Town Hall Seattle Civics Series

Airships, those airborne leviathans that occupied center stage in the world in the first half of the twentieth century, were a symbol of the future. The British airship R101 was not just the largest aircraft ever to have flown and the product of the world’s most advanced engineering — it was also the linchpin of an imperial British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. No one had ever conceived of anything like it, and R101 captivated the world. There was just one problem: beyond the hype and technological wonders, these big, steel-framed, hydrogen-filled airships were a dangerously bad idea. Journalist S.C. Gwynne’s book, His Majesty’s Airship, features a cast of remarkable and often tragically flawed characters, including: Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme and then relentlessly pushed R101 to her destruction; Princess Marthe Bibesco, the celebrated writer and glamorous socialite

Home to over 730,000 people, with close to four million people living in the metropolitan area, Seattle has the third-highest homeless population in the United States. In 2018, an estimated 8,600 homeless people lived in the city, a figure that does not include the significant number of “hidden” homeless people doubled up with friends or living in and out of cheap hotels. In Skid Road, Josephine Ensign digs through layers of Seattle history—past its leaders and prominent citizens, respectable or not—to reveal the stories of overlooked and long-silenced people who live on the margins of society. Josephine Ensign is a professor in the School of Nursing and adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling through the Safety Net, Soul Stories: Voices from the Margins, and the Washington State Book Award Finalist Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle. Anna P

A primer on police abolition from veteran organizers. What could it look like to live in a world where, instead of relying on policing and prison to put halt to harm, violence is stopped before it even has a chance to begin? In No More Police, organizer and attorney Andrea J. Ritchie and New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba detail why policing doesn’t stop violence and instead perpetuates widespread harm. Outlining the many failures of contemporary police reforms, they explore demands to divest from policing and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. No More Police centering survivors of state, interpersonal, and community-based violence, and highlights uprisings, campaigns, and community-based projects. Part handbook, part road map, the book calls on readers to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it, and instead turn toward a world where violence is the exception — a world where safe, well-resourced and thriving commun

Before 1492, hundreds of Indigenous communities across North America included people who identified as neither male nor female, but both. They went by aakíí’skassi, miati, okitcitakwe, or one of the hundreds of other tribal-specific identities. After European colonizers invaded Indian Country, centuries of violence and systematic persecution followed, imperiling the existence of people who today call themselves Two-Spirits, an umbrella term denoting feminine and masculine qualities in one person. Despite centuries of colonialism, the Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations. Gregory D. Smithers’s book, Reclaiming Two-Spirits, seeks to decolonize the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground to preserve their stories. Drawing on written sources, archaeological evidence, art, and oral storytelling, Reclaiming Two-Spirits span

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States.  Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today’s socioeconomic reality — but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, economist Nate Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. Hilger makes the case that America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff, and suggests that we need a program like Medicare — call it Familycare — to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents must organize to wield their political power on behalf of children — who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. In his new book The Parent Trap, Hilger exposes the true costs of our society’s unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a prof

Nate Gowdy had previously photographed 30 Donald Trump rallies. He thought he was fully prepared for what should have been the grand finale, but the events that unfolded on January 6th, 2021, were more than anyone could have expected.  As the event transformed from protest to outright insurrection, Gowdy never stopped photographing. The result is his first monograph, Insurrection — a comprehensive yet intimate account of the events of that fateful day. The 150-page book moves readers through the day in timestamped, chronological order, bringing them a firsthand account of not just the attack on the U.S. Capitol, but what it was like to be a journalist on the front lines. Juxtaposed are scenes of domestic terrorists kneeling and praying, posing for group photos, eating hotdogs, rampaging against the Capitol’s sworn protectors, and defiling the Inauguration Day stand, historically reserved for the stately pomp and circumstance of our representative government. On assignment for Rolling Stone, Gowdy was deemed “

The Roaring Twenties – the Jazz Age – has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors, and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a see

Journalist Kathleen McLaughlin knew she’d found a treatment that worked on her rare autoimmune disorder. She had no idea it had been drawn from the veins of America’s most vulnerable.  Blood Money shares McLaughlin’s decade-long mission to learn the full story of where her medicine comes from. She travels the United States in search of the truth about human blood plasma and learns that twenty million Americans each year sell their plasma for profit — a human-derived commodity extracted inside our borders to be processed and packaged for retail across the globe. McLaughlin investigates the thin evidence that pharmaceutical companies have used to push plasma as a wonder drug for everything from COVID-19 to wrinkled skin. In the process, she unearths an American economic crisis hidden in plain sight: single mothers, college students, laid-off Rust Belt auto workers, and a booming blood market at America’s southern border, where collection agencies target Mexican citizens willing to cross over and sell their plas

