Raven chronicles’

black lives matter statement

Black Lives Matter. Black Histories and Stories Matter.

If you’re going to hold someone down you’re going to have to hold on 

by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression.

—Toni Morrison

A Message from The Raven Chronicles:

Dear Friends:

Black Lives Matter emerged as a movement in 2013, ignited by the killing of Trayvon Martin, but it took the public execution of George Floyd in 2020 to spur white America to unite with millions of Americans and take to the streets in sustained mass protests. African American communities have protested police and institutional murder for centuries. The same has been true in other communities of color. But this time it not only feels different, it is different. 

Disproportionate numbers of Black and Brown people are dying from the Covid-19 virus and, yet, are committed to fight the virus of racism and the actual virus as essential and non-essential workers. The racial inequities of our society have come into sharper focus at a time when months of stressful quarantine and overall federal incompetence in response to this unprecedented health crisis have fueled widespread discontent across the country. All this in the wake of the 3-1/2 years of criminality, misogyny and racism exhibited by the Trump/Pence administration—the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA, the Department of Justice—and the blocking of H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Bill, by the Republican-led Senate. 

George Floyd’s modern-day lynching is the spark that ignited the country and transformed the Black Lives Matter movement beyond the borders of this country into an international movement whose mass shout echoes across the globe in a resounding cry of, “Enough is enough! Stop Killing us!”

            As a literary organization, we stand with the millions of protestors against institutional racism in government, police agencies, the Justice System, education, commerce, and more. As community members, writers and artists, we demand justice for our fellow African Americans, Native Americans, all people of color, immigrants, the unhoused and the poor. We collectively mourn the innumerable police-led killings: locally of John T. Williams (Nuu-chah-nulth), Che Taylor, Jaqueline Salyers (Puyallup), Charleena Lyles, Manuel Ellis; and nationally the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Rayshard Brooks, Elijah McClain, and many, many others. We also condemn and mourn the killings of Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, and others by white supremacist vigilantes.

The Raven Chronicles began in 1990, when Kathleen Alcalá, Phoebe Bosché, and Philip H. Red Eagle realized that there was a lack of diverse, multicultural writing published in Seattle and the Northwest in general. “Let’s start our own magazine!” we thought. Since then, we have published forty-eight issues of The Raven Chronicles, from 1991-2018, before pivoting to become a book publisher.

As a magazine, and now book publisher, Raven has endeavored to showcase work that embodies the cultural diversity of writers and artists living in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, and under-heard, authentic, and essential voices—primarily through the written word, but also in collaboration with other art and community organizations. In 2013-14 we published Race—Under Our Skin, Vol. 19, an issue where writers and visual artists told stories about the personal effects of racism, racial boundaries, social constructs, and blood quantum laws. In February of 2020, we published Take A Stand, Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Anthology: “The poems and stories in this anthology offer necessary anecdotes against hate . . . These pieces are protest against violence, injustice, cruelty. They are resistance. They are inscription, instruction, witness, warning, remedy, solution, even solace.” —Diane Glancy, winner of an American Book Award and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.

            We cannot change the future without acknowledging our nation’s past and the systemic racism embedded in our public and private institutions. Consequently, we will hone our awareness and activism as an arts organization. From our conception, our mission has been to amplify the multicultural voices and visions of writers and artists, and we have made significant headway in fulfilling our mission, especially among Native American and Latino/a writers and artists. We commit to working towards fully achieving the inclusivity to which we aspire. This includes among African American and Asian American writers and artists. We will listen; we will bear witness. We will seek to be even more inclusive of BIPOC community members on our staff and board. Words matter, but actions matter even more. 

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, 

a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.

—Maxine Hong Kingston

In Solidarity, and Love,

 The Staff and Board of The Raven Chronicles Press/

The Raven Chronicles

Board of Directors:

Mike Dillon

Willie Pugh

Scott Martin

Founding Editors:

Kathleen Alcalá

Phoebe Bosché, Managing Editor

Philip H. Red Eagle

Contributing Editors, 2018-2020:

Anna Bálint

Thomas Hubbard

Paul Hunter

Gary Copeland Lilley

Anna Odessa Linzer

Priscilla Long

Advisory Board:

Claudia Castro Luna

Gail Tremblay

Carletta Carrington Wilson

Carolyne Wright