already i'm a landscape architect designer and city planner by profession i grew up in louisiana where african after hurricane katrina there were a number of architects community meetings community plans just everywhere and everybody said you know we want to help the community we want to listen to the community we want to rebuild in a way that respects the community and they showed us their plans and you know drawings and they're all really pretty but it wasn't until things were built and things were torn down that i really understood what what those drawings meant and i felt so deeply misunderstood and it was because of this disconnect that i enter the profession myself i went to school to study design and what i learned was that the way that architecture and design is taught and therefore practiced is largely rooted in european tradition so it restricts the way that designers think even the developing design theory and methods to engage directly in the construction of the africa town village we're designing so that every single brick that can be built to support our culture our economics our health and our community so let me give you an example of how this could work this is a project that i worked on in houston texas in a neighborhood called friedman's town it's a neighborhood that was constructed by free people in eight hundred thirty six on a swamp that today sits next to downtown houston the settlers constructed their own homes they pave their own streets provided their own utilities all services that the city would not provide and it became the civic heart of blacklisting over time the neighborhood has faced a series of traumas including the construction of a freeway urban renewal and today it faces fierce development pressure and i know all of these things sound familiar i work for a firm that was hired so this is the neighborhood today and you see its proximity to downtown houston i was hired the firm that i was working for was hired to redo the street and you know they said you know just put some trees and build a wall here between the historic community and the lots that were cleared put some benches oh and can you put a plaque about the history and they said oh you know maybe you can even put some african symbols in the paving  so what i did was i took the opportunity to explore the history of architecture a little bit more and i found that the architecture that the settlers constructed was actually rooted in the tradition of the architecture and that the porches and the galleries that they constructed actually formed the heart of the space for the culture in between the interior private spaces and the public realm of the streets of the neighborhood the elders in the community also pointed out that the bricks that they were originally settlers laid were forming diagonals around the intersections and that this is a ritual brought from west africa meant to highlight the intersection of the space of ritual and so our little project to just line a street became about integrating those intersections and highlighting them as a space of ritual for the community and instead of a wall we use the essential dimensions of the porches and galleries and instead of benches and a plaque began to use the wall as a way to talk about the history and also influence the future of the neighborhood on our process over the last couple of years has been about creating a clearing house or a process and some sort of guidelines to do to shape the way that we develop redevelop in the central area africa town  that starts we've started to review previous plans this is the one nine hundred ninety eight central area action plan the more current twenty third avenue action plan we're looking at dr sun and arnold king's past work with the university of washington's architecture studios we're looking at it important black spaces around the country as presidents and what kinds of spaces architecturally impiety all of those precedents and so we came up with four essential guidelines design guidelines one is celebrating the past in view of the future so we're designing today and new but it's rooted in our history and second is this unique relationship between public and private space that we see in black communities  throughout the country so that it's that unique space where the building meets the street where people tend to gather people talk to one another people want to stay and so how do we design to support those kinds of everyday interactions and then arts and cultural production looking at the arts as a testimony to what is important about the black community in the black experience and designing the streets so that it's a stage for the performance of life those everyday interactions that make you feel like it's a space to be there you belong somewhere and so what we've been doing is we've been hosting these series of ciphers throughout and different places throughout the community we the last one we had was at the central area senior center we're having another one at garfield high school with a black students union and we're engaging people directly in the process of designing so it's not you know the architects coming in presenting ideas but actually in the community generating new ideas and proposing them to the architects it community so join the cypher get involved and look out for news about the event first of all i'm honored to be here i'm honored to be among great such as dr memes over there and other dignitaries in the room i've got five minutes so i'll keep an eye on the brother here i want to first talk about the anniversary of the black panther party and why that is significant of the seattle chapter the black panther party i want to begin by saying today february seventeenth is the birth day the birth of our founder co founder for the rights of black people but to defend the community not just with arms but to defend them