Uhlman was born in Cashmere,Washington. He attended Aberdeen High School,Seattle Pacific College (now Seattle Pacific University),and the University of Washington,where he pledged and joined the Theta Delta Chi Social Fraternity,which at the time was the most prestigious group of gentlemen in the area.
Career
In 1958,as a 23-year-old law student,he won election as the youngest member of the Washington State House of Representatives. He served four terms before running for,and winning,a seat in the Washington State Senate. He was elected mayor of Seattle,Washington in 1969 and reelected in 1973. At 34,he was Seattle's youngest mayor.[2] Among his accomplishments are the preservation of the historic Pioneer Square district and expansion of services for senior citizens. Uhlman ran for governor of Washington in 1976 but was defeated in the Democraticprimary by Dixy Lee Ray,in a three-way race.[1]
Mayor of Seattle
By Uhlman's own account,prior Seattle mayors had all been "members of the 'establishment';I was not."[3] Uhlman,a Democrat,and progressive Republican R. Mort Frayn faced off in the November 4,1969,election,which Uhlman won 99,290 to 56,312.[4][5] He took office December 1,1969,a month earlier than would usually have occurred,because his elected predecessor James d'Orma Braman had accepted a position in the Nixon administration.[6] (Floyd C. Miller held the office as an appointee from March 23,1969,until Uhlman took office.) Roughly a week after he took office,the Boeing Bust began. The company eventually shrank from 103,000 employees to 49,000. As Seattle neared 25% unemployment,Uhlman had to cut city budgets.[2]
Uhlman selected Frank Moore to serve as chief of police.[2][7]
This was also the period in which the federal Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) staged several violent raids on Black Panther Party strongholds. Moore advised Uhlman that ATF wanted to stage a similar raid in Seattle. Uhlman viewed the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party as "fairly benign" despite some "fairly outrageous statements" by members of the party elsewhere,and refused active cooperation. While he could not prevent ATF from going in on their own,he made it clear that if such a raid were to be staged in Seattle and the local police were called in as backup,they would need to "determine who the aggressors are." The ATF soon canceled the raid.[2]
Shortly before Uhlman took office,Edwin T. Pratt was murdered. Seattle was the target of bombings by factions of the SDS and by Black Power groups,to the point where it had the highest per capita level of bombs in the country. According to Uhlman,the bombings ended after Seattle police shot a black man named Larry Ward in the act of setting a bomb and Uhlman made it clear that bombers would be met with deadly force.[2]
On November 6,1973,Uhlman was narrowly re-elected by a margin of 97,115-91,849 over Liem Eng Tuai,[5] a Republican who was the second Asian American (after Wing Luke) to serve on the Seattle City Council,and who later went on to serve 18 years as a judge.[8] Early in his second term,he established the Office of Policy Planning in 1974.[1]
Uhlman's drive for efficiency in government antagonized city workers,resulting in a recall campaign. Much of their ire was directed at Budget Director Walt Hundley,an African American who had risen to prominence through the federal Model Cities Program;race became a significant issue in the recall. They were also unhappy with Uhlman's dismissal of fire chief Jack Richards and his appointment as Seattle City Light superintendent of another former fire chief,Gordon Vickery. Vickery had,in the words of Emily Lieb,"fired or dismissed hundreds of employees,had others prosecuted for theft,and changed City Light's staffing policies to make sure more women and minorities (and fewer inept relatives) were hired and promoted." In a vote on July 1,1975,the recall was defeated by a wide margin,with Seattle's downtown establishment rallying behind Uhlman,who was hardly their own,but whom they preferred to the insurgent workers.[1]
Uhlman's period in office saw a significant increase in opportunities for non-whites and women in city employment and in the mayor's own administration. He also supported similar changes in broadening the membership of labor unions.[2] His administration crafted the agreement with United Indians of All Tribes that ended an occupation of Fort Lawton and led to the peaceable establishment of the Daybreak Star Cultural Center on ten acres of former fort land within a city-run Discovery Park.[2]
During Uhlman's tenure,the Kingdome was constructed and opened in 1976. The Mariners began play in 1977 and the Seahawks began play in 1976.
In 1977,Uhlman proclaimed Seattle's first Gay Pride Week and in 1978 he opposed repeal of the city's civil rights protections for gays and lesbians. After 1978,Uhlman largely retired from politics,turning his attention to land development. He later opposed expanded legal rights for renters.[1] According to Uhlman in 2005,that and declaring a Cesar Chavez Day in the city were the two actions of his administration that attracted the largest number of phone calls in protest.[2]
Uhlman had a non-speaking cameo in the movie Harry in Your Pocket released in 1974 and set,in part,in Seattle,where he played a "victim" of the pickpocketing main character "Harry".[9]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wes Uhlman, Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, University of Washington. Accessed online 3 November 2007.
↑ Wes Uhlman, Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, University of Washington. Accessed online 16 November 2015. This is part of a recording on that page; orally he says "quote-unquote establishment", transcribed here as "'establishment'".
↑ The police corruption in this era is discussed at length in Christopher Bayley's book Seattle Justice: the Rise and Fall of the Police Payoff System in Seattle, Sasquatch Books, 2015. ISBN9781632170293.
