Seattle’s Black community encapsulates countless experiences, both across the region and throughout the diaspora. On April 4, 80 people showed up at King Street Station to mingle with fellow Black Seattleites and create meaningful solidarity through the exploration of art in a curated, sold-out experience called “Freshly Planted/Deeply Rooted.”

Organizer Kiesha B. Free, independent culture-maker and founder of Hey, Black Seattle!, believes the event was so popular because “there’s a lot of pent-up desire amongst Black people to step outside the comments sections of social media and have face-to-face conversations about our relationships across communities — but they want to do it in a trusted space. I’d like to think a part of the positive response this got was because of the trust people have come to have in experiences presented by Hey, Black Seattle!”

Free created the event with the goal of forging more Black solidarity: for people to develop new relationships, deepen understanding of diasporic differences, and leave feeling more connected with Seattle’s broader Black community. She intentionally facilitated the communion through food, powerful storytelling, and immersive art displays. 

Free’s idea for the gathering and conversation stemmed from noticing a divide between the Black people who grew up in Seattle and the people who moved to the city later in life. In a phone conversation, she shared, “In my [Hey, Black Seattle!] events, I started by tweaking the language: Instead of saying ‘transplant,’ I came up with ‘freshly planted,’ and for people who were born and raised in Seattle, I call them ‘deeply rooted,’ to symbolize that we’re growing alongside each other in the same garden. That’s where the first seed was planted.”

From there, she collaborated with Marie Kidhe, a friend and lifelong Seattle resident, to compile a list of hopeful participants and artists who are rooted in the local community and have global perspectives, including Ms. Taz, Jonarra Swanson, and Delbert Richardson. By sharing their respective culinary, visual art, and poetic talents, these artists created culturally centered conversation with attendees, bridging cultural gaps and cultivating a shared experience among Seattle’s Black communities in a constantly changing city. 

Free hopes the success of “Freshly Planted” will lead to more intentional gatherings where Black people can learn about the many lived experiences, cultural backgrounds, and ways of understanding tied to being Black in Seattle, creating more room for each other’s realities.

“Freshly Planted/Deeply Rooted” was a larger undertaking than the Hey, Black Seattle! events Free usually organizes, and she collaborated with Arts at King Street Station and RieImagine Solutions to bring the project to life. Community reception and attendance was overwhelmingly positive, with the event RSVPs at capacity and a waitlist a week before launch. Free noted that people are clearly hungry for this kind of gathering and conversation.

Attendees dined on food prepared by Sankofa Catering, sat for storytelling by deeply rooted community organizers like original Seattle Black Panther Na’eem Shareef, and enjoyed engaging live arts experiences, like poetry, painting, and videography. 

One of the participants, Jonarra Swanson, a visual artist with Nigerian roots, shared via Instagram: “The energy was high, I learned so much and laughed so much and was so inspired during my painting sesh.”

Free envisions attendees as future interrupters of divisive conversations within the Black diaspora and hopes they will be more compassionate toward fellow Black people who are experiencing anti-Blackness. “We always say, ‘Black people aren’t a monolith,'” she said. “I, a little Black girl who grew up in Louisiana, have a different set of challenges than a woman who came [to Seattle] from Sudan. From Sudan to Seattle and beyond, Black people deserve to be known and loved distinctly. Our histories — where we come from, where we’ve been, and even places we’ve never been but carry within us — matter.”

As for lessons from planning and executing a large-scale community event, Free emphasizes the importance of assuring emotional safety for attendees while engaging in difficult conversations. She explained, “People came to this discussion with a mix of emotional states, levels of willingness to shift, and varying ways their brains process information. When intentionally bringing people together to discuss issues where there is possibly injury or hurt involved, there’s additional effort required: to set expectations for what will happen, and to make sure people feel well-held along the way and at the end. In creating a space like [“Freshly Planted”] from scratch, I now have new questions for myself about how to build [future events with] even more care for the [collective’s] emotional wellbeing.”

Free and her team’s efforts seem to have paid off. The culturally immersive experience resonated deeply with attendees like Joke Durojaiye, who said, “Listening to the history of Seattle’s Black community from the perspective of those who lived it, not just learned it, shifted something for me. I left feeling small, but in the very best way. More aware, more informed, and still reflecting.”

Learn more about Kiesha B. Free and Hey, Black Seattle!

Editor’s Note: The story was updated on April 15 to correct a date and number of attendees.