‘Simply overt racism.’ Tri-City leaders rally behind targeted Pasco councilman

The message was clear from a crowded basement in the Teamsters Local Union No. 839 hall.

“We’re not going to take it anymore,” Irving Brown Sr. said to vigorous applause.

Religious, labor and civic leaders rallied in Pasco on Monday evening to defend one of their own from a racist attack.

Brown, 56, an incumbent candidate for the city council, was the target of a racist message left near one of his vandalized campaign signs. Brown, a Black man who works as an Human Resources manager, discovered the message Friday.

Now, Brown and his supporters from across the Tri-Cities are urging other leaders who have not spoken out about the issue to denounce racial attacks on people of color.

“He’s been engaged in this community for years before he was elected to city council,” said Pasco City Councilwoman Zahra Roach. “We’re not going to judge him by his external looks. We’re going to assess Irving on the content of his character, and I’m telling you the content of his character is gold.”

The slur comes as campaigns gear up for the Nov. 7 general election.

Four of the Pasco City Council’s seven seats are up for election this fall and there’s potential for substantial changeover.

Brown hopes to be elected to his first full term on the city council after being appointed to a vacancy last year. His opponent, Leo Perales, offered a full denunciation of the racist remarks thrown his opponent’s way.

“We should condemn any form of racism, discrimination and prejudice,” he wrote. “We are better than this as a community. I ask that we shouldn’t dwell on our differences but focus more on our commonalities as Pasconians.”

But leaders who spoke at the Teamsters hall — the date coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech — said it’s always been an uphill battle for people of color seeking public office in the Tri-Cities.

“The first few years before Zahra was a council member, I too was attacked,” said Mayor Blanche Barajas. “And here I am, almost six years later. We need to keep pushing forward, we need to keep speaking up against hate, and we need to support each other.”

Barajas, who has served the last two years as the city’s first Latina mayor, added, “Hate has no home in Pasco.”

Pastor Wayne Jenkins with the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church said this fight is bigger than Brown.

“Racism is a cruel enemy that tried to undercut the fiber of our democracy. Racism is a cruel enemy that wants us to not look at the contents of another’s character, but by the color of their skin,” Jenkins said. “What we should have in common is the ability to love one another as they are, to accept one another as they are and to lift everyone up for the betterment of our community.”

Dallas Barnes, 83, a retired Hanford worker and fixture in the east Pasco community, said while there was a wave of Black politicians, including Joe Jackson and Katie Barton, who rose to local prominence following the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it’s been “challenging at best” to get those candidates elected.

Southern customs on race followed Hanford workers even as they migrated to the Tri-Cities in the mid-20th century, Barnes said. Racist covenants, redlining in Richland and Pasco, and Kennewick priding itself as a “sundown town” reinforced a system that sanctioned and disenfranchised Black communities.

And the attack against Brown feels like a noticeable step backwards, Barnes said.

“It’s simply overt racism, anti-Black racism,” he said. “And, as far as I’m personally concerned, we’re losing ground in terms of the civil rights gains that we’ve made in the past.”

He also feels they’re losing ground on Black representation in Pasco — whether it be in education, city and federal government, or business.

“It is very important that young people have people that look like themselves distributed through the spectrum of employment. It is just an up-lifter,” he said.

Citing his mother, who raised 10 boys, as inspiration, Brown said he was not going to give up. Brown said the show of support from the community was “humbling” and he sees them as his guardian angels.

“I don’t want to live a scripted life, I just want to live it just like it is. This is it: What you see is what you get. And I’m giving 100+ percent,” he said.

He also said he didn’t want this attack on his race to derail the important work the city council is working on, citing the city’s priorities on housing and homelessness.

He believes all the positives in the community will outweigh the negativity, and that they’ll come together.

“I don’t want this guy to be the topic of conversation because I was blessed to be a Black guy. I’m blessed to be Black. I’m blessed to be brown. I’m blessed to be an Afro-American. I’m blessed to be all that I am,” he said.

“My initiative stands. I will not let them derail me for that. But they’ve added something to the plate. So now, we’ve got a loaded gun. All I’ve got to do is figure where I’m going to shoot it next — safely, of course,” he added.