Town Hall Seattle Civics Series

In his life, Aziz Shehadeh was many things — among them a lawyer, a political detainee, and the father of activist and author, Raja Shehadeh. Raja’s latest book, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I, is a subtle psychological portrait of a complicated father-son relationship. Set against the backdrop of continuing political unrest, Raja describes his failure as a young man to recognize his father’s courage as an activist, and, in turn, his father’s inability to appreciate Raja’s own efforts in campaigning for Palestinian human rights. Then in 1985, Aziz Shehadeh is murdered, and Raja undergoes a profound and irrevocable change. We Could Have Been Friends acts in part as the story of Palestine’s continual fight against multiple foreign powers, but at its core presents a poignant unraveling of a complex father-son relationship, unlike many we have seen before. Raja Shehadeh is Palestine’s leading writer. He is also a lawyer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq. Shehadeh is the author of several acclaimed books including Strangers in the House, Occupation Diaries, and Palestinian Walks, which won the prestigious Orwell Prize. We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir Third Place Books

Join esteemed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore as he delves into the rich tapestry of family ties throughout world history. He connects powerful dynasties, from the Caesars to the Kennedys, showcasing how familial relationships have shaped civilizations. Montefiore shares insights from his global book tour, discussing the evolving definitions of family and their impact on historical narratives. He also explores the complexities of revising history while addressing the significance of diverse voices. Prepare for a captivating exploration of family and legacy!

Airships, those airborne leviathans that occupied center stage in the world in the first half of the twentieth century, were a symbol of the future. The British airship R101 was not just the largest aircraft ever to have flown and the product of the world’s most advanced engineering — it was also the linchpin of an imperial British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. No one had ever conceived of anything like it, and R101 captivated the world. There was just one problem: beyond the hype and technological wonders, these big, steel-framed, hydrogen-filled airships were a dangerously bad idea. Journalist S.C. Gwynne’s book, His Majesty’s Airship, features a cast of remarkable and often tragically flawed characters, including: Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme and then relentlessly pushed R101 to her destruction; Princess Marthe Bibesco, the celebrated writer and glamorous socialite with whom he had a long affair; and Herbert Scott, a national hero who had made the first double crossing of the Atlantic in any aircraft in 1919 — eight years before Lindbergh’s famous flight — but who devolved into drink and ruin. These historical figures — and the ship they built, flew, and crashed — come together in a grand tale that details the rocky road to commercial aviation. S.C. Gwynne is the author of Hymns of the Republic and the New York Times bestsellers Rebel Yell and Empire of the Summer Moon, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He spent most of his career as a journalist, including stints with Time as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor, and with Texas Monthly as executive editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife. His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine Third Place Books

Home to over 730,000 people, with close to four million people living in the metropolitan area, Seattle has the third-highest homeless population in the United States. In 2018, an estimated 8,600 homeless people lived in the city, a figure that does not include the significant number of “hidden” homeless people doubled up with friends or living in and out of cheap hotels. In Skid Road, Josephine Ensign digs through layers of Seattle history—past its leaders and prominent citizens, respectable or not—to reveal the stories of overlooked and long-silenced people who live on the margins of society. Josephine Ensign is a professor in the School of Nursing and adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling through the Safety Net, Soul Stories: Voices from the Margins, and the Washington State Book Award Finalist Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle. Anna Patrick is a reporter for Project Homeless, a community-funded team at The Seattle Times dedicated to covering the region’s homelessness crisis. Before joining The Seattle Times, Anna was a journalist in her home state of West Virginia, where she worked as a feature writer at the Charleston Gazette-Mail in Charleston, West Virginia and then later as a freelancer, covering stories throughout Appalachia. Skid Road The Elliott Bay Book Company

