The city of Seattle removed the Black Lives Matter garden on Wednesday morning. The garden was planted during the 2020 George Floyd protests.
The Seattle Parks and Recreation department said that it was going to undertake a "turf restoration" project in Cal Anderson Park, the home of the garden, according to the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.
The Parks Department called the Black Lives Matter garden which had existed for three years "makeshift" and "temporary," and said the removal was due to "public health and public safety issues," as well as the aforementioned turf restoration. In addition, the city also removed homeless encampments near the garden. None of the gardeners were given advance notice, according to The Seattle Times.
Seattle made its plans to remove the garden months ago, but Black Star Farmers protested the city's plans. Black Star Farmers is a local non-profit group dedicated to "improving BIPOC communities’ food sovereignty," "[reclaiming] Black and Indigenous relationships with the land," and works "to create self-sufficient communities," according to its website. BSF maintained the garden, according to The Stranger.
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Black Star Farmers alleges that SPR was "removing the garden to placate minority-but-powerful stakeholders that have been pushing for the removal of BLMG since 2020."
The city, however, says that the Black Lives Matter garden "has created unsafe conditions for all park users, including the vandalism of Cal Anderson public bathrooms, public drug use, unauthorized camping, and a significant rodent problem, along with other issues."
One of the community gardeners, Saunatina Sanchez, told KING-TV that the community tried to work with the city to protect the garden.
"We have consistently gotten pushback from the city about helping with that project," Sanchez said. "Instead of working with us, they have consistently decided to be antagonistic and tell us that this wasn't in their control so we needed to leave."
SPR says it offered Black Star Farmers space near a community center where the garden could be moved, but BSF said the garden must stay as it's part of an occupation protest, according to KING-TV. A recent statement says that Mayor Bruce Harrell is hoping to move the garden elsewhere in Cal Anderson Park, the station reports.
The garden was planted in 2020, during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, or CHOP, later renamed to CHAZ, or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Between June 8 and July 1 of that year, protesters took over a few blocks of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood near Cal Anderson Park.
The protesters called on the city to cut the police budget by 50% and use that money for community programs in Black communities, according to NPR. The site was cleared after an executive order from then-Mayor Jenny Durkan on July 1.
During the occupation, activists also painted a Black Lives Matter road mural, which has been maintained by SPR after being restored in late September 2020.