with a dignity that said you know we matter as a people as a community and we will achieve our freedom borrowed by a phrase from malcolm x by any means necessary so the theme of our fiftieth anniversary this year the seattle chapter was founded in april of  eight we were the first chapter formed outside of the black outside of oakland outside of our central headquarters and we were the longest lasting chapter so we celebrate that this spring april twenty and twenty eighth right here at langston hughes and at washington hall and i want to talk about the theme which is yesterday today and tomorrow yesterday is honoring our legacy the fact that as a vanguard party defending the community we established programs that embarrassed the federal government into taking action such as the children's free breakfast program kids eat breakfast today in school because of that breakfast if we had that happening today i guarantee you that a twelve year old by the name of tamir rice would not have been shot by a cop that lived next door to him we launched and started health care free medical clinics the first free medical clinic in the northwest here in seattle long before obamacare was ever even thought of and that clinic today is still operating right down the street a few blocks to carolyn downs family medical center we had the free pest control program where we exterminated all of the roaches out of yes the terrorists all of them house to house we ha a free bus into prisons program and all five of the prisons in the state where mothers and brothers has we took people to purdie we took their babies to the women and purdie could visit their loved one even though they did not have transportation we opened the first free food banks banks on a weekly basis people could come and get groceries to feed their kids where the free senior aid program a free legal aid program and many other programs we call them survival programs pending revolution and we're still pending revolution so that's the first scene of the anniversary is honoring and celebrating the legacy of the black panther party yesterday the second theme is today and today looks not only the state of our community the fact that we need to organize in fact that we still have a lot of work to do but recognizing that we have leaders among us that are going to carry the torch forward like why king garrett for every man there's a woman well for everyone and there's a man see i think we do this together the black panther party was made up of men and women and so the thing that i wanted to say about today is the other night i was at  lodge and saw the premier of the movie black panther and if you haven't seen it yet i am sure you go see it because there's lots of messages in there one of which is here you the most advanced societies in the world long before europe came to colonize the africans they africa's long before and so that is an example yes that is an example and  message that our young people need to hear today of our greatness and my time is up but i gotta do this a couple more things here i'm sorry in the movie not only was there us a strong black he wrote because we need black heroes and we've always had them there was a strong black hero but he was surrounded by his army his security that were strong black women they were not cooking and cleaning they had the weapons they had the strength they were the backbone of that society and that is not a myth if you have not seen an old film called talked about the africans that were brought as slaves to brazil they broke away from their captors and went up into the mountains of brazil and survived for five hundred years in their own society they had ten different tribes that came from africa and they all broken their own tribes and they all had a big round table and their general was a woman by the name of dan darrow that is not a myth that is the truth so we need to honor our today that we are strong and we are powerful enough to overcome and achieve by any means necessary and the last legacy of that anniversary is tomorrow you saw them up here are young people and i got to tell you i was drawn to elementary school two weeks ago they were honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the black panther party i was stunned first to see that it was still as diverse as it is as many black kids are still in that school that's i went to their school as well as coleman but when they gave us the award and we walked up there were six of us former panthers who came up for the award the fourth and fifth graders started chanting black panther party black panther party i never thought i'd see that day that's tomorrow that's our future thank you so i want to close with this i'd like all of you to repeat after me i am a revolutionary i am a revolutionary all power to the people the african american community and you know of course the african american regressive first and second generation of those that are here now where black history month means for african americans and people who are becoming african americans what what ethiopian history means for ethiopians because the world sometimes actually thinks that you have no culture or you have no history you know when they ask you some day someone to ask a black person the other day how many generations can you trace back in this person said four maybe five and i and they don't know their culture they can't even ask the questions when people give them this stupid question they can even add to the problem so that's the answer if we don't want our kids being stupid and acting stupid and not having a vision of where they've been and where they're going where hopeless and so black history month is to make children aware of their long long long the graphic history in the world their contributions to culture their contributions to the culture of this society like i wrote a book called the black