A primer on police abolition from veteran organizers. What could it look like to live in a world where, instead of relying on policing and prison to put halt to harm, violence is stopped before it even has a chance to begin? In No More Police, organizer and attorney Andrea J. Ritchie and New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba detail why policing doesn’t stop violence and instead perpetuates widespread harm. Outlining the many failures of contemporary police reforms, they explore demands to divest from policing and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. No More Police centering survivors of state, interpersonal, and community-based violence, and highlights uprisings, campaigns, and community-based projects. Part handbook, part road map, the book calls on readers to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it, and instead turn toward a world where violence is the exception — a world where safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule. Ritchie joins us at Town Hall to make a case for a world where the tools required to prevent, interrupt, and transform violence in all its forms are abundant. Andrea J. Ritchie is a nationally recognized expert on policing and criminalization and supports organizers across the country working to build safer communities. She is the co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization, the author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, and the co-author (with Mariame Kaba) of No More Police (The New Press). She lives in Detroit. Professor Angélica Cházaro teaches Critical Race Theory, Poverty Law, Professional Responsibility, and courses on Immigration Law. Professor Cházaro earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she received the Jane Marks Murphy Prize for Excellence in Clinical Advocacy and was named a Lowenstein Fellow. She was a Kent Scholar, a Stone Scholar, and an editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. Before attending Columbia, Professor Cházaro earned a B.A. in Women’s Studies from Harvard University. No More Police Third Place Books

Before 1492, hundreds of Indigenous communities across North America included people who identified as neither male nor female, but both. They went by aakíí’skassi, miati, okitcitakwe, or one of the hundreds of other tribal-specific identities. After European colonizers invaded Indian Country, centuries of violence and systematic persecution followed, imperiling the existence of people who today call themselves Two-Spirits, an umbrella term denoting feminine and masculine qualities in one person. Despite centuries of colonialism, the Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations. Gregory D. Smithers’s book, Reclaiming Two-Spirits, seeks to decolonize the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground to preserve their stories. Drawing on written sources, archaeological evidence, art, and oral storytelling, Reclaiming Two-Spirits spans the centuries from the Spanish invasion to the present, tracing massacres and inquisitions and revealing how the authors of colonialism’s written archives used language to both denigrate and erase Two-Spirit people from history. But as Gregory Smithers shows, the colonizers failed — and Indigenous resistance is core to this story. Reclaiming Two-Spirits amplifies their voices, reconnecting their history to Native nations in the 21st century. Gregory D. Smithers is a professor of American history and Eminent Scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University and a British Academy Global Professor at the University of Hull in England. His research focuses on Cherokee and Southeastern Indigenous history, as well as gender, sexuality, racial, and environmental history. His books include Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal and The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and Identity. Follow him at gregorysmithers.com and on Twitter (@GD_Smithers). Hailey Tayathy is an enrolled member of the Quileute Tribe, a visual artist and Seattle’s premier Coast Salish drag queen. They are a founding member of the Indigenize Productions artist collective and organizer of the Indigiqueer Festival. Tayathy uses their queer Native experiences to inform their unique brand of drag. They aim to bring healing to Indigenous communities and to show everyone that Indigiqueers are still here and are stronger and more beautiful than colonizer minds can imagine.  Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America Third Place Books

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States.  Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today’s socioeconomic reality — but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, economist Nate Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. Hilger makes the case that America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff, and suggests that we need a program like Medicare — call it Familycare — to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents must organize to wield their political power on behalf of children — who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. In his new book The Parent Trap, Hilger exposes the true costs of our society’s unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform. Nate G. Hilger is an economist and data scientist in Silicon Valley. His debut book, The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis, was listed as Required Reading for Parents by the Next Big Idea Club and named a Favorite Parenting Book of 2022 by Greater Good Magazine. His work on child development and inequality has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vox, The Washington Post, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and many other media outlets. George Durham is the executive director of Seattle-based Linksbridge SPC. He has experience leading projects and working with teams in global health and development, corporate social responsibility, and global communications. George has led three Seattle-area nonprofit organizations. An avid cyclist, George commutes nearly every day – rain or shine – via bicycle, and aspires to ride across the country one day. The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis Third Place Books