  Could the power of story-telling help create a better reality?  Afterglow is a stunning collection of original short stories in which writers from many different backgrounds envision a radically different climate future. Published in collaboration with Grist, a nonprofit media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions, these stirring tales expand our ability to imagine a better world. Afterglow draws inspiration from a range of cutting-edge literary movements including Afrofuturism, hope-punk, and solar-punk—genres that uplift equitable climate solutions and continued service to one’s community, even in the face of despair. The Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, disabled, feminist, and queer voices in this collection imagine intersectional worlds in which no community is left behind. Whether through abundance or adaptation, reform, or a new understanding of survival, these stories offer flickers of hope, even joy, as they provide a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create

No matter how we identify, we all have a lot to unpack. While there is a multitude of texts with universal application, community organizer Krista R. Pérez has written a book specifically with a BIPOC audience in mind. In Unearthing Our Roots, Pérez encourages advocates, activists, and leaders from historically marginalized groups to implement transformative and healing practices within their communities. Pérez extends an invitation to readers to unearth and uproot racist, anti-Black, ableist, and other biases that fracture relationships surrounding their communities. With decades of lived experience and a multidisciplinary approach, Pérez presents guided journal prompts for examining our own intentions, strategies for unraveling harmful biases and behaviors, and transformative and restorative practices for communities of historically marginalized groups at both micro and macro levels. Partially funded by the Tacoma Arts Commission, Unearthing Our Roots is a book that doubles as a clarion call. Krista R. Pére

Why do Americans believe in the “magic of the marketplace”?  The answer, as Erik M. Conway contends in The Big Myth (with coauthor Naomi Oreskes), is a propaganda blitz. Until the early 1900s, the U.S. government’s guiding role in economic life was largely accepted. But then business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies combatted regulation by building a new orthodoxy: down with “big government,” up with unfettered markets. Unearthing eye-opening archival evidence, the authors document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names, recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books, and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine (and the young Ronald Reagan) to millions. Conway argues that by the 1970s, the crusade had succeeded, paving the way for an ideology that would define the ne

What would the world look like if we shifted political and legislative power to everyday people — on the premise that everyone is worthy and capable of being involved in collective decision-making? Claudia Chwalisz seeks to answer that question. She believes another democratic future is possible and strives to create a more just, joyful, and collaborative future where everyone has meaningful power to shape their societies. By researching, implementing, and reporting on new forms of representative democratic institutions, such as permanent citizens’ councils, where representation passes through sortition (selection by lottery), Claudia hopes to enable everyone to explore how institutions can adopt new forms of the democratic process. Claudia Chwalisz is an author, activist, and entrepreneur. She is the Founder and CEO of DemocracyNext, a research and action institute working to shift political and legislative power to everyday people through empowered Citizens’ Assemblies. Marcus Harrison Green is the publish

Join local writers, musicians, and activists for an evening of songs, poetry, and witness.  Alex Gallo-Brown has worked as a barista, a server, a cook, an organic farmer, a caregiver for people with disabilities, an educator, and a union organizer, among other professions. He has also published two books, The Language of Grief (2012) and Variations of Labor (2019). Called “the poet of the service economy” by author and critic Valerie Trueblood, he has been awarded the Barry Lopez Fellowship from Seattle’s Hugo House, the Walthall Fellowship from Atlanta’s WonderRoot, and the Emerging Artist Award from the City of Atlanta. He holds degrees in writing from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and Georgia State University in Atlanta. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters. Louis Ramon Garcia is a PNW-native and a Washington State University alumnus, where he double majored in political science and philosophy. He led the unionization of workers at Storyville Coffee in Seattle when he was employed in early 202

As President Vladimir Putin flung threats of nuclear retaliation during Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, we were given an important reminder of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. This terrifying wake-up call has dominated headlines for a year. President of Ploughshares Fund Dr. Emma Belcher knows the threat looms beyond the physical borders of Putin’s war and how they could easily find purchase on American soil. Join Dr. Belcher for a conversation moderated by The Honorable Gael Tarleton about the current state of global nuclear threats and the proximity of Seattleites to nuclear geopolitics. Dr. Emma Belcher is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. Emma spent nearly a decade at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she led the foundation’s Nuclear Challenges grantmaking program. There, she developed and built the foundation’s Nuclear Challenge Big Bet team. She also served as an advisor in Australia’s Depar

