Back in 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, community members built a garden inside Cal Anderson Park in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The garden was part of an autonomous zone created in protest of police brutality.
Now, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department wants to get rid of it. But longtime stewards of the Black Lives Memorial garden aren’t letting that happen without a fight.
On Tuesday morning, community members managed to fend off Parks and Recreation employees.
"We stopped them in their tracks," said one community member.
The workers had come prepared with a backhoe.
"They brought about ten employees...there was about six cop vehicles that were here," said Marcus Henderson with Black Star Farmers, a coalition working toward land reclamation and food sovereignty. Henderson helped start the garden three years ago.
He gave KNKX a tour of the garden.
"We have four beds," he explained. "And they each have different kind of themes one might say. If you're looking over here, this bed is our urban medicine garden."
There’s sage and other medicinal plants, and also collards, tomatoes, potatoes. They give away the food weekly.
"A lot of our work is connected to mutual aid that happens here on Wednesdays, it's free food Wednesdays," he said.
Birds Connect Seattle has released a statement in support of the garden. Henderson said the organization has noted the increased bird activity in the area because of the snowberry he and others have planted.
One petition currently circulating has gathered thousands of signatures in support of the garden. Henderson said they're also combing through data to better understand what community needs from the garden.
Seattle Parks and Recreation said it wants the space to hold events, especially since there are electrical and water hookups nearby. They’ve offered to help move the garden to another location, the department said in a statement. One option is putting it in south Seattle.
But community members said part of the point of the garden is reclaiming this land. The garden at Cal Anderson Park, Black Star Farmers said in statement, is part of a history of occupation protests led by poor and working-class queer people of color.
The group also said uprooting established plants "with no new place to put them into the ground quickly would cause great and unnecessary harm to the plants, and their absence will be detrimental to the future of the local ecosystem."
Evana Enabulele has worked for Parks and Recreation in various roles. Speaking for themselves, they argued the department is going against its own values of supporting healthy communities by attempting to tear the garden down.
"It's really shocking that, you know, Parks and Rec has decided to go this route. It's against your principles. It's against most of your employees principles," they said. "This is a space that's been reclaimed and deserves to be here."
Enabulele also pointed out the wait for the city’s sanctioned gardening program is long.
"How long does it take for you to get on a P-Patch list? You know, so like, create your own. There's nothing wrong with this. This is beautiful," Enabulele said.
Cleo Carter is a graphic designer who lives in the neighborhood. She said she's enjoyed events held next to the garden, like movie nights and concerts. There's no reason the department couldn't do the same, she said, while allowing the garden to flourish.
Seattle Parks and Recreation said it still plans to remove the garden at a later date, when it has more support from the city's police department.
