Podcast | The run club changing Seattle
Club Seattle Runners Division creates community for people of all paces and all faces.
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Members of Club Seattle Runners Division pose during a Juneteenth event in 2022. (Sarah Hall)
Housing discrimination and restrictive covenants shaped Seattle in ways that are still being felt today. The most obvious of these is the neighborhood segregation it created and the way it affected Black people’s ability to purchase homes and acquire wealth. But it also created disparities in health and movement.
Consider Seattle’s Central District. It was once a thriving Black neighborhood because Black people legally couldn't live anywhere else in the city. But in the past few decades, the neighborhood has rapidly gentrified. Yet even so, heat maps suggest that fewer people are outside running, walking or biking in the Central District than in Seattle areas historically reserved for white people.
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Club Seattle Runners Division, also known as CSRD, is working to counter that legacy of inactivity by getting people of color moving, reclaiming space and, literally, creating more heat.
For this episode of the Out & Back podcast, club founders Ashley Davies and David Jaewon Oh sit with host Alison Mariella Désir to discuss how they combined a love of running with a love of Seattle to get people intentionally moving outside. They will also take you to the Central District during Juneteenth weekend 2022, when they hosted a 3-mile walking tour in partnership with Wa Na Wari.
Before listening, we suggest you watch the episode about CSRD here.
