Employment Discrimination

Seattle CORE Founders and Leaders

The civil rights movement of the 1960s was shaped by innumerable leaders, both nationally and here in the Northwest. Seattle CORE was founded by Joan and Ed Singler, Norm Johnson, Ken Rose and Ray Cooper, and was quickly joined by many others. New officers were elected every year, as can be seen in the CORE Timeline. The chairmen were, in turn, Ray Williams, Rev. Henry Hall, Ed Singler, Reginald Alleyne, Harold "Tim" Martin, Walt Hundley, John Cornethan, Ed Russell, and Mike Ross.

Most of these founders and leaders are described in the biographical sketches that follow. A few left CORE for various reasons, and are not covered here. For example, Henry Hall was hired by J.C. Penney's to move to San Francisco as a management trainee.

Based on research and our memories of these friends and co-workers, here are brief descriptions of two dozen CORE leaders. Photographs will be added as we find them. Unless otherwise stated, photos are courtesy of individual leaders and/or their family members.

Top of Page Photo Credits: Seattle Post-Intelligencer collection, 1986.5.5938, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle.

Jean Adams

Jean Adams (later Maid Adams) and her husband, despite excellent credit, experienced long delays in approval of a mortgage for buying a house in Madrona. She realized that African American buyers could not know if similar delays were due to their race, and so was motivated to activism. After joining CORE in 1962 at the recommendation of Wing Luke, she served as coordinator of negotiation teams for grocery and department stores and helped publish and distribute the booklet on Negro pioneer George Washington Bush. She was coprincipal of the First AME Freedom School. Maid accepted the need for black self-determination in CORE's last days and moved on to volunteer with the United Farmworkers Union grape boycott. She returned to the University of Washington to get her master's degree in education and then served as an instructor and program director at Green River Community College for twenty years. She continues to teach and participate in community activities.

Alleyne Reginald

Photo Credit: UCLA School of Law

Reginald Alleyne (1932-2004), known as Reggie, came to Seattle from Boston and Washington, D.C., where he had graduated from Howard University Law School and begun his career in the law. He filled various offices for Seattle CORE, serving as chairman in the pivotal year of 1963. After passage of the civil rights acts, he was among the first federal employees appointed as contract compliance officers to enforce a new concept—affirmative action. In 1969, having earned his LLM from Columbia University, he joined the faculty of the law school at UCLA as its first African American professor. There he spent the remaining twenty-five years of his distinguished career. His specialty in labor law led him to the field of labor arbitration; he later served as vice president of the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Daisy Boyetta

Daisy Boyetta(1924-2007), daughter of Sarah Lynch and mother of Infanta Spence (both activists themselves in CORE), was a stalwart member of CORE. Daisy was raised in Seattle and attended St. George's Catholic School. She worked as a domestic, then in the dietician department of the University of Washington Hospital, and finally as the owner of the [Marcus] Garvey Bookstore on Twenty-Third near Madison with her mother. Strong and vocal on every subject concerning segregation and discrimination, Daisy was a constant on the picket lines and at demonstrations and marches. She served on CORE's Emergency Committee for several years and was an active member of the negotiating team. She also participated in many Community Action Programs as part of her involvement in the War on Poverty. She helped start the Central Area Chamber of Commerce. Daisy went on to work for the state of Washington, addressing the needs of abused children.

John Cannon

John C. Cannon (1923-) moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles for high school. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1942, served for a while in the all-black 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion ("Triple Nickels"), but served mostly in the Medical Service Corps. An army major while in CORE, he served on CORE's Emergency Committee until ordered to Korea. After twenty-four years' service, he retired as a lieutenant colonel, returning to Seattle in 1966. He worked in Seattle's Division of Urban Renewal until his appointment, in 1970, as the first administrator of Odessa Brown Children's Clinic. Thereafter he became executive director of the Ecumenical Metropolitan Ministry and, from 1980 to 1988, executive director of the Central Area Senior Center. He served on boards of directors of many organizations, including the Seattle Public Library. He retired to West Virginia to be near his son, a retired army officer. The Cannon House, an assisted living facility in Seattle on Twenty-Third Avenue South near Yesler Street is named to honor his many contributions to Seattle.

