Origins Season 2 follows Central District’s Black history, change
Filmmaker Lady Scribe calls on elected officials, Washington expats to reinvest in the historic neighborhood while remaining hopeful for the future.
The crowd at the SIFF Cinema Uptown on March 5, 2024 for the Origins Season 2 premiere Lost at Sea. (Brodrick Aberly/Cascade PBS)
Tuesday night marked the celebration of eight months of work for a first-time Seattle filmmaker with the premiere of the latest series for Cascade PBS Origins at the historic SIFF Cinema Uptown in Lower Queen Anne.
An enthusiastic crowd of about 300 nearly filled the largest of the venue’s three theaters to view Lost at Sea.
The audience saw a nearly 17-minute excerpt from the series, the brainchild of filmmaker Lady Scribe. She centered the story around her experience growing up Black in Seattle against the backdrop of her mother’s Great Migration journey from Louisiana, where her family sent her north for a better life. Lady Scribe weaved in the stories of other Seattleites sharing the beauty and pain of their own origins.
Cascade PBS original productions director Sarah Menzies said the team is already recruiting the next filmmaker to tell their story.
Lost at Sea highlighted the transformation of Seattle’s Central District, once a hub of Black homeownership and business. Over the years, the Black population there has dwindled amid gentrification, skyrocketing housing costs and economic inequality. Black residents now live largely in other cities in South King County.
A University of Washington study by Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium analyzed homeownership by race between 1970 and 2022 in Washington, which underscored the steep decline in Black homeownership. According to census data, in 1970 50% of Blacks families owned a home, compared to just 34 % in 2022. For comparison, in 2022 69% of White families owned a home, which has held relatively steady (it was 67% in 1970).
When asked what she wanted the audience to take from the series, Lady Scribe said “We [Black Seattle natives] want to feel seen and heard.”
The conversation after the screening included Scribe and a panel of Seattle natives. Musicians and community leaders Taz Dat MC, James Lowe and Tana Yasu explored the series’ most pertinent issues. There was agreement that the current local government could do more to increase and sustain Black homeownership in the Central District. Scribe called for giving “Black families credit”; and former Seattle Women’s Commissioner Yasu went further, saying families deserved what they were owned monetarily after all they endured at the hands of the government.
One of the discussion’s overarching themes was love for the city – Scribe alluded in some ways that her and other Black families who called 23rd & Jackson home were abandoned – yet rooted under the frustration and disappointment, there remained a hopefulness and longing to reclaim a new vision of the Central District for future generations.
Submissions for the next Origins grant cycle are open now through April 17.