revolt and it's about how blacks liberated themselves you know historically in the united states you know and we didn't just get liberated because they wanted us to be free you know we had to go through a whole series of strategies like all kinds of rebellions not just sit decide they cannot keep this society going the way they were going there were over four hundred slave revolts very few people know that you see and that's part of this long history of liberation and so black history is about teaching about all of these strategies then a geisha and any c p s legislation the n a c the destruction by you know burning the fields and rioting and tearing at what they're doing in some cities you know even as we speak coalitions with other ethnic groups in order to you know get more political power which is what blacks are trying to do now to put maybe put somebody in office like obama who will protect their interests so their whole series of these strategies like f you allow me to do this i like to do it this way i don't want to lose connections i don't i don't want to jump from place to the other so my my my solution for th over a powerful group european white power not many people know about it so i want to share the so i can show some definite facts i want i exactly six am on sunday and it was a century over by twelve pm cost thirty pm actually italians were taken prisoners of war the significance of and set the stage for the struggle against claudi and the direction of our future roads our past our future are known and recognized and moreover we have a reach heritage to proudly pass on to the next generation of ethiopian closed the chapters of two protagonists standing with people determination one to colonize and dominate and the other equally to determine  and to this day remains the pride and joy of the people of color all over the world now th was seen as the victory of the people of africa their descendants all over the world view order in the africa context if your p r has warned recognition people of color could be a challenge the history the historic conflict of registered the most devastating defeat sustained by the of americans from black colleges went to ethiopia i don't know if any were teaching in ethiopia when you were younger and the reason i bring it up is because when i was looking for people to interview i ran into this ethiopian man who works for one of the universities to seattle you and he says his father was an american black american from a black college and his brother  and his father had gone to ethiopia to help transfer technological education to ethiopia is in other words black from black black professors from encouragement of how they said last night he was encouraging it and he was of course supporting them financially and providing for them while they were in the country so there is a big connection between african americans going back many many decades and ethiopia stimulated by what he was telling you about pan african ism and how these black americans saw a free ethiopia as a as a way  freeing all black people including the black people in the south where the students were still in segregated schools so there is a real connection and it goes back a long time in fact one or two americans became  masters at some of the schools in ethiopia at that time and if you if you look it up you'll see that that's true so you know we have you know a wonderful his historical connection  same characters as he says he's protestant and they're the they're the persecuted ones he's actually says that ok the point i'm trying to make is we have to remind ethiopians and african americans that tribal he says you know we're treated like black people until they see here accent they were treated better than african americans i mean that's an honest statement he's not bragging he's just telling you how the world works you know it's a statement about how america works and you're talking about the same thing you can be seduced into believing that you're being given advantages when in fact you're being put in a situation where you're going to have to be fighting the same people of color over the same jobs rather than compete cooperating together so that everybody goes up together you know and so i think we have to in all of our communities we have to sell that idea that we're in this together and a rise when when when when the sea is as it's rising together you know that kind of thing so i'm hoping that a lot of the young americans who see themselves as more american than ethiopian will make this transition into melting into the general black american population which includes you know not just ethiopians but africans from all over and so forth even people blacks from south america and puerto rico and venezuela and so forth you know that kind of thing i  mean they because of their accent they're sometimes treated better because they're seen as less of a threat but you know that's only for a moment because think about it if obama who is we know is half white is still black actually then not to too current our current world and how we can learn from that and i think a lot of us who are first second generation can learn from what you experienced and what you're in with you research it ask your question yes what do you think the prospects are for young ethiopians born here or brought here when they were very young assimilating into the general  what do you think the prospects are and do you see that happening and that have a very good question i think there are good prospects but i think it's a journey i don't think it's an easy turn off switch the information you just share with us about cooperation it could happen and how we can benefit from that for the general betterment of our people when you have children correct yes so how are they thinking what is the i think thinking question the question correct i don't think it's