Archives West Finding Aid

Tape-recorded interview conducted by Larry Gossett, March 24, 1968.

His father was a chef on Great Northern Railroad for 44 years. The only available jobs for black in Seattle were running on the boats, railroad jobs, maintenance jobs and shoeshine jobs. Charles Russell attended Garfield High School and UW, where he was noted as a star football player. He left the UW because of discrimination on the part of his coach, James Falen and other teammembers. He was only allowed on the football team because of pressure, largely on the part of Clarence Dirks, a Seattle Post Intelligencer sportswriter. Russell left Seattle after 2 years at the UW and worked as a waiter in Sacramento, Calif. Finding conditions there even worse, he returned to Seattle and worked as a porter/waiter on the Northern Pacific Railroad. He was treated very fairly by the superintendent, William Swifell. Russell mentions the influx to the Northwest of blacks in the early 40s due to the industrialist Edgar Kaiser and increased job opportunities with better pay. After working on the railroad for 15 years, he worked on the airlines. He also mentions the role of Stokely Carmichael in creating racial pride in Seattle and the beginnings and development of Seattle's Central area in 1955.