| South Seattle Emerald | |
| Owners: | --> |
| Founders: | Marcus Harrison Green, Bridgette Hempstead |
| President: | Michael McPhearson[1] |
| Maneditor: | Rosette Royale[2] |
| Headquarters: | Seattle, Washington |
The South Seattle Emerald is Southern Seattle’s only nonprofit, reader-supported, and community operated media and news outlet.[3] It is an online newspaper that is focused on Seattle's South End Neighborhoods, South King County, Washington, and stories throughout the regions that are important to BIPOC and working class people. Founded in 2014 by Marcus Harrison Green, and founding board member Bridgette Hempstead, South Seattle Emerald has always been a free nonprofit news website.[4] Created to show that the Southend, as Marcus Green put it, “is more than just the crime section in the Seattle Times.”[5]
The paper relies on community volunteers, both writers and photographers to report the news. It largely utilizes BIPOC authors.
The South Seattle Emerald partnered with The International Examiner to create content to address Anti-Asian Racism. The project ran from January through August 2022, and was comprised or both literary and visual art.[6]
Starting in 2021 The South Seattle Emerald has been partnering with Pogo Poetry to publish one poem by a young author a month.[7] In 2022 Washington State's Echo Glenn Youth Facility partnered with Pogo Poetry to bring a creative writing program to their young inmates, as of July 6, 2022 three poems written by young people incarcerated in Echo Glenn were published in the South Seattle Emerald.[8]
The South Seattle Emerald has published to anthologies of their reporting, Emerald Reflections: A South Seattle Emerald Anthology (both 1 & 2).[9] [10] [11]
According to founder Marcus Harrison Green the journalism that put the Emerald on the map was their coverage of the No New Youth Jail movement.[12] An abolitionist movement focused on King County's plan to build a new Children and Family Justice Center to incarcerate youth.
The Emerald has been a pivotal publication during Seattle's Black Lives Matter movement, and other anti-racist movements in the region. During the occupation of Seattle's Capitol Hill Neighborhood during the George Floyd Uprising, The South Seattle Emerald is where organizers posted their perspective,[13] and is often quoted multiple times in academic articles about the CHOP.[14]
The South Seattle Emerald is also where anti-caste activist published their case for the importance of anti-caste legislation in Seattle,[15] days before a city ordinance was passed.[16]