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Black History Month, held in February to honor the achievements and struggles of African Americans, has served to re-center and preserve an often marginalized or erased history. In regions such as the Pacific Northwest and cities such as Bellingham, recognizing Black history also means recognizing an underrepresented population in our communities. The 2020 Bellingham census records 1,253 people as Black or African-American, 1.37% of the population in a 75% white city.

The Bellingham Racial History Timeline, a Western Washington University project, notes that “the lack of racial diversity in Bellingham is not an accident” but stems from institutionalized racism. Since the 1840s, Black exclusion laws in Oregon Territory limited settlement for decades. Historic antiblack exclusion has included 1930s real estate segregation and 1950s sundowning. The 1907 anti-Asian race riot and 1920s Bellingham Ku Klux Klan were violent chapters of a consistently discriminatory history. The Timeline includes the present, emphasizing readers can learn from history to help redress inequities.

Black history in Bellingham has often appeared in obscure sources, making it ever more critical to preserve and acknowledge. Our city’s Black history reveals not only how diversity and Black excellence have persevered despite structural limitations but also how citizens can work toward an inclusive and equal future.

Black history in Bellingham
Paul Robeson (pictured) followed up his famous Peace Arch performance in 1952 with return concerts in the following years, and there was a 2002 tribute at Peace Arch for the 20th anniversary. Photo courtesy: Gordon Parks, Office of War Information / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Early Business and Public Life in Whatcom County

The 2012 Bellingham Herald article “Few Blacks Settled in Whatcom County” states, “Fairhaven and New Whatcom had just 30 black residents in 1900.” Western (then State Normal School) made local headlines in 1906 when Alma Clark became its first Black student. Clark “was also an assistant librarian in Seattle,” the Timeline notes, “and a strict member of the Baptist church, and was described as modest and intelligent.” Addressing both controversy and support, the school declared that “neither race nor color” would determine their admissions.

Black history in Bellingham
This 1907 Bellingham Herald story on the Wayman Chapel, African Methodist Episcopal Church led by Reverend Cate (pictured) appeared in Bellingham Library microfilm recovered in 2021. Photo credit: Jeff Jewell

Bellingham’s early Black business owners include Oliver O’Ree (1854-1917), the “pioneer barber.” He moved from Canada in the 1890s, lived with family in York Neighborhood, and owned a barbershop at Bay and Holly Streets until 1911.

Today’s Old Town Cafe notes on its website, “In 1904, the space was one of the only African-American-owned businesses in Whatcom County, called The Mobile Restaurant. It specialized in short orders, an early form of fast food.”

Bellingham’s historic hotels also had Black employees. Fairhaven Hotel is the source of one historic 1891 photo of its Black waitstaff led by maître d’ Sam White. Whatcom Museum Archivist Jeff Jewell writes, “My other find was Manuel Wells, the shoe shiner at the Leopold Hotel. The museum has a photo – a copy of which is now framed in The Leo’s bar/restaurant Amendment 21.”

Jewell also notes the 2021 rediscovery of a Black church listed only in 1907. The Bellingham Herald article dated April 20, 1907, reads: “The Wayman chapel, African Methodist Episcopal Church, has purchased a building at the corner of Ellis and Kentucky streets, to be used for church purposes. […] The pastor, Rev. T. L. Cate, recently determined that the congregation should have a church of its own, and after a vigorous campaign for funds, he has succeeded in his plans.”

Mid-Century and Civil Rights Era

Throughout the mid-twentieth century, the Civil Rights movement to end racial segregation saw support on college campuses nationwide. In 1968, Western’s Black Student Union (BSU) formed and addressed a letter to President Charles Flora. “Western Washington State College has been, and is a racist institution,” their letter opens, and it outlines six demands for change. They urged the administration to involve BSU in plans, financial support, and curricula for Black students, hire more Black administrators and faculty, and investigate racism (especially housing discrimination).

Western’s College of Ethnic Studies started in collaboration with BSU the following year but only lasted eight years after minimal administrative support. Decades later, students in the 2020s led efforts to reestablish the Department of Ethnic Studies.

Western’s earliest hiring of African-American faculty also started mid-century, with Spanish professor Eunice Faber in 1959 and business and economics professor Thaddeus Spratlen in 1961. Walter Zuber Armstrong established Western’s first jazz course and performed regionally into the 1990s.

On the national stage, Whatcom County saw notable performances by Black musicians who precipitated the Civil Rights Era. In 1941, after her Lincoln Memorial performance with 75,000 attendees, contralto singer and civil rights activist Marian Anderson sold out Bellingham High School Auditorium and visited Lairmont Manor. In 1952, Paul Robeson performed at Peace Arch for an estimated 30,000 people to protest his Red Scare-influenced international travel ban. He spoke, “I stand here today under great stress because I dare, as do you — all of you, to fight for peace and for a decent life for all men, women and children.”

The 2012 Herald article places the city’s Black population at 22 in 1960 and 135 in 1970: “0.3 percent of the city’s population — the first time since 1900 that the percentage had topped 0.2.” Recent growth has accompanied Bellingham’s cultural shift toward inclusivity, but much work remains to redress inequality.

Black history in Bellingham
Marian Anderson (pictured) played an influential role in integrating music in the United States with her Easter 1939 performance at Lincoln Memorial; two years later, her performance in Bellingham was warmly received by sold-out venues. Photo courtesy: Carl Van Vechten Photographs / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Black-Owned Businesses in Bellingham Today

Today, Sustainable Connections, Skagit Valley Food Co-Op, and BuyBlack.org offer directories to find and support Black- and BIPOC-owned businesses.

Local Black-owned restaurants include Ambo Ethiopian Cuisine, Brandywine Kitchen, Calypso Kitchen, Guud Bowls, and Fenex Coffee, plus DownTime Taps in Ferndale. Other businesses include Busy B’s, Zora’s Styling Salon and Spa, Mo’s Parlor, Northwest Drone Pros, and Lone Wolf Salon.

With an understanding of our city’s history and present, we can celebrate how diversity has made Bellingham’s culture of “subdued excitement” possible and work to make it inclusive and welcoming to all.

Black history in Bellingham
Old Town Cafe started as one of Bellingham’s first and only Black-owned businesses as The Mobile Restaurant in 1904. It later became Matt and Millie’s Place in the 1930s, serving mill workers, and finally, Old Town Cafe in 1967, when it became a favorite among Bellingham’s hippie community. Photo courtesy: Anna Diehl
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