SEATTLE — Seattle Parks and Recreation workers used construction vehicles Wednesday morning to remove a community garden that was originally planted in Cal Anderson Park spontaneously, as part of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.
The city cited unsafe conditions in and around the Black Lives Memorial Garden, including vandalism of park restrooms, drug use and camping. Releasing statements from several Black leaders supporting its approach, the city also vowed to “conceptualize” a new garden elsewhere at the park.
Black Star Farmers, the group that stewarded the garden, denounced the removal in a statement, saying people who used the space are “mourning the destruction of the physical embodiment of years of collaboration, connecting with plant life” and sharing knowledge, food and medicine.
Seattle Parks initially planned to take action in October but delayed the removal amid pushback from Black Star Farmers and others. More than 5,000 people signed an online petition against the removal, describing the unsanctioned garden as honoring Black and Indigenous people killed by police, while also providing joy and healing to community members without much access to green space. There were plants like amaranth, corn, strawberries, currants, calendula and nettles grown in circular beds.
But Seattle Parks said the garden had to be removed to facilitate other uses of the park, which was part of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone where activists gathered for several weeks in June 2020. The garden is located in Cal Anderson’s “Sun Bowl” area, in one of few spaces in the park appropriate for gatherings and large events, because it’s a “natural amphitheater” close to electrical and water hookups, Seattle Parks said. During post-2020 public engagement, Seattle Parks heard from community members who wanted to see the garden moved within the park, the department said.
On Wednesday morning, garden supporters watched construction vehicles level the space, guarded by police officers and park rangers. One gardener who declined to share his name said volunteers had no notice of the removal but responded quickly and were able to extract some plants.
In an email, Seattle Parks spokesperson Rachel Schulkin said the garden was being removed “due to public health and public safety issues and the need for maintenance, including reseeding the area and turf restoration.”
The city also removed tent encampments from the park Wednesday, marking the 76th time it had done so at Cal Anderson in 2023, she said.
“In recent months, the temporary garden has created unsafe conditions for all park users, including the vandalism of Cal Anderson public bathrooms, public drug use, unauthorized camping and a significant rodent problem, along with other issues,” Schulkin said.
Negotiations between Seattle Parks and Black Star Farmers about relocating the garden weren’t successful, but the department is still open to an alternative site, Schulkin added.
Alan Meekins, a Capitol Hill resident and volunteer at the garden, said the garden was created in 2020 to connect people with nature but also became a place to provide mutual aid for people experiencing homelessness. Volunteers and people camping there worked to keep the space clean, he said, linking Wednesday’s removal to the displacement of Black people from certain neighborhoods and describing the city’s action as part of an attempt to wipe away symbols of grievance and protest.
The city “has claimed that they were removing the garden because of public health and safety, but the garden did not create the conditions for the unhoused crisis and drug epidemic,” Black Star Farmers said Wednesday evening, calling the garden a place for poor and working-class people to organize against root causes of injustices. “Removing the garden is a theatrical and reactionary response to systemic issues, designed to placate the landlords, bosses and politicians intent on extracting labor from poor and working-class people.”
Schulkin said the city would partnerwith Black community leaders and with a Seattle group called the Black Farmers Collective to “conceptualize a new commemorative garden” at Cal Anderson Park. Yeawa Asabi, a farmer with the Black Farmers Collective, said the group opposed Wednesday’s removal and has no plan to work with the city on a replacement.
Meanwhile, the city released written remarks Wednesday from a number of Black leaders who backed Mayor Bruce Harrell’s approach to the garden and from relatives of Charleena Lyles and Che Taylor, two Black people killed by Seattle police in high-profile incidents in recent years. Several criticized the way the garden was run.
City Councilmember-elect Joy Hollingsworth, who will represent Capitol Hill when she takes office in District 3 next month, referred to Cal Anderson Park as the neighborhood’s “living room” and called for prioritizing “sanitary conditions within shared public spaces.”
There should be a section of the park dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement, said Jim Buchanan of the community organization King County Equity Now. But that section must be protected and safe, rather than a place “for drug use and activity, and a hangout spot,” Buchanan said.
Lyles’ cousin, Katrina Johnson, and relatives of Taylor said the garden’s stewards had co-opted their pain and calls for police reform rather than reaching out to them and reflecting their stories and wishess.
“The Black Community is unaware of the existence of the garden, and the garden does not represent in any meaningful sense, the vast number of Black lives extinguished by police violence,” added Darrell Powell, president of the Seattle-King County NAACP, saying his group stands with the Harrell administration in working to establish a better memorial.
