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Published in The Seattle Times online on June 25, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on June 28, 2026

Throughout history, Seattle voices rise in protest

By Jean Sherrard and Clay Eals

America began in protest. A tea party, a declaration of grievances, a war — and then, improbably, a nation.

Seattle arrived late to the country but early to the argument. For a century and a half, the city has lifted its voices in protest for better — and occasionally worse.

Few American cities have matched Seattle’s range and reach. From the waterfront strikes of 1919 to the WTO protests of 1999, what begins here has a way of reverberating far beyond the city limits.

Ahead of America’s 250th anniversary observance, this week we glimpse several “Then” protests, selected for what they reveal and what still resonates. For our “Now,” we chose recent No Kings marches and rallies, reminding us that the impulse lives today.

We also provide a timeline and invite you to leave a comment to share Seattle protest memories that matter to you.

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A partial list of Seattle protests

• 1886: Anti-Chinese expulsion riots roil the waterfront.
• 1909: Japanese laborers protest discriminatory wage policies.
• 1916: Industrial Workers of the World protest turns into Everett Massacre.
• 1919: The General Strike shuts down the city for six days.
• 1934: Longshoremen’s strike paralyzes the Port of Seattle.
• 1942: Japanese Americans resist incarceration orders.
• 1961: Congress of Racial Equality sit-ins target Seattle lunch counters and hiring practices.
• 1966: Boycott against Seattle Public Schools for racial segregation in classrooms.
• 1967-70: Vietnam War protests surge through the UW campus and downtown.
• 1970: Thousands of UW students take over I-5 after Kent State shooting.
• 1969-71: Rallies promote, and voters approve, saving Pike Place Market.
• 1972: Freeway fighters block the would-be R.H. Thomson Expressway.
• 1999: A World Trade Organization ministerial conference collapses amid “the Battle of Seattle.”
• 2011: Occupy Seattle encamps in Westlake Park and later Seattle Central Community College for several months.
• 2017: Womxn’s March on Seattle draws 100,000 to 140,000 in one of the largest political marches in the city’s history.
• 2020: George Floyd protests fill streets; Capitol Hill becomes CHOP.

* * * * *

Seattle stops work for six days that shook the nation

For six days in 1919, Feb. 6-11, Seattle simply stopped.

Some 65,000 people — laundry workers, hotel maids, streetcar operators, building laborers — walked out in solidarity, in the first general strike ever called in a major American city.

No streetcars ran. No restaurants opened. Workers struck, and the city held its breath.

It had begun with frozen wartime wages in the shipyards. But a call from the Central Labor Council transformed a labor dispute into something larger: a demonstration of what organized workers could do. They ran the Seattle General Strike like a city within a city. Twelve labor kitchens fed thousands of people a day. Workers’ patrols kept order without incident.

Mayor Ole Hanson termed it a Bolshevik Revolution. Federal troops arrived from Fort Lewis.

The strike ended Feb. 11, the workers having lost their demands. But the loss was complicated.

Two days before the walkout, activist and journalist Anna Louise Strong had cheered on workers, writing in the Union Record that the strike would lead “NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!“ She was right. The phrase reverberated far beyond Seattle, helping ignite the first Red Scare and reshaping the national debate about labor, capital and the limits of solidarity.

Seattle’s workers didn’t win. But they changed what was thinkable.

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Sitting in for Black representation
and to persuade ‘the power group’

Sometimes protests in Seattle wielded influence from smaller groups with close-to-home targets.

In July 1963, 22 young people — nine adults and 13 juveniles — staged a sit-in at City Hall. They complained that of 12 citizens appointed by Mayor Gordon Clinton to Seattle’s fledgling Human Rights Commission, only two were Black. They sought five, wanting to “keep pressure on the power group.”

After four days, police arrested the demonstrators for creating a disturbance, loitering and resisting arrest. Cameras rolled as the youths, lying on their backs, were picked up and carried away.

Charges were dropped a month later. But the front-page ruckus elevated and helped galvanize the eventual work of the new commission, which drafted a Seattle open-housing ordinance to outlaw discrimination in real estate sales and rentals, known as racial redlining.

Enacting it took time. By a resounding margin of 112,448 to 53,453, with opponents decrying “forced housing,” the ordinance fell to voter defeat by referendum in March 1964. Four years later, the City Council finally enacted it without voter challenge.

Before the council vote, outspoken real-estate agent and human rights commissioner Elliott Couden captured the issue: “The right to discriminate in the rental and sale of housing because of the color of a man’s skin is not a precious American heritage.”

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Clever signs of today’s Seattle: ‘No Kings but Salmon’

Of course, Seattle protests have never required solemnity. The city has long understood that showing up — with wit, neighbors, even a vuvuzela horn — is itself the argument. To protest is to love an imperfect union enough to disagree with it.

The city’s answer to a national call reappeared March 28 with characteristic elan. In the “No Kings” crowd of 75,000, a sign read “No Kings but Salmon,” a reminder that our city has sorted its allegiances.

At Seattle Center, a mock court made the point. An ersatz President Donald Trump, with orange wig and enormous red tie, bellowed while jesters capered and a placard presented the verdict: “The Emperor Has No Brains.”

No surprise: Smaller “No Kings” rallies have multiplied throughout Seattle’s neighborhoods. Their clever homemade signs (a shared coping mechanism?) bespeak laughter through tears.

A West Seattle sampling:

• “We’ve Seen Better Cabinets at IKEA ‘As-Is’ ”
• “Small Hands, Small Dictator”
• “Faux-King Traitor”
• “U Know It’s Bad if the Introverts Showed Up”
• A favorite: “Sometimes You Have to Flush Twice”

Imaginative ire also has arisen in mime. Two enormous puppets jousted at this year’s Northwest Folklife Festival, an orange-haired monarch taking gentle bops in the head from the boxing gloves of — who else? — the Statue of Liberty.

WEB EXTRAS

No 360-degree video this time, but click here to see a 30-second video of roving puppeteers at 2026 Northwest Folklife Festival depicting Lady Liberty bopping a crowned Donald Trump.

And check out a few more videos from the March 28, 2026, No Kings March:

• Protesters descend into from Capitol Hill into downtown Seattle.
• A marching band of drums and horns inspires protesters to step lively.
• Seattle Raging Grannies sing a song of protest.

And one from June 14, 2025, in West Seattle:

Below, you will find 1 booklet, 1 additional photo and 28 historical clips related to open housing from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

Don’t miss the final news clip from 1896, good for a laugh!