Archives West Finding Aid

African American businesswoman, civil servant, club woman. Arline Steward Yarbrough (1912-1999), a Colorado native, came to Seattle from Salt Lake City with her family in 1928, married Letcher Yarbrough in 1932, ran a stenography and mimeograph business ca 1949-1951, and worked as a secretary for several state agencies including the UW School of Social Work. She was among the early black staff members at UW, working for Charles Brink, who was then the Dean of the School of Social Work. Before she went into secretarial work full time, she and her husband were active in Christian Friends for Racial Equality, which was trying to abolish discrimination in cemeteries. She persuaded owners of Sunset Hills to allow burials of blacks. In 1950 the Yarbroughs were an early black family who moved to suburban Kirkland. Active in numerous clubs and civic organizations, Arline joined the Business and Professional Women's Club of Kirkland, served as its president 1967-1968 and was named its Woman of the Year in 1984. She was featured in the former Radcliffe College "Women of Courage" Black Women Oral History Project of 1976. She founded Relatives of Old-Timers (ROOTS), a reunion of blacks who lived in Washington before World War II, and she also was a founder of the Black Heritage Society. She also was active in the King County Landmarks Commission, the National Council of Negro Women and the Seattle Central Area Senior Center, of which she was a past president.

Letcher L. Yarbrough came to Seattle in 1912, and after high school and one year at the UW, he worked at various jobs, then served in the Army. He then worked for the U.S. General Services Division for 31 years and was active in civil rights associations and civic groups in Seattle and Kirkland. Letcher experienced racism firsthand in the army, and, after he was discharged in 1944, he worked on assisting returning veterans in securing housing and employment. He was president of the Seattle branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the mid-1940s and later state president. With others, he helped pass the Washington State Fair Employment Practices Act of 1949. Mr. Yarbrough was active in many civil/human rights organizations and committees, including the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Seattle Army Terminal Standing Grievance Committee, Christian Friends for Racial Equality and The Urban League. He was a mayoral appointee to the Seattle Civic Unity Committee. He went to work as assistant director for the Seattle Urban League in 1976 after retiring as Regional Equal Employment Official for General Services Administration in Auburn. In later years, he worked in commercial real estate. Letcher and Arline were married for 59 years, and he died in 1992.

Their son Jim (Letcher S.) graduated from high school in Kirkland and from Central Washington University. His career was spent as a recreation director in Alaska and in Seattle for the federal government; he then served as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Washington Centennial Commission, 1987-1990.