An oral history exhibition · South Seattle, Washington
Listen to the Moment!
In Rainier Beach and across South Seattle, Black educators, organizers, students, and a judge fought to replace punishment with relationship — bringing restorative justice into the classrooms and the courts. These are their words, in their voices, from the record.
Before it had a name, it was already a practice. A talking piece. A breath. Everyone gets a turn. In Rainier Beach the circle was discovered, kept, and claimed — by students first.
Before I knew what Circle was, we were in Circle.
Tyra Edwards 00:57:00 WA-BLOC co-founder · Freedom Schools organizer
We didn’t think it was restorative justice. We just knew that we spent so much time together that we did not want to physically sit in the uncomfortableness of conflict with each other.
Ifrah Abshir 00:11:00 on circles as cultural practice, long before the name
We often did things in a circle kind of style.
Ifrah Abshir
Just knowing that there was a mechanism for authentic communication to happen… to really get the truth out and not let it just be stuck in your internal being.
Angela Davis 00:11:00 restorative practitioner · circle keeper
The students were like, “We need a Circle,” and sat down and we did this thing.
Tyra Edwards 01:06:00 on a student-led circle, first summer of high school Freedom Schools
Every time you went around, the vulnerability was deeper. The students were clearer. They got to say what they needed to say.
Tyra Edwards 01:03:00 Rainier Beach High School, Room 160
I remember my first circle was like a conflict that actually happened, and we all had to sit and talk.
Yobachinia Frazier on her first circle
I sat in my car for an hour. Just in tears. The powerfulness of the ability to share in a kind of very visceral way. After that, I said… I need to know more.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:39:00 after his first circle, Neighborhood House, West Seattle
The biggest elephant in every room is race… For me, Circle is the way to have that conversation.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:48:00 King County Superior Court (ret.)
Do you have the relationship to hold the conflict, to actually work through it — to stand in the fight?… Restorative justice is not just what we do when the shit hits the fan.
James Williams 00:56:00 community organizer · circle keeper
I went to the circles, I sat in some circles, I went through some circle keeper trainings.
James Williams on the circle keeper trainings
“The circles that were the most important to me were the ones that made me feel the most uncomfortable in the beginning… I realized very quickly that that was part of the problem. I left those circles with a better understanding of even my own privilege.”
Ifrah Abshir 00:51:00
“There’s no age limit to where you can start learning or stop learning about how to be in right relationship — with God, with yourself, with each other, with the world around us.”
Tyra Edwards 01:25:00
A six-week, literacy-based summer program at Rainier Beach High School — built by community when the school doors would have stayed shut. Mornings began with Harambee: singing, clapping, joy. Then books with Black children at the center. Then action.
Every morning we were walking into good vibes and absolutely unconditional love.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:49:00 Freedom Schools scholar → junior servant leader educator
Wait — that’s what that is, that I’m dealing with… This is racism. School-to-prison pipeline. Oh, I definitely can see this in my school. Okay. I kind of want to do something about it.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:50:00 on reading, naming, and waking up
Nobody gave us money, nobody gave us a belief, nobody gave us a chance… Nobody was giving us anything, so all we had was community.
Ifrah Abshir 00:08:00 former Rainier Beach High School student
None of us needed to have all the skills. The fact that we all came together to figure the things out together is what made it possible for us to start Freedom Schools.
Tyra Edwards 00:55:00 “We were building the boat as we were figuring it out.”
Because we came at it from that trainer kind of space — which all the young people were learning to be trainers, were trainers in Freedom Schools.
Senait Brown on young people as trainers
It was the place where all the angels of Rainier Beach lived.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:45:00 on Success City, Room 265, Rainier Beach High School
When you came to school hungry, you went in there and you got you some noodles and some food.
Yobachinia Frazier
“Students don’t know how much power they have. I want to encourage students, like, you have power. Communicate your needs… Find the person who’s willing to listen to you.”
Tyra Edwards 01:29:00
When you can wake up and sing for thirty minutes every morning and you can be cheesy, you can be vulnerable and you’re not worried about looking embarrassed — that is when true revolution and change has always happened.
Ifrah Abshir 01:13:00 on Harambee, hope, and the foundation of change
“The restorative justice work would have meant less if it would have been somebody who nobody knew or trusted… You can’t just show up and do a circle. You have to have been there. That’s the part people miss.”
