Tour Overview

The Right to Home

What is home? A structure that you live in? A community where you feel welcome? What changes over time to make you feel more—or less—at home?

Greater Seattle has been home to Coast Salish people for thousands of years. Less than 200 years ago, 100-foot-long cedar longhouses lined the waterfront. In 1865, Seattle’s first city council banned Native Americans from living in the city. Between 1855 and 1904, 94 longhouses were burned to the ground in present-day Queen Anne, Belltown, and Pioneer Square. Seattle’s displacement of Coast Salish peoples set the stage for a legacy of discrimination to follow, including mob violence that drove out Chinese American laborers in the 1880s; the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II; and the exclusion of African Americans, Asian Americans, and people of color from White neighborhoods. Many would say this pattern of dispossession—from land, community, and home—continues today.

Explore the Redlining Heritage Trail, an urban hike made of many individual segments within Seattle’s Pioneer Square, Chinatown-International District, First Hill, and Central District neighborhoods. Start at each segment’s cultural anchor to learn more about the communities, their rich histories, and thriving present-day lives. Immerse yourself in personal stories of marginalization and resilience and explore connections to today. Support ongoing efforts by the working class and communities of color to collaborate and fight back against displacement, building on Seattle’s rich, distinctive history of multiracial organizing for equity and social justice, housing, and services.

Lead partners:
National Park Service Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
National Park Service Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program
Northwest African American Museum
Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience

With generous support from:
Historic South Downtown
National Park Foundation
Neighborhood Matching Fund from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods

• Architecture
• Cultural Themes
• Industry, Commerce, and Labor