The makers of The Corner, radio producer Jenny Asarnow and documentary photographer Inye Wokoma, are pushing out a new project called 206 Black – The Diaspora.  Diaspora is a powerful word meaning dispersal. It’s been used to describe the movement (usually involuntary) of people from their homelands: Jews, Palestinians, Africans, and others.

206 Black is a social media/multimedia project that aims to collect the stories of African Americans who used to live in the Central District, the neighborhood that Wokoma says was once the “center of gravity” for the Seattle's black community. 

Wokoma's stunning, larger-than-life portraits of Central District residents were featured both in the public art installation at 23rd & Union and on the Corner website. Wokoma has lived in the Central District for most of his life. He raised two teens in that neighborhood and now lives with his wife and 3 year old  “in the home that has been in the family for decades.” Wokoma says he also “owns another that was the first purchased by my grandfather back in 1948.”

Why did many African Americans leave the Central District? Wokoma says a lot of factors came in to play, including redlining by banks, shrinking blue color jobs, the crack-cocaine epidemic, aging residents, rising property tax rates, the real estate boom and gentrification.

“Many African Americans in the Central District, even those with stable, good paying jobs who still could not get loans for home improvement and repair, saw this as an opportunity to cash in and purchase a new home in outlying communities and still have money to spare,” explains Wokoma.

The Corner Turns Outward

Asarnow and Wokoma’s last project explored the impact of the changing racial and economic demographics on the Central District. Now, they are looking at the how geographic relocation (diaspora) affects the meaning of community.

Like The Corner, 206 Black has set up a telephone hotline - (253) 642-7672 - and voicemail system. Call it, and you'll be greeted with the following outgoing message, “Welcome to 206 Black: The Diaspora. African Americans have spread out from our roots in Seattle’s Central District. How does that affect black community life? Where do you go to find community?”

Callers are invited to share their thoughts and stories. The voicemails, and posts on the project's Facebook page, will serve as leads for people to interview for a series of short videos Wokoma and Asarnow will produce and screen at a public forum later in the spring.

Digging Deeper

Posted on The 206 Black website is a list of questions that gets to the heart of this project:

• Over the past twenty years African Americans in Seattle have spread out from our roots in the Central District. Now we live all over King County. How does this decentralization affect our ability to create and maintain black community?
• How do you define your community? Where do you go to feel comfortable, like you’re with your people? How important is ethnic/racial identity to you in defining and forming community?
• The black community used to be anchored in the Central District. Where are black people creating community today – inside and outside of the CD?
• What’s new and unexpected about community life where you live now that you like? What don’t you like about it?
• How important do you think it is that black people live and work close to one another to maintain a sense of community?
• How are you maintaining your community ties when black people are so spread out around here?

The 411 on 206

So, where does the name 206 come from? Long distance dialers will recognize that it’s the original area code for Seattle. According to Wokoma, “The use of area codes as a way of signifying one's communal belonging based on location began in the late 80s, became popular in the 90s and has become a common in youth and hip hop culture in the past decade. The use of areas code in this way is now fairly widespread.”

But just as African Americans in Seattle no longer share a single common zip code, the 206 area code harkens back to the days before cell phones. Even the project’s own phone line starts with 253.

Seattle: More Than Grunge

Asarnow and Wokoma received a $8500 grant from Seattle’s Office of Art & Cultural Affairs to create this new media project, a clear sign that the city recognized the value of The Corner:23rd & Union to the cultural life of the community.

“Arts and culture play a vital role in making Seattle a remarkable place to live, work and visit - a center of creativity in many forms,” reads the Office of Art & Cultural Affairs website.

“The cultural community serves and expresses the soul of the city, alongside its capacity for innovation, its educational resources, its economic vitality, its quality of life, and its spirit of racial and social equity. Our vision is of a city justly renowned for its cultural dynamism, innovation, opportunity and inclusiveness, where artists thrive and are valued.”

Congratulations to Jenny Asarnow and Inye Wokoma for their grant and their new endeavor. The 206 Black Community Story Line is open until March 17th.