Carla Anette Chotzen

Carla Anette Chotzen (1924-) fled Nazi Germany with her family as a young girl. She graduated from the University of Rochester. As assistant to a professional photographer, she learned the skills needed to become an outstanding portrait photographer of children. While raising her family of eight children, she joined CORE in 1963 and launched a campaign to raise funds to pay transportation costs for children in the Voluntary Racial Transfer Program. She cochaired the school boycott Freedom School project, which, due to her organizational skills, was one of CORE's most successful campaigns. Her daily life was not complete without a morning run and then a swim in Lake Washington—365 days a year—rain or shine. Retired but still committed to a healthy life style at age eighty-four, she lives in Hawaii.

John Cornethan

Photo Credits: "From 1966 group photo of civil rights leaders with Congressman Adams, Brock Adams Photograph Collection, Special Collections Division, UW 28888z, University of Washington Libraries." Seattle in Black and White, 2011.

John Cornethan (1925-99), the son of Alabama sharecroppers, served as a private in the United States Army and moved to Seattle in the 1950s. He was the first African American to hold the position of lineman's helper for Seattle City Light. Despite his knowledge and skills as an electrician, John was denied the promotions he sought for many years due to the racial practices of City Light at that time. John found his way to CORE through the University Unitarian Church. He was an early participant in all CORE's projects and a constant on the picket lines. Father of three sons, he was a big man with a quiet voice—a person you could count on to always be there when needed. John held the offices of vice chairman and then chairman in 1966-67. After thirty-five years of employment, he retired from his "day job" at City Light but continued to be active in the peace movement and other causes championed by the Unitarians for Social Justice.

Barbara Davis

Barbara Davis, later Folayan Oni-Robertson (1941-2012), joined CORE because she believed in CORE causes—equality for minorities to obtain jobs, to purchase homes without discrimination, and to be treated as equals by the police. Barbara taught at the Freedom School, was a constant at Picture Floor Plans demonstrations, walked Seattle's police beat as a member of the Freedom Patrol, and often carried her picket sign on Seattle buses, as she did not own a car. Folayan was the last secretary of Seattle CORE. She later worked with Head Start in King County as a health education coordinator. Interested in African American art, she wrote books for children about African Americans and instilled an appreciation for African American culture in at least two generations of children.

Jean Durning

Jean Durning (1934-) and her husband moved to Seattle in 1959. She led CORE's campaign to integrate the Bon Marché under Reverend Mance Jackson, helped organize the Seattle demonstration to coincide with the great March on Washington, and served on the CORE Emergency Committee. Thereafter, she was active in political campaigns, taught junior high school, and, at the Human Environment Foundation in Washington D.C., coordinated studies on minority students entering environmental and natural resource careers. From 1981 to 1993 she served as northwest director of The Wilderness Society during the height of controversy over ancient forests, helping coordinate volunteers of many environmental organizations, lobbying Congress, and dealing regularly with government agencies and with press and broadcast reporters.

Judy Esparza

Judith ( Judy) Esparza (1932-2014) moved to West Seattle in 1958 with her daughter and husband, Gilbert, who started work at Boeing while she completed her studies for her doctorate in political science and public administration at the University of Washington. Upon their move to Bellevue in 1961, Judy became an active member of the East Shore Unitarian Church, helping to launch the church's involvement with the Fair Housing Listing Service. Both Judy and Gil Esparza were active members of CORE. In 1964 Judy assumed the chairmanship of the Housing Committee and launched Seattle CORE's first sit-ins at Picture Floor Plans. The family lived in Washington, D.C., in 1968-70, returned to the Seattle area for five years, and then went back to D.C. They returned permanently to Seattle in 2001. Unfortunately, Judy's employment and role as an activist were cut short by debilitating illness.

