Seattle marks the 25th Anniversary of when We Shut-Down the World Trade Organization
In 1999, a global movement called “Globalize Liberation, Not Corporate Power” successfully took mass direct action to shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle on November 30th. Out of that powerful week of protest, Community Alliance for Global Justice was born.
In the Fall of 2024 and in 2025, CAGJ joined WA Fair Trade Coalition, MOHAI and others in marking the 25th anniversary of the World Trade Organization protests. MOHAI honored the 25th anniversary through their exhibit, Teamsters, Turtles, and Beyond: The Legacy of the Seattle WTO Protests, guest curated by University of Washington History Professor James Gregory. In conjunction with MOHAI, CAGJ co-organized multiple events to reflect, raise awareness of that historic week, and re-energize for today’s struggles for global justice.
WTO+25 Events Re-Cap
PHOTOS: CAGJ co-hosted a two day ART & REVOLUTION CONVERGENCE in March 2025.
The Art & Revolution Convergence was co-organized by CAGJ & MOHAI, with Art & Revolution co-founders and workshop leaders David Solnit, Dana Schuerholz, and Jo Redline Christian; Julie Searle also gave workshops. Participants learned how Art and Revolution organized mass skillshare gatherings in the years and weeks leading up to the 1999 protests, through roadshows, public art builds, giant puppets, street theater and pageants, song and music, and more, to explore a re-thinking of what public resistance looks and sounds like. Then we got into HANDS ON ARTMAKING, to make signs on the theme of “Fund Communities, Not War” and then made a community mural with our art!
Hosted by the Vashon Green School, the next day we joined together activists, organizers, artists and performers who want to build a better world using the arts, organizing, and direct action. We built our collective skills, community, and imagination to spread and deepen the use of arts and culture in direct action campaigns and movements. Check out photos of the powerful convergence!
PHOTOS: WTO History Tour & HANDS OFF Rally
CAGJ & MOHAI co-hosted a great WTO History Walking Tour in downtown Seattle with Heather Day, who took the photos at the HANDS OFF Rally at the Science Center directly afterwards – massive turn-out to resist fascist takeover of the US! Check out the photos from those incredible events.
WATCH Event at MOHAI: Whose Stories? Our Stories! WTO Memory Sharing
Facing police repression of nonviolent action, 1999 WTO protesters chanted, “Whose Streets? Our Streets!” Twenty-five years later, veterans of the movement share their vision for how the Battle in Seattle is remembered: “Whose Stories? Our Stories!” Watch this panel of organizers from the WTO protest share first-hand accounts of their experiences leading up to and during the protests. Speakers: Heather Day, Walden Bello, Cindy Domingo, Jonathan Rosenblum, and Sonja Sivesind. Watch now.
WATCH Event at MOHAI: From IndyMedia to Citizen Journalism: Media, Democracy, and Seattle WTO Protests’ Legacy
Watch an evening of reflection and discussion as Jill Freidberg, co-founder of the Independent Media Center, participant in the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, and filmmaker delivers a keynote on the role IndyMedia played in warning against the dangers of media consolidation and shaping citizen journalism as we know it today. Libby Hopfauf, Executive Director of Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound, presents on their role in the WTO Footage Digitization Project, a groundbreaking collection featuring hundreds of hours of rarely seen footage from the protests, collected by activists on the ground. The footage is part of a new online resource that also includes digitized archival materials and the WTO History Project, making the history of the protests accessible to scholars, students, and the public.
