BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – Local leaders and groups are meeting in Bellingham on Thursday to remember a dark day in the city’s history.
Sept. 4 marks the 118th anniversary of the Bellingham Riot of 1907, when hundreds of white workers gathered to drive members of the Punjabi community out of the city.
The rioters rounded up over 100 immigrants in the local jail, where they were held overnight before the entire Punjabi population left town over the next few days.
Former Western Washington University professor and local historian Paul Englesberg says the mass exodus headlined a string of similar events across the region.
“There was a series of anti-Punjabi incidents across the Northwest, but this was certainly the largest in North America,” Englesberg told My Bellingham Now.
Thursday’s memorial gathering takes place from 4-5 p.m. at the Bellingham Central Library Lawn with County Executive Satpal Sidhu and Englesberg among the featured speakers.
It will also highlight the Arch of Healing and Reconciliation, a monument that memorializes the Chinese, East Indian and Japanese residents who were forced out of the community in separate incidents.
You can hear more from Englesberg give a more detailed account of the Bellingham Riot of 1907 and the aftermath in his interview with MBN’s Jason Upton.