Sue Davidson

Sue Gottfried, later Sue Davidson (1925-), is a socially and politically active author and advocate on behalf of peace and justice issues. Sue cochaired the school boycott and Freedom Schools project as part of her CORE activities in 1966. In that same year her book What Do You Mean, Nonviolence? The Story of Wars with Peaceful Weapons was published. Her commitment to nonviolence made her an obvious choice to work with the American Friends Service Committee's campaign to bring about an end to the war in Vietnam. Sue was an observer on the Freedom Patrol, a CORE project she describes in appendix 1. After her work with CORE, she became a "citizen participation planner" for the Seattle Model Cities Program. In the mid-1970s, Sue was the text editor for works published by the Feminist Press. When recently interviewed she was surrounded by many of the multicultural articles and pamphlets she wrote before, during, and after her work with Seattle CORE.

Esther Hall Mumford

Esther Hall, later Esther Hall Mumford (1941-), came to Seattle from Louisiana in 1961 to attend the University of Washington, where she majored in political science. She was active in both the campus Civil Rights Action Group and Seattle CORE. Esther was the first black office worker at the Carnation Milk Company after CORE broke the color barrier there. She and her husband, Don, are the parents of Donald Jr. and Zola. In 1989 as part of Washington State's centennial celebration, Esther was named a "Washington Living Treasure" based in part on her six publications about African Americans in the Northwest, including Seattle's Black Victorians, Seven Stars and Orion, and Calabash. Esther was a founding member of the Black Heritage Society. In 2004 Esther joined other former CORE members in Florida to participate in the Election Protection Coalition to ensure fair voting practices on election day.

Walter Hundley

Walter Hundley (1929-2002), who started life in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood, went on to Yale Divinity School and then earned degrees in social work from the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington. In Seattle CORE he led negotiations with employers, served as vice chairman in 1964 and chairman in 1965, and was its representative on the Central Area Civil Rights Committee. Under the federal War on Poverty, he became director of the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP), then director of the Seattle Model Cities Program, after which he became director of the city's Office of Management and Budget. From 1977 until ill health overtook him in 1988, he was superintendent of the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department.

Mance Jackson

Reverend Mance Jackson(1930-2007) moved from Los Angeles to serve as pastor at Seattle's Bethel CME Church on Twenty-Third Avenue. Amazed and angry to find Seattle apathetic about racial injustices, he joined Seattle civil rights efforts through NAACP and CORE and cofounded the Methodist Episcopal Ministers Alliance. In Seattle CORE he served on the Negotiating and Emergency committees and led the campaign for equal employment at the Bon Marché. In late 1963, after his house had twice been firebombed, he moved to Atlanta to attend seminary "and to go to school in civil rights activity." Seminary study was followed by three years as pastor of a church in Berkeley, California. He then returned to Atlanta, teaching while earning his doctorate in theology from New York Seminary. For thirty years he was a member of the faculty of the Interdenominational Theological Center of Atlanta Universities.

Norman Johnson

Norman O. Johnson (1934-), son of a large family in Philadelphia, left home after discovering Seattle in 1959 while serving in the military. He worked as a draftsman at Boeing, then attended Seattle Community College and the University of Washington, receiving his master's degree in social work in 1973. The victim of police harassment himself while attending the university, Norman became one of the founders of CORE and the first treasurer of the group. In addition to picketing, he often served as a monitor at large demonstrations and marches. His skill at fundraising for civil rights carried over into the work he does now as the executive director of Therapeutic Health Services (THS), a position he has held for the past thirty-three years. This agency, with numerous branch offices, addresses addiction and mental health problems for citizen of all races and colors from all over western Washington. Norman has traveled extensively, including trips to many countries in Africa. He is not ready to retire.