The five deserving men and women have played a key role in making South Sound a more inclusive place.
Fifty years ago, at the peak of the civil rights movement, Olympia was not a culturally diverse community. Few African Americans had settled here from other areas of the country.
Statistics maintained by the Thurston Regional Planning Council tell the story: In 1970, when there were about 77,000 residents in the county, only 2 percent were minorities, including a scant 0.3 percent of the population representing African Americans.
Flash forward 40 years and there are signs of a community with greater ethnic diversity. The 252,264 residents counted in the 2010 Census, included 18 percent who identified themselves as nonwhite. That includes 7 percent of Hispanic origin, 5 percents Asians and 3 percent black.
So the black population has grown ten-fold in the past 40 years. While one would have to be naive to think racism and discrimination don’t still occur in South Sound, it’s not the problem it was when the four blacks and one white honored last Sunday first started to stand up for what’s right as civil rights pioneers. Their tireless involvement in community affairs have opened doors and opportunities for those who followed.
For instance, look what Virgil Clarkston has done since he first moved here to take a state job in 1965 after his discharge from the military.
Clarkston is in his third term as Lacey mayor and, as a young man in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was an assistant to then-Gov. Dan Evans and helped write an open-housing ordinance for the cities of Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater and Thurston County.
Nat Jackson, the son of a rural Louisiana sharecropper, and his wife, Thelma Jackson, have been stalwarts in the community for decades. He helped form the Olympia Urban League and she was a North Thurston School Board member for 20 years. They both helped establish the New Life Baptist Church.
Born blind and raised in Georgia, John Grace was one of the first black business owners in Olympia, opening Grace Piano Co. in 1963. His piano-tuning acumen made him the first black man to visit the homes of many Olympians.
The fifth honoree, Barbara Dolliver and her husband, former state Supreme Court Justice James Dolliver, adopted two black children, breaking down numerous racial barriers in the process.
All five believe in nonviolent community involvement as the way to spread the message of hope and equality for minorities. South Sound is a better place because of them.
