SAARC Coalition Meeting TODAY THURSDAY at 6:30pm How do we organize to make the dream of reparations a reality?

Reparations: 

WHY We Can’t Wait

Why can’t reparations in WA state and King County wait? As we get started with 2026, our reparations season always begins with celebrating Dr Martin Luther Jr’s Birthday at our Thurs Jan 15 Coalition Meeting and doing the annual MLK rally on Monday January 19. More details below and don’t miss the community announcement section at the end. The year is off to a powerful start.

SAARC Coalition Meeting 

Thursday January 15

6:30pm

Washington State Labor Council

(also on Zoom)

What are you doing on Thursday Jan 15? It’s MLK's birthday and we’re using our first Coalition meeting of the year to get ready for the January 19 MLK Coalition rally. Last year the MLK holiday fell on inauguration. This year voting rights, ICE raids, invasions, and cuts to social safety net programs like SNAP and WIC are blending with our calls for reparations.  

Stop by on January 15th and make Jan 19 rally signs (and there’s even a rumor we might sing the Steve Wonder version of Happy Birthday to MLK along with sharing rally updates).

COMIC BOOK RELEASE

Why We Can’t Wait: Dreaming Reparations in King County

National reparations conversations inspired us to read Dr King’s writings especially his book Why We Can’t Wait which eventually inspired the title for our new reparations movement comic. 

After our Oct 2025 Leader Lab, we started cooking up new creative strategies for organizing a rising movement for reparations with artists and the broader public. This year comics are one way we are building a broader local reparations movement that engages young people along with educators, faith and labor leaders, elders, and everyday community members who want to feel like the days to come can get better. 

Working on our new reparations comic made us get more serious about how to preserve and protect Black history. We listened to local young high school students recently and they let us know each year Dr King’s legacy gets way too watered down. Their critical feedback made us ask what would make Black history feel relevant to our lives right now? 

We already had a hunch that arts and artists are an important part of building the civic imagination to realize reparations. Our new comic comes from our faith that when our society cares about racial repair with local Black communities all of our collective futures get much brighter. That also involves valuing the Black Civil Rights movement because it cements safety across race, gender, age, and sexuality. More importantly, reparations centers human rights and fair and justice systems. Along the way, leaning into history also helps us to value both our youth and elders. Our new generations are facing challenges that the Black Civil Rights generation met head on. We don’t want to leave anybody behind so we move together.

STAY TUNED: More Great Events

Annual MLK Coalition Rally 

Monday January 19

Rally Workshops 9:30-10:45am

Rally 11am 

SAARC MLK Dream Lab at the Jan 19 MLK Coalition Rally 

We will debut our new SAARC Why We Can’t Wait comic at a special MLK Reparations Dream Lab workshop for the annual MLK Coalition rally on January 19th at 9:30am.

When the MLK Coalition invited us to do our reparations workshop for the 4th year in the row, we decided to lean in and learn from previous successes in local Coalition building. That inspiration led us back to how King County came to be named after Dr Martin Luther King Jr. (Check out our comic to learn more.)

It took a determined local coalition 6 years and 20,000 people so our County was no longer named after a US chattel slave owner.

Maybe that’s why King County is the only US county (for now) where people across all racial populations support reparations according to our message testing. Check out the January 19 workshop to learn how you can get involved in reparations efforts locally.

We’re Still Looking for 100 Superstars for Reparations Coalition Building

SAARC has a goal to sign up 100 or more groups who are part of our local and state-wide coalition efforts. Ready to get your group involved? Check out this link to join the reparations coalition SAARC is helping to build in Seattle, King County, and Washington state.

Community Spotlight

Usually this section is where we highlight upcoming events. 

But this is your heads up that our new comic will have a special reading challenge. We want King County residents and surrounding WA state counties to read the last chapter of MLK’s Why We Can’t Wait. The essay entitled “The Days to Come” shares the ways MLK dreamed about racial repair. Over the next six months from MLK holiday to Juneteenth, we want our communities to read together and have conversations about what reparations can be in King County and beyond. If you sign up to become a Coalition member we will send details.