The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by the United States Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. The raids particularly targeted Italian immigrants and Eastern European Jewish immigrants with alleged leftist ties, with particular focus on Italian anarchists and immigrant leftist labor activists. The raids and arrests occurred under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, with 10,000 people arrested. Though 556 foreign citizens were deported, including a number of prominent leftist leaders, Palmer's efforts were largely frustrated by officials at the U.S. Department of Labor, which had authority for deportations and objected to Palmer's methods.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), commonly referred to as the ATF, is a domestic law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice. Its responsibilities include the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms and explosives; acts of arson and bombings; and illegal trafficking and tax evasion of alcohol and tobacco products. The ATF also regulates via licensing the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms, ammunition, and explosives in interstate commerce. Many of the ATF's activities are carried out in conjunction with task forces made up of state and local law enforcement officers, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods. The ATF operates a unique fire research laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, where full-scale mock-ups of criminal arson can be reconstructed. The ATF had 5,285 employees and an annual budget of almost $1.5 billion in 2021. The ATF has received criticism over the Ruby Ridge controversy, the Waco siege controversy and others.
Paul Jacob Alexander was a newspaper publisher and Seattle City Councilman.
Bumbershoot is an annual international music and arts festival held in Seattle, Washington. One of North America's largest such festivals, it takes place every Labor Day weekend at the 74-acre Seattle Center, which was built for the 1962 World's Fair. Seattle Center includes both indoor theaters and outdoor stages.
The Mayor of Seattle is the head of the executive branch of the city government of Seattle, Washington. The mayor is authorized by the city charter to enforce laws enacted by the Seattle City Council, as well as direct subordinate officers in city departments.
Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist grassroots activist organization affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Party. It has branches in Seattle, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia.
The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included the Russian 1917 October Revolution and anarchist bombings. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of socialism, communism and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern.
El Centro de la Raza in Seattle, Washington, United States, is an educational, cultural, and social service agency, centered in the Latino/Chicano community and headquartered in the former Beacon Hill Elementary School on Seattle's Beacon Hill. It was founded in 1972 and continues to serve clients in Seattle, King County and beyond. It is considered a significant part of civil rights history in the Pacific Northwest.
Seattle City Light is the public utility providing electricity to Seattle, Washington, in the United States, and parts of its metropolitan area, including all of Shoreline and Lake Forest Park and parts of unincorporated King County, Burien, Normandy Park, SeaTac, Renton, and Tukwila. Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public utility in the United States and the first municipal utility in the US to own and operate a hydroelectric facility. In 2005, it became the first electric utility in the United States to fully offset all its carbon emissions and has remained carbon neutral every year since.
J. M. Weatherwax High School, commonly referred to as Aberdeen High School, is a four-year public high school located in Aberdeen, Washington, the flagship of the Aberdeen School District. The AHS mascot is the Bobcat.
Hiram C. Gill was an American lawyer and two-time Mayor of Seattle, Washington, identified with the "open city" politics that advocated toleration of prostitution, alcohol, and gambling.
The 1919 United States anarchist bombings were a series of bombings and attempted bombings carried out by Galleanists from April through June 1919. The targets included anti-immigration politicians, anti-anarchist officials, and prominent businessmen, as well as a journalist and a church. Almost all of the bombs were sent by mail. The bombings were one of the major factors contributing to the First Red Scare. Two people were killed, including one of the bombers, and two injured.
The New Order of Cincinnatus (NOOC) was a young men's political organization established in Seattle, Washington in the 1930s. The short-lived "conservative and moralistic reform group" was a municipal party that challenged both the Democratic and Republican parties, electing David Lockwood and Frederick G. Hamley, a lawyer, public official and judge, and Arthur B. Langlie to the Seattle City Council. Lockwood, age 26 at the time of his election, was the youngest person ever to sit on the council. In 1938, Langlie became Seattle mayor, but by then the NOOC was fading. During its brief existence, the group spread beyond Seattle, and was active in Tacoma, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco.
Jenny Anne Durkan is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and politician who served as the 56th mayor of Seattle, Washington. She is the daughter of Martin Durkan. Durkan is a member of the Democratic Party. After earning her Juris Doctor from University of Washington School of Law in 1985, Durkan began practicing law as a criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator. In October 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. She held that position until September 2014.
Timothy L. Burgess is an American journalist and politician from Seattle, Washington. He was a member of the Seattle City Council from 2007 to 2017, and served as Mayor of Seattle for 71 days in late 2017. Prior to his political career, Burgess was a radio journalist and Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer.
Kshama Sawant is an Indian-American politician and economist who has served on the Seattle City Council since 2014. She is a member of Socialist Alternative, the first and only member of the party to date to be elected to public office.
The Black Panther Party History and Memory Project is a multimedia effort to chronicle the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party. Founded in 1968, the Seattle Chapter was one of the first to be formed outside Oakland and became one of longest lived bases of the Party. The Project is the largest online collection of materials about any branch of the organization. The materials include detailed video oral histories, historical documents and photographs and the complete transcript of a 1970 Congressional Hearing held on the Seattle Chapter. The Project is an initiative of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project at the University of Washington.
Charles L. Smith was the Mayor of Seattle, Washington from March 6, 1934 to 1936.
The 2021 Seattle mayoral election was held on November 2, 2021, to elect the Mayor of Seattle. It was won by former Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell, who defeated then-current President Lorena González; both candidates had advanced from a nonpartisan primary election on August 3.
Megan Cornish is an American socialist feminist and labor activist with the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) and Radical Women, as well as a retired electrician with Seattle City Light. Cornish became an electrician after participating in an affirmative action program in 1974. Much of her activism work has focused on fighting workplace discrimination at Seattle City Light.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
