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 from Office Minority Affairs head Samuel E. Kelly that Gossett to "cool it." 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.
Read more about this topic: Larry Gossett
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