On a Wednesday night exterior the Renton Excessive Faculty Performing Arts Heart, chants crammed the air: “Homes, not ballfields!” “You displace one in every of us, you displace all of us!” It’s not a typical scene in Renton, a suburb south of Seattle the place civic engagement is often muted, native Faculty Board elections are sometimes uncontested and Metropolis Council election turnouts are low. However that evening, residents from throughout Renton confirmed as much as the Faculty Board assembly with a protest, petition and public feedback to make a easy demand: accountability.
In a time when religion in American democracy is waning, what’s taking place in Renton provides a uncommon glimpse of democratic hope: peculiar individuals organizing, mobilizing and interesting within the civic course of to face in solidarity with their neighbors.
This story begins in 1968, when the Renton Faculty District seized the land of the Houston household — one of many few Black households within the space to personal property — by means of eminent area. The district by no means constructed a center college, because it had promised. As a substitute, it bought the land and turned a revenue, whereas the Houston household was left struggling.
Fifty-five years later, historical past is repeating itself. The district is once more invoking eminent area, this time to drive out longtime residents and small-business house owners to primarily construct ball fields and a parking zone when there’s already a stadium close by for pupil athletes.
The households being displaced embrace a lady who volunteered within the district for twenty years, retirees who can’t afford to relocate and immigrants for whom English will not be a primary language. The justification for this growth? A 2022 bond measure that voters authorised to “present secure, trendy services to boost studying.” However ball fields and a parking zone don’t fulfill that promise.
In 1968 nobody mobilized, so why are individuals doing so now?
As a result of this time, the households aren’t alone. A member of South Renton Connection, a neighborhood group on the opposite aspect of city, informed us residents had been being displaced. She then related me to the North Renton Neighborhood Affiliation, the place I met others equally knowledgeable and outraged. We pooled our data about eminent area and the board plans, displaced individuals’s tales, alternate options that would enhance the varsity and save houses, and what management ought to appear like in our neighborhood.
Phrase continued to unfold. An area enterprise proprietor received others to signal a letter to the Faculty Board in solidarity with the residents and companies. New teams shaped, comparable to For a Higher Renton, which introduced collectively individuals with the mission of holding Renton public officers accountable. This group launched me to John Houston, who informed me his story. Throughout Renton, neighbors started organizing — sharing assets, petitioning, canvassing, holding teach-ins about civic literacy and collectively pursuing politics that persuade elected officers to be conscious of their constituents.
What emerged was a imaginative and prescient of democracy typically romanticized however not often practiced: one the place individuals put essentially the most susceptible first and work collectively, regardless of variations in opinion, to construct various options that care for everybody. We aren’t simply making an attempt to cease an growth plan. We try to remodel how energy operates in our neighborhood.
This isn’t politics as efficiency. That is politics as collective care.
We all know that we might not achieve reversing the district’s use of eminent area. However that doesn’t imply we do not make progress. Houston efficiently advocated for a invoice signed into legislation final month, the Houston Eminent Area Equity Act (SB 5142), that prohibits college boards from making a revenue from eminent area. The following step is guaranteeing our public officers use these instruments with care after which holding them accountable once they misuse it to hurt the neighborhood. We all know that it doesn’t matter what occurs, we’re constructing — new political constructions, civic networks and expectations that may make our democracy extra responsive, extra consultant and extra simply. That’s price preventing for.
In an period when People are informed that democracy’s survival hinges on one election or one chief, Renton’s story reminds us that democracy begins at house. It begins in how we deal with one another, how we present up for each other and the way we maintain public officers accountable. If we fail to try this, we are going to proceed to see democracy falter — one displacement, one silence, one forgotten neighborhood at a time.
The query isn’t whether or not democracy might be saved. The query is: Will you struggle for it?