Nate Gowdy had previously photographed 30 Donald Trump rallies. He thought he was fully prepared for what should have been the grand finale, but the events that unfolded on January 6th, 2021, were more than anyone could have expected.  As the event transformed from protest to outright insurrection, Gowdy never stopped photographing. The result is his first monograph, Insurrection — a comprehensive yet intimate account of the events of that fateful day. The 150-page book moves readers through the day in timestamped, chronological order, bringing them a firsthand account of not just the attack on the U.S. Capitol, but what it was like to be a journalist on the front lines. Juxtaposed are scenes of domestic terrorists kneeling and praying, posing for group photos, eating hotdogs, rampaging against the Capitol’s sworn protectors, and defiling the Inauguration Day stand, historically reserved for the stately pomp and circumstance of our representative government. On assignment for Rolling Stone, Gowdy was deemed “fake news” and assaulted twice for having professional cameras. Gowdy joins us in the Wyncote NW Forum to share more about that historic day in January. Nate Gowdy captures the complexities of American politics with striking clarity. Since chronicling Washington state’s fight for marriage equality in 2012, he has traveled the US to photograph pivotal events, figures, and movements across the political divide. His images have been featured in Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, PBS NewsHour, Thom Hartmann, CNN, and TIME, where his Bernie Sanders portrait graced the cover in 2016. As a co-founder of The American Superhero Project and co-author of Our Students, Their Stories, a book celebrating Seattle Public Schools’ LGBTQIA+ students, families, and staff, Gowdy is committed to elevating underrepresented voices. He serves as the official photographer for Seattle Pride, and his documentary fine art is represented at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe. INSURRECTION

The Roaring Twenties – the Jazz Age – has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors, and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees. Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize—winning reporter and the author of nine other books, most recently the highly acclaimed A Pilgrimage to Eternity and The Immortal Irishman, a New York Times bestseller. His book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, won a National Book Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. His account of photographer Edward Curtis, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, won the Carnegie Medal for nonfiction. A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them The Elliott Bay Book Company

Journalist Kathleen McLaughlin knew she’d found a treatment that worked on her rare autoimmune disorder. She had no idea it had been drawn from the veins of America’s most vulnerable.  Blood Money shares McLaughlin’s decade-long mission to learn the full story of where her medicine comes from. She travels the United States in search of the truth about human blood plasma and learns that twenty million Americans each year sell their plasma for profit — a human-derived commodity extracted inside our borders to be processed and packaged for retail across the globe. McLaughlin investigates the thin evidence that pharmaceutical companies have used to push plasma as a wonder drug for everything from COVID-19 to wrinkled skin. In the process, she unearths an American economic crisis hidden in plain sight: single mothers, college students, laid-off Rust Belt auto workers, and a booming blood market at America’s southern border, where collection agencies target Mexican citizens willing to cross over and sell their plasma for substandard pay. McLaughlin’s findings push her to ask difficult questions about her own complicity in this wheel of exploitation, as both a patient in need and a customer who stands to benefit from the suffering of others. Blood Money weaves together McLaughlin’s personal battle to overcome illness as a working American, with revealing portrait of what happens when big business is allowed to feed, unchecked, on those least empowered to fight back. Kathleen McLaughlin is an award-winning journalist who reports and writes about the consequences of economic inequality around the world. A frequent contributor to The Washington Post and The Guardian, McLaughlin’s reporting has also appeared in The New York Times, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, The Economist, NPR, and more. She is a former Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT and has won multiple awards for her reporting on labor in China. Blood Money is her first book. Shaun Scott is a Seattle-based writer and historian. A former Pramila Jayapal staffer and Bernie Sanders 2020 Washington State Field Director, he is currently the Policy Lead at the Statewide Poverty Action Network. His essays about popular culture and late capitalism have appeared in Sports Illustrated, The Guardian, and Jacobin Magazine. He is the author of the paperback Millennials and the Moments that Made Us: A Cultural History of the US from 1982-Present, and the forthcoming hardcover from UW Press Heartbreak City: Sports and the Progressive Movement in Urban America. Blood Money The Elliott Bay Book Company