Partner
Some Union Army general tells human beings in bondage in Galveston they have been emancipated.
Some 150 years later, we have a national holiday to remember it. To remember is to learn. And to learn is to fill the gaps our ignorance leaves behind. I woke up on Juneteenth alone at the house. My family is in Texas. In Bryan. Not too far from Galveston.
On this day off, I caught up. Took out the dogs. Dropped my car off to get fixed. Got a haircut. Then I took my basketball to Meridian Park, not far from my home, to shoot some hoops under the sun.
On my way there, I see a name fixed to a learning center. “Edwin Pratt Early Learning Center.” I think, who is Edwin Pratt? Modern technology helps. Lo and behold.
Pratt was a civil rights leader. He served as executive director of the Seattle Urban League in the 1960s. He worked against housing discrimination, school segregation, and employment bias in the Puget Sound region.
In 1959, Pratt and his family moved to Shoreline. It was then unincorporated King County, just north of Seattle. They became the first Black family in Shoreline.
On January 26, 1969, Pratt was shot and killed at the doorstep of his Shoreline home. His wife and daughter were there. It was an assassination. The case was never solved. Just like Medgar in Mississippi, shot at the doorway of his home.
My ignorance about Pratt stunned me. So I dug a little deeper. Mapquest said there is a park. I went there. No park. Nothing. Houses and some land. I look deeper.
On April 19, 2021, the Shoreline City Council adopted the name “Edwin Pratt Memorial Park” for the site at 1341 N 185th Street. This followed a public naming process. Bureaucracy. Tied up.
I kept digging. I found more. The Ronald Bog Park. Some mentions that Pratt is there. I searched the park. Bog is remembered. His photos there and the efforts of the community to remember him. Nothing about Pratt. I searched the park inside and out.
Then, I walked down the side of the road. Be still my heart. Be still time. I found him. Right there, on the side of a bus stop. Nestled between a bus bench, a lime scooter, and cement.
Cars passing by without a clue. Him, his people, his family, and his works. In all their glory. His little girl too. The pain must have been inexorable at that doorway by the driveway on that night.
I hope she is no longer in pain. To hope is to trust that time was kinder than that night. But now I will remember. To remember is to learn. And to learn is to fill the gaps our ignorance leaves behind.