Do you ever wish you had a manual for what to say in certain situations? Cultural Awareness powerhouses Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow’s Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice describes itself as “a practical, shame-free guide for navigating conversations across our differences at a time of rapid social change.” While we navigate a significant time of divisiveness and unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent, but also arguably more complex. When discussing subjects such as critical race theory, gender equity in the workplace, and LGBTQ-inclusive classrooms, many of us with good intentions may find ourselves fearful of saying the wrong thing and hurting someone or being misunderstood. That fear can sometimes prevent us from speaking up at all, which can have the detrimental effect of stalling progress toward a more just and inclusive society. As founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, Yoshino and Glasg

On February 28, 1993, agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) raided the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Acting on reports that the group and their leader, David Koresh, were stockpiling illegal weapons, the AFT raid led to a disastrous siege that ended with a lethal fire and the deaths of 76 people, including 25 children. 30 years later, bestselling author and former investigative reporter Jeff Guinn offers a fresh account of the siege at the Branch Davidian compound, featuring never-before-seen documents, photographs, and interviews. In Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage, Guinn’s extensive research captures the voices of a dozen former ATF agents who participated in the initial raids, who speak on the record about the poor decisions of their commanders that led to this deadly confrontation. Why did the FBI choose to end the siege with the use of CS gas? How did ATF and FBI officials try, and fail, to cover up their agencies’ mistakes? Where

The Black Power movement is often associated with iconic spokespeople, but its momentum was due, in part, to the work of those with untold stories. University of Washington-Bothell Professor and historian Dan Berger’s new book Stayed On Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family’s Journey focuses on the story of Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons: two unheralded, grassroots Black Power activists who dedicated their lives to the fight for freedom. A love story as well as a movement story, Zoharah and Michael fell in love while organizing tenants and workers in the South. Their commitment to each other and to social change took them on a decades-long journey that first traversed the United States and then the world. In centering their lives through intertwined stories, Berger shows how Black Power brought unity on both a local and global scale, which had an impact across organizations as well as generations. Attendees will likely learn something new about these unsung members of the movement t

Do you recall your earliest memories about managing money? Did you squirrel away pennies in a bank or watch your parents balance the checkbook? Author Tori Dunlap had those memories as a child and was always good with money, but she learned her experience was unusual — especially among her female friends. After investigating financial literacy and wealth gaps, Dunlap discovered that girls are significantly less likely to receive a holistic financial education and receive radically different messages about money than boys. Women, she contends, are often taught to restrain their spending, while men are taught to invest and are rewarded for pursuing wealth. And when something like, say, a global pandemic happens, women tend to be the first to leave the workforce or experience job cuts, and are the last to re-enter it. With such disparate outcomes, it’s no wonder money is a source of anxiety and a barrier to equality for so many. In her new book, Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Yo

By the time food politics expert Marion Nestle obtained her doctorate in molecular biology, she had been married since the age of nineteen, dropped out of college, worked as a lab technician, divorced, and become a stay-at-home mom with two children. That’s when she got started. In her new memoir, Slow Cooked, Nestle reflects on how she achieved late-in-life success as a leading advocate for healthier and more sustainable diets. Recounting how she built an unparalleled career at a time when few women worked in the sciences, she shares how she came to recognize and reveal the enormous influence of the food industry on our dietary choices. Slow Cooked charts her astonishing rise from bench scientist to the pinnacles of academia, as she overcame the barriers and biases facing women of her generation and found her life’s purpose after age fifty. Nestle’s personal story is sure to be deeply relevant to everyone who eats, and anyone who thinks it’s too late to follow a passion. Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard

Over 49 million children attend public school in the United States, with over 52,000 of them here in our Seattle Public Schools alone. The U.S. public school system guarantees every child in every city, town, and rural area in the country, a warm, safe place to grow and learn. While public schools in the U.S. have been around for well over 150 years, the onset of COVID-19 dramatically interrupted this long-standing institution. Tens of millions of students lost vital support — not just classes, but food, heat, and physical and emotional safety. The cost was enormous. But this crisis began much earlier than 2020, argues Anya Kamenetz, a longtime education correspondent for NPR. In her recent book, The Stolen Year, she exposes long-running shortcomings that led to the plight of children and families in American life. Kamenetz follows families across the country as they live through the pandemic, facing loss and resilience: a boy with autism in San Francisco who gains a foster brother, and a Hispanic family in T