On a Wednesday night outdoors the Renton Excessive College Performing Arts Heart, chants crammed the air: “Homes, not ballfields!” “You displace one in all us, you displace all of us!” It’s not a typical scene in Renton, a suburb south of Seattle the place civic engagement is normally muted, native College Board elections are sometimes uncontested and Metropolis Council election turnouts are low. However that evening, residents from throughout Renton confirmed as much as the College 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 occurring in Renton presents a uncommon glimpse of democratic hope: abnormal folks organizing, mobilizing and fascinating within the civic course of to face in solidarity with their neighbors.
This story begins in 1968, when the Renton College District seized the land of the Houston household — one of many few Black households within the space to personal property — via eminent area. The district by no means constructed a center faculty, because it had promised. As a substitute, it offered 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 car parking zone when there’s already a stadium close by for pupil athletes.
The households being displaced embody a lady who volunteered within the district for 20 years, retirees who can not afford to relocate and immigrants for whom English shouldn’t be a primary language. The justification for this enlargement? A 2022 bond measure that voters authorized to “present secure, fashionable amenities to boost studying.” However ball fields and a car parking zone don’t fulfill that promise.
In 1968 nobody mobilized, so why are folks 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, instructed 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 information about eminent area and the board plans, displaced folks’s tales, alternate options that might enhance the varsity and save houses, and what management ought to appear to be in our neighborhood.
Phrase continued to unfold. A neighborhood enterprise proprietor bought others to signal a letter to the College Board in solidarity with the residents and companies. New teams fashioned, reminiscent of For a Higher Renton, which introduced collectively folks with the mission of holding Renton public officers accountable. This group launched me to John Houston, who instructed me his story. Throughout Renton, neighbors started organizing — sharing sources, petitioning, canvassing, holding teach-ins about civic literacy and collectively pursuing politics that persuade elected officers to be attentive to their constituents.
What emerged was a imaginative and prescient of democracy usually romanticized however not often practiced: one the place folks put probably the most weak first and work collectively, regardless of variations in opinion, to construct different options that care for everybody. We aren’t simply making an attempt to cease an enlargement plan. We are attempting to rework 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 reach 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 faculty boards from making a revenue from eminent area. The subsequent step is making certain our public officers use these instruments with care after which holding them accountable after they misuse it to hurt the neighborhood. We all know that it doesn’t matter what occurs, we’re constructing — new political buildings, civic networks and expectations that may make our democracy extra responsive, extra consultant and extra simply. That’s value preventing for.
In an period when Individuals are instructed that democracy’s survival hinges on one election or one chief, Renton’s story reminds us that democracy begins at dwelling. 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 do 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 may be saved. The query is: Will you battle for it?
