An oral history exhibition · South Seattle, Washington
Listen to the Moment!
In Rainier Beach and across South Seattle, Black educators, organizers, students, and a judge fought to replace punishment with relationship — bringing restorative justice into the classrooms and the courts. These are their words, in their voices, from the record.
Before it had a name, it was already a practice. A talking piece. A breath. Everyone gets a turn. In Rainier Beach the circle was discovered, kept, and claimed — by students first.
Before I knew what Circle was, we were in Circle.
Tyra Edwards 00:57:00 WA-BLOC co-founder · Freedom Schools organizer
The students were like, “We need a Circle,” and sat down and we did this thing.
Tyra Edwards 01:06:00 on a student-led circle, first summer of high school Freedom Schools
Every time you went around, the vulnerability was deeper. The students were clearer. They got to say what they needed to say.
Tyra Edwards 01:03:00 Rainier Beach High School, Room 160
I sat in my car for an hour. Just in tears. The powerfulness of the ability to share in a kind of very visceral way. After that, I said… I need to know more.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:39:00 after his first circle, Neighborhood House, West Seattle
The biggest elephant in every room is race… For me, Circle is the way to have that conversation.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:48:00 King County Superior Court (ret.)
“There’s no age limit to where you can start learning or stop learning about how to be in right relationship — with God, with yourself, with each other, with the world around us.”
Tyra Edwards 01:25:00
A six-week, literacy-based summer program at Rainier Beach High School — built by community when the school doors would have stayed shut. Mornings began with Harambee: singing, clapping, joy. Then books with Black children at the center. Then action.
Every morning we were walking into good vibes and absolutely unconditional love.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:49:00 Freedom Schools scholar → junior servant leader educator
Wait — that’s what that is, that I’m dealing with… This is racism. School-to-prison pipeline. Oh, I definitely can see this in my school. Okay. I kind of want to do something about it.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:50:00 on reading, naming, and waking up
None of us needed to have all the skills. The fact that we all came together to figure the things out together is what made it possible for us to start Freedom Schools.
Tyra Edwards 00:55:00 “We were building the boat as we were figuring it out.”
It was the place where all the angels of Rainier Beach lived.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:45:00 on Success City, Room 265, Rainier Beach High School
“Students don’t know how much power they have. I want to encourage students, like, you have power. Communicate your needs… Find the person who’s willing to listen to you.”
Tyra Edwards 01:29:00
When King County moved to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a new juvenile justice facility, activists confronted the bench. One judge listened — sat in circle — and tried to turn a courtroom into a place of repair.
What’s the justification for spending a quarter of a billion dollars on a new building when all you’re doing is locking up Black and brown kids?
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:37:00 recalling the activists who confronted the court — “I said, let me do my due diligence.”
Who is the client?… It’s the people we make walk through the door. They’re the customers. We’re servants.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:45:00 to the upper echelon of the juvenile court system
We have harm-producing systems — whether it’s child welfare or school system, let alone a court system… We have to do this different.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:05:00
I was in some ways a solo voice of: can’t we do it different?… Let’s be courageous and keep trying.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 02:00:00 on keeping circle sentencing alive against the backlash
“This is where the work should be at… If we could start earlier — and that’s what has driven me now to be in schools. Because that’s where it needs to be: at the elementary school.”
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 01:46:00 from the bench to the classroom
Restorative practice was never only a feeling — it was strategy. Listening to students turned tardy slips into transit policy. Circles turned discipline data around. The wins started in Rainier Beach and rippled out to the whole state.
“Okay, they’re late — but did you ask why?”
Students walking two miles to school were marked tardy into the school-to-prison pipeline. Freedom Schools scholars researched the policy and marched on the district. The city funded it; the county adopted it; the state made it law.
Tyra Edwards 01:27:00
“Now today, every kid can get on the bus for free… and so we did that.”
A student-found rule — live under two miles away, get no transportation — became a Freedom Schools Day of Social Action, then a statewide policy for every young person under 18 in Washington.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:51:00
“I remember feeling so powerful.”
When scholars learned prison beds were being projected off the backs of elementary reading scores, they wrote a song, pressed their own protest shirts, and filmed it in front of the youth jail.
Yobachinia Frazier 00:56:00
“The incidents that contribute to youth crime decreased by 40%.”
Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth knit restorative justice, positive behavior supports, neighborhood engagement, and guardianship into the five highest-incident locations in the neighborhood — and the numbers fell.
Gregory Davis 01:10:00
It was never really enough to just do direct service. You had to connect that direct service to system change, and you have to connect that system change to policy change.
Gregory Davis 00:57:00 Rainier Beach Action Coalition
Suspending kids — what is that gonna do?… This is a cry out for help sometimes, for children.
Yobachinia Frazier 01:09:00
Movements outlast their founders only when the story is kept. Against erasure and backlash, the narrators insist: name the team, train the next keepers, and put the record where it cannot be lost.
We have to have our stories durable… they can withstand the change in political winds.
Gregory Davis 01:14:00
We’ve got to create our own narrative, we’ve got to create our own media, in order to make sure that our work stays permanent and stays known.
Gregory Davis 01:14:00 “We see today the double down on the erasure… the double down on the backlash.”
We’ve glamorized the leader, but we didn’t glamorize the team. And in reality, there’s always been a team.
Tyra Edwards 01:31:00 “No movement can be built alone.”
If you listen long enough, people tell you what they need. And if you’re humble enough, you’ll position yourself to support them.
Tyra Edwards 01:31:00
You look for leaders without titles who are doing the work.
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 02:09:00 imagining the room in 2036
Turn your pain into purpose.
Yobachinia Frazier 01:38:00 “Working with WA-BLOC — that was me healing my childhood.”
“When we don’t tell it, people tell it for us — and it won’t always be accurate. So I would want us to tell our stories more.”
Tyra Edwards 01:33:00
“There’d be circles in every classroom, in every community center, in libraries… Police wouldn’t make referrals to courts — they’d make referrals to circles.”
Judge J. Wesley Saint Clair 02:13:00 “We dreamt that — and look at it starting to materialize.”
My heart is really warm to know that we’ve got the now gen, the next gen, really embracing this.
Gregory Davis 01:15:00 closing the interview, Rainier Beach Food Innovation Center
Managing strategist, Rainier Beach Action Coalition. Urban planner and organizer behind Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth, Priority Hire, and the community-rooted restorative justice work that refused to be handed over to institutions whole.
Born and raised in Seattle (formerly Tyra Griffith). From Success City at Rainier Beach High School to co-building high school Freedom Schools and WA-BLOC — a practice of listening, circle keeping, and right relationship.
King County Superior Court (ret.). Confronted by activists over the youth jail, he sat in circle, then brought restorative practice into juvenile court — Young Warriors, circle sentencing, FIRS — and now teaches judges that there is a different way.
Freedom Schools scholar, junior servant leader educator, trained circle keeper, and now a nurse. Marched for ORCA cards, protested the youth jail, and returned for ten summers to pour into the next scholars.
Circle Up: Listen to the Moment! is an oral history project documenting the Black-led organizing that brought restorative practices into South Seattle public schools and King County courts. Interviews were conducted by Sierra Parsons, a graduate of Wa Na Wari’s Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute, in connection with WA-BLOC. Quotes on this page are drawn directly from the recorded interviews, lightly edited for length and readability; timestamps locate each excerpt in its original recording. Rainier Beach, Seattle, Washington — on Duwamish land.