James Williams 01:13:00 on the relationships WA-BLOC had already built
When King County moved to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a new juvenile justice facility, activists confronted the bench. One judge listened — sat in circle — and tried to turn a courtroom into a place of repair.
What’s the justification for spending a quarter of a billion dollars on a new building when all you’re doing is locking up Black and brown kids?
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:37:00 recalling the activists who confronted the court — “I said, let me do my due diligence.”
Who is the client?… It’s the people we make walk through the door. They’re the customers. We’re servants.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:45:00 to the upper echelon of the juvenile court system
We have harm-producing systems — whether it’s child welfare or school system, let alone a court system… We have to do this different.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:05:00
The youth deserve consequences that aren’t punitive, especially Black youth. Because the world is ready to throw you away like that… I see restorative justice as a response to that.
James Williams 01:21:00
I was in some ways a solo voice of: can’t we do it different?… Let’s be courageous and keep trying.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 02:00:00 on keeping circle sentencing alive against the backlash
“‘We’re not gonna throw you away. This was not okay. Your actions have a consequence. It needs to be restored and made right.’ And that turned into the resolution for zero use of detention — and then subsequent funding and money that came down for restorative justice.”
Senait Brown 01:06:00 on young people practicing what they trained — and changing King County policy
We have five police precincts in Seattle and we don’t have not one single identifiable restorative practice site anywhere… There is no such thing as too many circles.
Angela Davis 00:46:00
“This is where the work should be at… If we could start earlier — and that’s what has driven me now to be in schools. Because that’s where it needs to be: at the elementary school.”
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:46:00 from the bench to the classroom
Restorative practice was never only a feeling — it was strategy. Listening to students turned tardy slips into transit policy. Circles turned discipline data around. The wins started in Rainier Beach and rippled out to the whole state.
“Okay, they’re late — but did you ask why?”
Students walking two miles to school were marked tardy into the school-to-prison pipeline. Freedom Schools scholars researched the policy and marched on the district. The city funded it; the county adopted it; the state made it law.
Tyra Edwards 01:27:00
“Now today, every kid can get on the bus for free… and so we did that.”
A student-found rule — live under two miles away, get no transportation — became a Freedom Schools Day of Social Action, then a statewide policy for every young person under 18 in Washington.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:51:00
“I remember feeling so powerful.”
When scholars learned prison beds were being projected off the backs of elementary reading scores, they wrote a song, pressed their own protest shirts, and filmed it in front of the youth jail.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:56:00
“The incidents that contribute to youth crime decreased by 40%.”
Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth knit restorative justice, positive behavior supports, neighborhood engagement, and guardianship into the five highest-incident locations in the neighborhood — and the numbers fell.
Gregory Davis 01:10:00
It was never really enough to just do direct service. You had to connect that direct service to system change, and you have to connect that system change to policy change.
Gregory Davis 00:57:00 Rainier Beach Action Coalition
Suspending kids — what is that gonna do?… This is a cry out for help sometimes, for children.
Yobachinia Frazier 01:09:00
The process for how we do things is more important than the policy of the outcome… The process that we go through when we are organizing is what brings liberation.
Senait Brown 00:43:00 anti-racist organizer · on the 501P organizing
“The measurements of success are the principles. Yes, we want the youth jail shut down — but if we’re not learning from history, sharing our culture, being accountable gatekeepers, building something that can exist without institutions… then we lost. We were doing this to get liberated.”
Senait Brown 00:56:00
Movements outlast their founders only when the story is kept. Against erasure and backlash, the narrators insist: name the team, train the next keepers, and put the record where it cannot be lost.
We have to have our stories durable… they can withstand the change in political winds.
Gregory Davis 01:14:00
We’ve got to create our own narrative, we’ve got to create our own media, in order to make sure that our work stays permanent and stays known.
Gregory Davis 01:14:00 “We see today the double down on the erasure… the double down on the backlash.”
What has been built can be dismantled and replaced.
Ifrah Abshir 00:31:00 “You never want to invalidate someone’s experience. But it doesn’t have to stay that way — there’s tools to dismantle it.”
We’ve glamorized the leader, but we didn’t glamorize the team. And in reality, there’s always been a team.
Tyra Edwards 01:31:00 “No movement can be built alone.”
If you listen long enough, people tell you what they need. And if you’re humble enough, you’ll position yourself to support them.
