History

Origin of CARW

CARW was founded in the aftermath of the World Trade Organization protests that took place in Seattle from 1999 to 2001. Through transformative dialogue, largely initiated by BIPOC organizers, hundreds to thousands of white people gravitated toward anti-racist organizing work and eventually came together to form CARW.

Grounded by a primary strategy of anti-racist organizing in white communities and accountable relationships with communities of color, CARW has moved through many different organizing structures: from committees to councils and from voting to consensus decision-making with a Spokes Council.

As national movements for Black lives, police accountability, abolition, and indigenous sovereignty gain power and visibility, CARW continues to see a rise in both the need for and the waking up of larger numbers of white people.

We are growing in our belief and commitment to the responsibility of white folks in taking action and putting our bodies on the line. To meet the growing demand, CARW is engaging in more dispersed leadership, deepening our accountability to people of color-led movements, and building our collectively held sense of dignity and leadership in the movement for racial justice and collective liberation.

In Defense of Black Lives: Uprising 2020

For many decades, we’ve seen state-sanctioned violence including murder of Black people at the hands of police. In 2020, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and many others lost their lives to extra-judicial killings by the police. Seattle Police Department has a long history of murdering Black, Indigenous, and people of color. We mourn the losses of Charleena Lyles, John T. Williams, Che Taylor, Shaun Fuhr, and so many others. Even in 2020 during COVID-19, when fewer people were out in public, the numbers of police killings remained steady. Indigenous and Black-led organizers have been rising up in protest, showing us the way to a pro-Black world. We join them in grief, anger, and action.