October 1961: Seattle CORE launches "shop-ins" and "shoe-ins"

If you think Seattle is a racist city today, imagine living here in 1961. Along with widespread housing discrimination and de facto school segregation, employment discrimination was then so bad in Seattle that blacks here couldn't even get jobs as grocery checkers or department store clerks.

In response to these conditions, the newly-formed Seattle branch of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched a then-innovative non-violent direct action campaign of "shop-ins" and "shoe-ins" to pressure The Bon Marche, Nordstrom and other major downtown retailers to increase minority hiring. The heart of this campaign was an intentionally business-disrupting tactic in which protesters filled grocery carts or tried on shoes with no intention of buying anything.

One of Seattle CORE's first achievements resulting from this campaign was Safeway's decision in late 1962 to hire five black employees. J.C. Penney soon followed with 20 black hires, the A&P grocery chain hired ten black workers, Frederick & Nelson hired 28, and Nordstrom made a public pledge to integrate its retail staff.

This campaign went hand-in-hand with a "selective buying" boycott of segregated stores in Seattle. In the end, the Seattle chapter of CORE was the first in the nation to win concessions through boycotts and direct action.

Sources: Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project (www.civilrights.washington.edu); Walt Crowley, "Rites of Passage" (University of Washington Press, 1995).