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City Destroys Black Lives Memorial Garden During the Holidays
Around 6 AM on December 27th, an army of Seattle police and parks workers flooded into the Black Lives Memorial Garden. They fenced off the area and forcefully removed the community before destroying the garden, leaving bare earth in its place. In this article we’ll discuss the history of the garden, its destruction, and hope for the future.
By: The Nightly Crew
12/30/2023
The Black Lives Memorial Garden’s History
The Black Lives Memorial Garden is a continuation of the community built during the uprisings of 2020, when it was created under the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP). The absence of police during CHOP allowed the space to be created without government harassment, and it has been stewarded by Black, Brown and Indigenous community ever since. The garden will be remembered as a beacon of the power of collective action and counterevidence to the myth that people cannot be productive without government control and capitalist coercion. Its destruction is a testament to the fact that hierarchical rule and people power are incompatible. The city had no reason to put so much time, effort, and taxpayer money into destroying a simple garden other than the fact that it brought people together, creating networks of mutual aid that allowed people to rely on each other rather than the government.
This flourishing garden, full of food and native plants, will be replaced with turf. During the uprisings, removing turf was the first step taken toward creating the garden. Grass is detrimental to native species and the local ecosystem. In its place the community planned out a food forest, full of biodiverse native plants, many of which were edible or medicinal. As the system aged, it grew into itself and became a thriving ecosystem which was a living memorial for all the Black and Brown people who were killed by the state.
“To me, the garden is a memorial to those who died, and all the pain we suffered in 2020, as well as being a memorial to Black folks who have suffered at the hands of state violence” a bystander at the sweep told The Nightly.
Creating the Garden During the 2020 Uprisings. Photo provided by Black Star Farmers.
The garden was a beacon of hope, a physical manifestation of peoples’ right to self-determination. In a statement back in October, Black Star Farmers, one of the groups that stewarded the garden, connected the garden to “a legacy of occupation protests, led by Black and Indigenous peoples.”
Throughout its existence, the Black Lives Memorial Garden has also served as a common meeting place, a mutual aid space, and a place for people to find refuge. The garden offered an easily-accessible space where people could fulfill their needs with free communal food and other resources. There have been countless celebrations, movie nights, speakers, and performances in the space.
The Garden produced countless pounds of food. Photo provided by Black Star Farmers.
Constant State Harassment
The city’s effort to destroy the garden started last spring, when Seattle Parks reached out to Black Star Farmers to ask the group to relocate the garden to Rainier Community Center in South Seattle. In response, Black Star Farmers warned the Parks Department that relocation would be a continuation of the city’s harmful legacy of forceful displacement and told the city that they would choose not to relocate. Months later, Andy Sheffer, a representative from the Parks Department, replied to Black Star Farmers telling them that they would have two weeks to vacate. Despite this threat, the community held strong.
As we reported on previously, the city intended to tear out the garden back in October. They failed after overwhelming community support for the garden made it clear that this would be more difficult than anticipated. Since then, the city and their police have been relentlessly attacking the garden, constantly sweeping residents, stealing people’s belongings, and arresting those who stand up to them. At one point they even welded the public bathrooms shut. This has all been in the context of continued deadly encampment sweeps city-wide and continued state violence in the Harrell Administration.
Destroying the Garden
On December 27th, militarized police and Seattle Parks workers stormed the garden with several mechanical excavators. They forcefully removed residents and garden protectors, several of whom were pepper sprayed, and all of whom were threatened with arrest. In a disgustingly wasteful show of force, the city uprooted hundreds of native plants that were critical for maintaining the local ecosystem. They removed the perennial plants that had taken years to establish and replaced a food forest with grass. Despite originally offering to “help move” the plants in the spring email, Seattle Parks killed most of the plants, only allowing one person to enter and salvage a few plants after the destruction had already begun. Anyone else who tried to enter was threatened with arrest.
Harrell’s Cover Up
Following the destruction of the garden, the city released the following statement: “In partnership with the Black Farmers Collective and leaders in Seattle’s Black Community, Mayor Harrell and the city will conceptualize a new commemorative garden at Cal Anderson.”
This is a lie. The garden defenders have not been “in partnership” with the city. The city destroyed the garden against the express wishes of groups like Black Star Farmers that had been stewarding the garden. Despite not being factual, this statement was immediately aired by mainstream media outlets like Kiro 7, who have no problem licking neoliberal boot. (Kiro 7 is part of what the Seattle left calls the KKK, King, Kiro, Komo.) Even if this promise wasn’t a flat-out lie, it would still be reprehensible. Why rip out a garden somebody else created and replace it with one you created? It doesn’t make any sense except as a show of force, the same kind of state violence whose victims the garden was founded to commemorate. The whole point of the garden was to create a space free of this violence, a pocket of autonomy where people could breathe. Its stewards and residents recognize that the community built in the space was what lay at the heart of the garden. That community is what will live on.
Reflection
The destruction of the Black Lives Memorial Garden is a direct assault on the people and movements the garden represents. These actions from the city are “consistent with violent state projects like imperialism, colonization, and gentrification,” as Black Star Farmers noted in October. All of these processes continue to be driven by the interest of capital and the racist police state that defends those interests.
To the city, the Black Lives Memorial Garden represents the uprising against the state in 2020 and the autonomy of communities. The city’s new “commemorative garden” is nothing more than the symbolic extinguishing of autonomy and uprising. Any garden built by the city will inevitably be a sterile husk of what the people can build.
To the government, memorializing, gardening, and finding refuge are only okay when done on their terms. Nothing is okay except when done on their terms; even the smallest act of autonomy, such as self-producing food, sets all their alarms ringing as they scramble to regain control. When people dare to think outside the box, the state uses its power to barbarically and destructively enforce its total control over the population it claims to serve.
In the immediate aftermath, there will be a lot of mourning. The blood, sweat and tears poured into the garden, as well as the memories and friendships made there, will be remembered. The people and movements the garden was created to memorialize will not be forgotten. The garden may have been physically destroyed, but what it stands for will live on. Programming and mutual aid efforts will continue to be held near the garden, and the community forged there will continue to grow.
“The city pulled up the garden, but the people’s roots stand strong. Removing the garden and displacing people does not change the dire conditions faced by our neighbors living outside on Capitol Hill, nor will it bring ‘safety and hygiene’ to Cal. Mutual aid and community gathering will continue to happen in the park. Our struggles are intertwined. This is not an end, but a new beginning. They can destroy a garden. They can’t keep a garden, nor the people, from growing back stronger.” - Statement from Black Star Farmers on Dec 28th.