in the vocabulary of ethiopia at all for simulation because you never find according to my my observations don't even late they are their kids you know all day all languages parents they don't teach their languages those those kids grow speaking english  so there assimilating a linguistically there is in terms of popular culture they're similar but like you said in terms of  further i would say ok know very very aware very clearly that in the job world they're having a problem they're not going to get to where they want to get because you know i had to go some weeks ago or so i heard that if two people went to an office for an interview a black man and a white man the black man is a professional the white man just got out of jail yesterday that office would accept that white man doesn't care about black professional this is a kind of world they would find out those those that guide a child that is what he would find out and as he goes on in his in this kind of experiences he will get to a certain point where he says god or what where where am i what am i why  and then he comes to a certain age and his years and start asking a very serious question still who exactly am i what to my roots this is what i'm afraid of or any child of any of the children growing up here no matter how they might pause to be americans it's just the surface the very superficial very serious thing agree with you one hundred percent i just want us to think in terms of dimensions because we've been talking about dimensions so there is some assimilation going on but there's a lot of areas like i said religious groups  limited this is what you're saying and i know you know you in fact i went to interview for a job to be a dean at one of the white colleges and he heard my background right and you would think that he would think well this guy's pretty well cut qualified  graduate from grade school so forth and so on his first question was do you think as a black person you're ready to be a college professor at the white school so you could i mean that i said to him the interview was over very point is well taken that we're talking when we talk about assimilation there is language and some of the customs and courtesies that kids are learning but that it doesn't go so far as to be the same friendship group in the same church and the same things like that and so that that is going to take more time because that because the ethiopian kids or the african american kids who are not ethiopian wouldn't like to similate more but like the to be running into the same situation and so we would like to see all of us would like to assimilate better because what we could have better encodes better educations and so forth but american society is not necessarily ready or stop is something that you think extremely important and that is finding who you are what your your shrill what's your what's the history behind who you are what you all because they are not doing what they are supposed to do what they should be doing in their own mind and that is i wish that everybody sais that i was training my own people in ethiopia we needed there are millions of important advice to you is when you get to college i don't know if you're in college now when you get to college chose a profession that's really never you to help your people  back now that's easier said than done because one of the people i interviewed in the book he wasn't planning to go back but then i had talked to him within the last year he has a m he works for microsoft he has a master's degree and i think he's going to get a doctorate and he says he's i guess his children are a little grown a little bit he definitely is going to go back because he wants to contribute his skills i don't know if he will but he wants to contribute his knowledge and skills to ethiopia and several of the ethiopians that were interviewed felt like they were not doing anything important in america and they could be doing something important in ethiopia now i don't know if they can really up root and go back and then face the politics are back there in the economy back there and you know that's why i say it's easier said  than done but at least there's that intention of taking their skills and contributing to ethiopian society i don't know if anything open society is even ready for them right right i think sincere lack of satisfaction that so a lot of people have and there's a strong connection at least in the first generation the second third maybe not a strong but there is frustration for sure does happen and that's part i think the editor somebody told me the other day  the first question was would you be at some point would you be willing to go back home but going back is not going to be easy because of all the things you said the site is change the politics of it the power the power structure has change and so forth they will not be received interviewed a lady she said in the book to when she would back and she was i think one of these people with computers and all this other stuff but the infrastructure for using computers that all this high tech stuff wasn't there wasn't there yet so you see every performances different structure often it's not there or the politics you know you have to be connected maybe discovered to go back that everybody is interested in your skills yet you might be of the rock ethnic group or the rock ro an african american in the cell area and how assimilation has gone over the years and what advice you two have given us to take away as the younger generation maybe and so we thank you for that and in march i was working on a special project that would go from here on then to preserving some of the historic history of the central area in particular as you know there's a lot of economic development coming to this area that is changing the face of what the central area looks like it has looked like in the past