Seattle protests: As The Cops Withdrew, Clergy Showed Up
This selfie of the clergy table and visiting Catholic clergy from Seattle University includes American Baptist pastor Mindi Welton-Mitchell (far left) and United Church pastor Aaron Monts (second from right). Photo courtesy of Mindi Welton-Mitchell.
SEATTLE — Protesters occupying Seattle’s “autonomous zone,” a portion of the city’s bohemian (and high-income) Capitol Hill district spread over several city blocks, have managed to keep police and politicians out for almost two weeks.
But they haven’t kept out God. Tucked into the scenery, among the “no cop co-ops” tents, a massive street art project of 19-foot-high letters spelling out “Black Lives Matter” and a memorial site filled with flickering candles, is a folding table with a sign taped to it that reads “interfaith clergy” in purple letters.
The purple, says an ad hoc group of ministers who staff it each evening, is for repentance on the part of whites toward blacks. Although not by design, all the clergy who man the table happen to be white. They offer spiritual counsel to protesters and gawkers alike.
The effort was crafted by a trio that sounds like the opening line of a bar joke: a Unitarian minister, a Reconstructionist rabbi and a United Methodist activist.
The Rev. Cecilia Kingman, 53, pastor of the Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Congregation, dates the effort back to the riots of June 5–7 when police threw blast balls and pepper spray at protesters after they lobbed bottles, rocks and even fireworks at officers. She and John Helmiere, pastor of Valley & Mountain, a United Methodist congregation in south Seattle, were alarmed.
By Monday, June 8, they had to do something.
“Those three nights over the weekend were getting more traumatic,” Kingman said. “They were teargassing young people. There was no religious leadership there that we could see.”
“I texted John and said I want to provide support, but I am a middle-aged woman and don’t want to go alone.”
The pair had some background in nonviolent civil disobedience and knew that from past experience that, “The cops treat people better when white clergy are present. Our presence de-escalates violent responses,” she said.
Three clergy staff a table at Seattle’s CHOP zone on June 9, 2020. From left, they are Methodist clergyman John Helmiere, Unitarian minister Cecilia Kingman and Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum. Photo courtesy of Rachel Nussbaum.
The two sent out emails, threw an announcement onto Facebook for other clergy to join (“Religious leaders need to show up. Whoever wants to come, can”) and headed downtown. Figuring that protesters might want to light candles or express their feelings through writing or drawing their thoughts, Kingman grabbed felt-tipped markers and origami paper from her kids’ art table and raced for the car.
Helmiere had already found a folding table. Arriving downtown, they picked a spot at 11th and Pine streets that turned out to be where a gunman had driven his car into a crowd of protesters the night before. A demonstrator who tried to stop him was injured, but not fatally.
Seven clergy showed up that night, comprising three Jews, three Unitarians and one Methodist.
“People came up and thanked us for being there,” Kingman said, “and that the space needed to be blessed.”
Meanwhile, Rabbi David Basior, leader of the Kadima Reconstructionist Community, located about 15 blocks east of where the protests were happening, had joined the team and was reaching out to Jewish protesters. Several clergy in Seattle’s posh Queen Anne district also signed up, including the Rev. Aaron Monts, pastor of the nondenominational United Church; Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum of the Kavana Cooperative; and the Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell of Queen Anne Baptist Church, an American Baptist congregation. All wore clergy collars, clergy shirts or yarmulkes to identify themselves as spiritual leaders.
“We were there to do spiritual work, to be present and help people to heal,” said Nussbaum, 43. “We’re at a time in America where so much religious vocabulary has been ceded to the (religious) right. It’s important for religious leaders to bring a moral voice to progressive spaces.”
Armed with face masks, the clergy set out hand sanitizer, water bottles, a Bible and a box of granola bars for anyone to take. A Unitarian hospital chaplain brought bundles of sage with which to bless onlookers.
Reactions to their presence were mixed.
“Some wanted a prayer or blessing; others asked what we were doing there,” she said. “The goal was to be there for whatever people needed.”
The next night, the clergy moved their table across the street against a bright kelly-green building adorned with a huge portrait of George Floyd, the man whose May 25 killing by Minneapolis police spurred protests not only in Seattle but around the world. The tableau included tons of graffiti, ranging from “F— SPD” (Seattle Police Department) to a bubble quote in drippy black paint on a spray-painted white background proclaiming “change is in the wind.”
Monts, 40, said a lot of visitors to their table simply needed someone to help process their feelings or somehow find meaning in it all.
“I had a long, drawn-out conversation about ‘What does God say about this?’” he said. “That was from a man who stated off the bat that he was an atheist. I said, ‘I can’t answer your question.’
“‘Why not?’ he said. I said, ‘You’re asking about a God you don’t think exists.’
“A light bulb went off in his head. He said, ‘Well, if there was a God, what would He say about this?’
“A lot of our role is to clarify their questions. Not that I can answer them, but if I can clarify the questions they have, they can do that work. I do not see my role as an answer giver. I try to help them craft the question.”
As the week wore on, more clergy drifted in as protesters settled in to occupy the space, which was first called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). By the end of the week, the acronym had switched to Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP). Rainy weather kept many casual visitors away at first, but once websites like VisitSeattle began tweeting that the area was safe, crowds of tourists swarmed the area.