Tyra Edwards 01:31:00
“This work, it could be kind of isolated. You could feel like you’re banging your head against the wall and nobody really understands what you’re going through… They got a lot of life from each other.”
James Williams 01:00:00 on gathering the movement’s lawyers and organizers in one room
The young people clocked me: “You’re so with integrity, we love you, but you don’t look well.” I was not making the movement look irresistible.
Senait Brown 01:32:00 on burnout — and practicing what you preach
You look for leaders without titles who are doing the work.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 02:09:00 imagining the room in 2036
Turn your pain into purpose.
Yobachinia Frazier 01:38:00 “Working with WA-BLOC — that was me healing my childhood.”
“It’s how you naturally work things out — try to just make it on paper so you can hold yourself to it and other people can hold you to it… Do it in a way that’s natural to you, not in this weird academic, high-brow, overly expensive way that you can’t sustain because it’s not really your culture.”
Senait Brown 01:41:00
“When we don’t tell it, people tell it for us — and it won’t always be accurate. So I would want us to tell our stories more.”
Tyra Edwards 01:33:00
“There’d be circles in every classroom, in every community center, in libraries… Police wouldn’t make referrals to courts — they’d make referrals to circles.”
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 02:13:00 “We dreamt that — and look at it starting to materialize.”
“We all see the trees that are on top, but we don’t see all the roots that are interconnected that created the sustainability of the tall trees… That has been the conceptual notion of how restorative practices actually nurture humanity.”
Angela Davis 00:45:00 on ancestral healing and interconnection
My vision has always been to create restorative places and spaces. For people of all faiths, there are common threads.
Angela Davis on common ground across faiths
I cannot do it by myself. I don’t intend to. That’s not a circle.
Angela Davis 01:03:00 on her vision of restorative places and spaces
The foundation of change starts with hope. And it starts with the sheer will to change things by believing it can be changed.
Ifrah Abshir 01:13:00
My heart is really warm to know that we’ve got the now gen, the next gen, really embracing this.
Gregory Davis 01:15:00 closing the interview, Rainier Beach Food Innovation Center
Managing strategist, Rainier Beach Action Coalition. Urban planner and organizer behind Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth, Priority Hire, and the community-rooted restorative justice work that refused to be handed over to institutions whole.
Born and raised in Seattle (formerly Tyra Griffith). From Success City at Rainier Beach High School to co-building high school Freedom Schools and WA-BLOC — a practice of listening, circle keeping, and right relationship.
King County Superior Court (ret.). Confronted by activists over the youth jail, he sat in circle, then brought restorative practice into juvenile court — Young Warriors, circle sentencing, FIRS — and now teaches judges that there is a different way.
Freedom Schools scholar, junior servant leader educator, trained circle keeper, and now a nurse. Marched for ORCA cards, protested the youth jail, and returned for ten summers to pour into the next scholars.
Former Rainier Beach High School student, born in Kampala, Uganda, to a Somali family fleeing civil war; Seattle is home. Through Freedom Schools she found a name for the circle-style practice her community always carried — and organized for clean water, free transit, and No New Youth Jail.
Restorative practitioner, minister, and circle keeper raised in Seattle’s Central District. Her practice began before it had a name — insisting spirit and lived reality cannot be separated — and grew into Seattle Restorative Justice and a vision of healing circles embedded in communities of faith.
Community organizer and circle keeper, born in Jackson, Mississippi, into a family of the Republic of New Afrika. From New Orleans’ Common Ground Collective after Hurricane Katrina to EPIC and circles alongside WA-BLOC — restorative justice as relationship before conflict.
Anti-racist organizer raised on Pan-Africanist values. Through 501P, the People’s Institute, EPIC, and Youth Undoing Institutional Racism, she helped organize the No New Youth Jail movement — and was in the room when King County resolved on zero use of youth detention.
Circle Up: Listen to the Moment! is an oral history project documenting the Black-led organizing that brought restorative practices into South Seattle public schools and King County courts. Interviews with the eight narrators were conducted by oral historians Sierra Parsons — a graduate of Wa Na Wari’s Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute — and Ricky Reyes, in connection with WA-BLOC. Quotes on this page are drawn directly from the recorded interviews, lightly edited for length and readability; timestamps locate each excerpt in its original recording. Rainier Beach, Seattle, Washington — on Duwamish land.