Beverly Sims papers, 1970-1995

Sims was born and raised in Seattle. After attending the University of Washington, she worked for Boeing before becoming a secretary at the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (now the Legacy of Equality, Leadership, and Organizing).

While at LELO, Sims became involved in Seattle’s radical politics through her friendship with, and later marriage to, Tyree Scott, the leader of the United Construction Workers Association (UCWA). In 1975, Sims entered the apprenticeship program of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 46— the same union that Scott belonged to— through a court-ordered affirmative action plan specifically for black workers. She was the third black woman to ever enter the program, and the first to complete it. She left the trades in the early 1980s following the birth of her son, Seth, and later worked for King County's HIV/ AIDS prevention program.

Source: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/sims.htm