Basior posted the following on Facebook:
A video of his service late on the night of June 13 showed Basior wearing a black T-shirt and a white prayer shawl, covering his shoulders and flowing down his back, along with a yellow-green face mask. After he pleaded for any black Jews present to approach or interrupt him at any time, the onlookers, all of whom appeared to be white, sang a Sabbath prayer.
“One week ago, this spot was full of police. A car drove into protesters right there,” he said, pointing across the street. “One week ago Monday night, that building” (pointing to the closed East Seattle Police Precinct building) “was boarded up, and this street became the people’s.”
Nussbaum, who was at that ceremony, notes the irony of a mainly white-dominated occupied space in a section of Seattle that is only 2% black. It was much greater decades ago, but as the tech industry began to dominate the city starting in the 1990s, many working-class residents, including blacks, moved south.
She also notices some mission creep from the core issues at CHOP.
“There are young activists of color,” she said, “and also many white allies present. One of the tensions I’ve felt from the organizers is to keep the focus on defunding the police, on black lives and policing and social justice, not a referendum on every social justice issue or taxing Amazon.”
A team of interfaith clergy on June 8, the first night a group of them showed up to minister to protesters in Seattle. From left, they are: the Rev. John Helmiere (arm raised), Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, Unitarian chaplain Justin Almeida, Unitarian minister Beth Chronister and Rabbi Josh Weisman. Photo courtesy of David Basior.
Largely absent from the streets are black clergy, especially those whose congregations are concentrated in working-class neighborhoods in south Seattle. Nussbaum attended a meeting of those clergy who gathered June 14 at a black church south of Capitol Hill to support embattled Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best. Best has been widely criticized for ceding several city blocks to protesters, who have made CHOP a semi-lawless zone provoking complaints from some local residents who claim police have abandoned the area.
The clergy were also concerned, Nussbaum said, over the loss of the precinct building: a place that black Seattleites fought to get years ago when Capitol Hill was more black-populated.
“Black people feel an ownership over that precinct,” she said. “They helped put it there and want it to open, whereas the (organizers of) CHOP want it closed and made into a community center.”
Welton-Mitchell, 42, the American Baptist pastor, also notices how black clergy have not shown up at CHOP.
“There’s definitely some divide,” she said. “I have invited my clergy friends of color to come, but a lot don’t live near the city. They are in (the southern suburbs of) Renton and Federal Way.”
The black community is far from monolithic, she adds, and there are divergent views.
“Sometimes we just need to do the best we can. At the chaplain space, we’re always thanked for being there. I think we just need to go there and show up and if we’re in the way, to step aside.
The Rev. Harriett Walden of Mothers for Police Accountability, who lives just south of Capitol Hill, says the left-leaning, youth-dominated CHOP is a “white movement” that black people like her want no part of.
“There are no Black Lives Matter up there,” she said. “White people have co-opted the movement on Capitol Hill. It’s not about Black Lives Matter anymore. It’s not about George Floyd anymore. It’s not about people killed by police. It’s about people who’ve been pepper-sprayed by police. If it was black people (occupying) up there, it’d be a different reality. You got to look at white privilege up there.”
Even the presence of the clergy didn’t much impress her.
“It’s a table set by somebody else,” she said. “We didn’t set that table. But bless their hearts. I am glad they are up there.”
There actually was one black clergyman who showed up: a Jesuit priest from Cameroon who walked up with two other priests from nearby Seattle University, a Catholic institution. Monts got to meet him.
“He was super encouraged,” Monts reported. “When he was walking away, he turned back and said, ‘This is the best experience I’ve ever had. This was remarkable.’”
A few other religious personalities have showed up, including a Pentecostal street preacher who burst on the scene June 13, when the place was milling with tourists snapping selfies. A widely distributed video shows the man being shouted down, wrestled to the ground, force-kissed by at least one protester and pushed outside the area.
“He was telling them some hateful things to get a rise out of people,” said Monts, who watched it all from half a block away. “There’s a history of street preachers in the city who are out there to create a stir. He was really loud. People were trying to shout him down because there were a lot of people there traumatized by the church.
“What looked like a bad situation through his lens — that a Christian can’t come here and preach the Gospel — was creating harm to a lot of people. It was a loving thing they were doing (to usher him out).”
Every so often, he added, an onlooker will walk up and upbraid the ministers.
“They’ll shout at me and I just take it,” Monts said. “It’s cathartic to them. I know there’s a lot of anger in their being they need to get out. Then I’ll try to have a conversation with them. I’ll start with, ‘Did you get it all out?’ That disarms them right away. I’m leaning into their pain and their hurt.”
Several of the ministers planned to take part in a Juneteenth nonviolence workshop for clergy led by longtime activist and black theologian the Rev. Osagyefo Sekou. Kingman said CHOP organizers are forming a “healing justice team” that the clergy table will be a part of, and they’re still looking for volunteer ministers to sign up for shifts.
“We’ve been in contact with the black clergy to whom we are accountable,” she said. “Black leaders right now are being stretched pretty damn thin. I have seen those folks show up in so many places in all hours of the day and night on Zoom calls. We in no way want to overstep. Whatever they want us to do, we’ll do.”
Julia Duin is a veteran journalist who has worked as an editor or reporter for five newspapers, has published six books and has master’s degrees in journalism and religion. She currently freelances out of Seattle for the Seattle Times, Washington Post and other outlets.