This website provides an overview of the history of racial exclusion and intimidation in Bellingham. But this does not tell the whole story of Bellingham. Like many cities and towns across America, the history of Bellingham also embodies expressions of racial amity and inclusion — even though they were often overshadowed by racism.

Richard Thomas, an African-American historian of race relations from Michigan State University, has written about this “other tradition” in the U.S.*

The tradition of racial amity is more difficult to document than the tradition of racism, because the absence of conflict does not leave the same traces as the presence of conflict. Conflict and violence make the news and they tend to make it into our history books. Cooperation and friendship rarely do.

But the other tradition was undoubtedly present, to varying degrees over time, in the Bellingham Bay area. One can see early traces of the other tradition in resistance by some Euro-Americans to the Chinese boycott in 1885. For instance, when asked to sign on to the Chinese boycott, Jas F. Cass is recorded as saying “I won’t sign that. Am not in sympathy with the sentiments expressed in it. Chinese should be permitted to remain here. They have as much right here as the white labor has.” Likewise, the Congregational Ministerial Association of Western Washington territory passed a resolution opposing the boycott.**

This reference to the other tradition is merely illustrative. Threads of this tradition are woven throughout the history of this area. These threads should not be overstated in relation to the wider pattern and traumatic impacts of racial exclusion and discrimination. But the other tradition offers something to build on as we strive to create a more inclusive and diverse city.

 

* For more in depth discussions of “the other tradition” of American race relations, refer to:

Richard Thomas’s “Understanding Interracial Unity –A Study of U.S. Race Relations” 1995, Sage.

William Smith & Richard Thomas, “Race Amity – America’s Other Tradition: A Primer” 2019, WHS Media Productions.

Joe Darden & Richard Thomas, “Interracial Cooperation and Bridge Building in the Postriot Era,” in Detroit: Race Riots, Racial Conflicts, and Efforts to Bridge the Racial Divide, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, pages, 265-296.

** Both of these examples are documented by Margaret Willson, (1982), An Ethnohistorical study of the Dominant Community Reaction to the Chinese and Japanese Immigrant Communities in Bellingham, Washington (WWU master’s thesis).