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BlackFacts Minute: March 19

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Black Facts for March 19th

1969 - James & Lydia Sims

During World War II, Lydia Sims moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Spokane with her husband, James Sims, an Army Air Force soldier stationed at Geiger Airfield.  At the end of the war, the Sims family decided to remain in Spokane.  For 10 years they lived in the Garden Springs housing project, a complex in west Spokane inhabited primarily by former military families. There they raised their sons, James McCormick and twins Ron and Donald.  Lydia Sims’s political views were strongly influenced by racial discrimination, which she vehemently opposed. In the 1960s, as a student at Eastern Washington University, she participated in a movement to desegregate schools in Cheney, Washington.  Later, she served on the state’s Human Rights Coalition, the League of Women Voters, the Human Rights Council, and the Washington State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.  

In the late 1960s, she became personnel director of the Spokane Community Action Council, an agency that managed Head Start and various community centers.  In 1975 she became the city’s affirmative action specialist, and in 1976 joined the newly established Spokane City Affirmative Action Department.  She was eventually appointed human resources director for the city of Spokane, the first African American department manager in that city’s history.  In this position Sims helped African Americans, women, and other minority groups find opportunities in Spokane’s job market.  In the 1980s, Sims became the first African American female branch president of the Spokane National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

After serving in the military, James Sims, who had a bachelor’s degree from Lincoln University and a master’s in history from Gonzaga University, applied for a position with the Washington state Office of Community Development.  Although he excelled in the civil service exam for the position, the state denied Sims the job.  Sims enlisted the help of renowned Spokane civil rights attorney Carl Maxey and sued the state.

1992 - Mathews, Meredith (1919-1992)

Prominent social and civic leader in African American Seattle, Washington, Meredith Mathews was born in Thomaston, Georgia on September 14, 1919.  He attended public schools in Georgia and then moved to Ohio for college.  He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Wilberforce University in Xenia, Ohio in 1931.  He then pursued graduate studies at Ohio University.  

In 1937 Mathews began a lifelong association with Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) as Director of the racially segregated Spring Street YMCA in Columbus, Ohio.  He continued his professional career directing similar YMCAs in Oklahoma City and McAlester, Oklahoma.

Mathews arrived in Seattle in October 1957 after being named Executive Director of the East Madison YMCA. This “Y” served the mostly African American community of central Seattle.  The fund raising and business management skills he had developed in Oklahoma were used to expand services, memberships, and programs at this Seattle branch.  A new facility was built in 1965 after a successful Capital Funds Campaign under his leadership.  That facility continues to house the YMCA. 

In 1965 Matthews was appointed Associate Executive of the Pacific Northwest Area Council of YMCAs.  In 1971 he was named Regional Executive of the Pacific Region of YMCAs and was responsible for oversight of 126 facilities and programs in 11 states.  He retired in 1976 after 39 years of outstanding service to the YMCA. 

Mathews was involved in other civic and social organizations in Seattle. In the 1960s he was active with the Central Area Committee for Civil Rights (CACRC), an organization of leaders and activists who directed the civil rights movement in Seattle.  He served on the boards of the Seattle Urban League and the Randolph Carter Family and Learning Center named after his friend, social worker Randolph Carter.  He was a Mason and at the time of his death, he was the oldest living member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity in the Seattle area. In 1965 he was one of 11 founding members of the Alpha