Modern-day Moneychangers?: How Seattle Church Leaders Turned Tables

Last updated on: April 24, 2015 at 6:00 am by Alicia de los Reyes

Modern-day Moneychangers?: How Seattle Church Leaders Turned Tables 2015-04-13T08:59:05-08:00 Alicia de los Reyes

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On the Monday of Holy Week this year, several church leaders and members got together to stage a strange protest: they flipped over a table in the lobby of prison builder Howard S. Wright’s offices.

The goal was to imitate Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the Jewish temple, something he did just a few days before being crucified.

The group was protesting the new youth prison being built in Seattle, which will house an outsize number of minority youth. The church folk acted in solidarity with two secular organizations that have protested the new prison: EPIC (Ending the Prison Industrial Complex) and YUIR (Youth Undoing Institutional Racism).

The group gathered at Key Arena (home of the much-missed Sonics) and crossed the street in an orderly manner, staying within the crosswalk, according to one attendee, Ryan Scott, then crowded the elevator and stairs to reach the lobby of Howard S. Wright. Roughly 60 people stood in support at folks set up a table and covered it with nickels (to represent the 30 pieces of silver Judas was paid to betray Jesus) and cards with verses and notes of protest on them.

c/o Alex Garland

Ryan, who organized Valley and Mountain’s contingent at the protest (I was not present), said that the goal was not just to indict the contracting company, but to highlight “our own complicity” in institutionalized racism and an an unfair system.

The group flipped the table over, leaving the nickels and cards, and left.

Alex Garland, a local freelance photojournalist, captured the protest on his blog, The Dignity Virus. Get the whole story here.

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