that Black reparations in the Seattle-King County area will provide a foundation for Black families to build generational wealth through home ownership. He would like to see Seattle become the second city in the nation (behind Evanston, Illinois) to create a robust reparations program related to housing.

PSARA will support SAARC in its efforts to achieve these recommendations – so please stay tuned to our newsletter and emails, and please visit SAARC - Seattle/King County African American Reparations Committee to learn more about how we can achieve a future we want.