Larry Gossett

Life

A native of Seattle, Gossett is a 1963 graduate of Franklin High School; he then attended and graduated from the University of Washington (U.W.). In 1966-1967, he was a VISTA volunteer in Harlem. He initially joined VISTA for the draft deferment; his time in Harlem politicized and radicalized him. Returning to Seattle, he became a founder of the Black Student Union on the U.W. campus and helped to organize nearly a dozen high school and middle school Black Student Unions throughout Seattle. As a student activist, he was instrumental in bringing about the U.W.'s Educational Opportunity Program minority recruitment program. He also played a role in the discrimination of black track athletes from Oregon State University, resulting in their early departure from a track meet. He graduated from the U.W. in 1970, receiving the university's first-ever degree in African American studies. Before he had even formally received his B.A., he became the first supervisor of the Black Student Division in the university's Office of Minority Affairs. The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project describes him as having been, in the late 1960s, "one of Seattle’s best known young black radicals."

A former member of SNCC, he has a long history of community organizing in Seattle. While still working for the U.W., he was involved in the occupation of a former Seattle public school that ultimately became El Centro de la Raza. His continued involvement in civil disobedience led to a request to "cool it", from the head of the Office of Minority Affairs, Samuel E. Kelly. Eventually, he left his position at the university. After working on the successful 1977 mayoral campaign of Charles Royer, he served briefly in the Royer administration, but felt that was taking him too far from his activist roots. From April 1979 until December 1993, he was the executive director of Seattle's Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP). He eventually found his way back into electoral politics by way of involvement in Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns.

Gossett is married and has three children.

Gossett and the Black Panthers

Several sources state that Gossett was a member of the Black Panthers. By Gossett's own account, he attended the founding meeting of Seattle's Panther chapter, and also attended Panther leader Bobby Hutton's 1968 funeral; he worked on several political actions with Panther Party members and has said positive things about their legacy. Gossett has admitted in recent years that he was a long time member of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Elections

In 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011, Gossett ran unopposed.

Trivia

Larry Gossett's office in the King County Courthouse is in the same location that his prison cell was in 1968 when he was arrested for unlawful assembly during a sit-in at Franklin High School on March 29.

In 2017, following discussion by the Metropolitan King County Council committee on government accountability and oversight regarding crime and unsanitary conditions in the vicinity of King County Superior Court, Larry Gossett opposed the proposed power washing of faeces and urine from nearby streets, because he considered it brings back the images of police using hoses against civil-rights activists.