Director of Northwest African American Museum to retire

Now that the seemingly impossible has been accomplished, perhaps mere mortals can take over.

With slight exaggeration, that was the sentiment expressed Wednesday by some connected with the Northwest African American Museum when executive director Carver Gayton announced that he will retire June 25, less than four months after the museum's opening.

"If you're going to do the impossible, you need a Carver Gayton," said Barbara Earl Thomas, the museum's curator, who will become acting director. "I couldn't have done anything so hard with anyone better."

Since he was persuaded to take the job in late 2004, Gayton, 69, helped turn the museum from a decades-long subject of discussion, proposals and controversy into a $22 million reality.

"I just can't stay at the same pace that I've been going at for three years. I have to pull back," said Gayton, a former state employment-security commissioner, Boeing executive, FBI agent and longtime educator.

The museum opened March 8 in the former Colman School, which had been closed since 1985 in Seattle's Central Area.

Gayton, along with James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, led a campaign tapping public and private sources for about $15 million. Gayton will continue to work on fundraising for the museum, and will sit on its National Advisory Committee. He had said earlier he didn't plan to stay in the director's job long once the museum was operating successfully.

Ruby Love, co-chair of the museum's board, said Gayton "leaves a legacy of galvanizing the community" in support of the project.

"He's done some remarkable work with remarkable collaborators and partners, and we want to celebrate an incredible museum he has taken to this point," Love said.

Support for the project has been widespread in the African-American community, but not unanimous. Activists who originally occupied the school, demanding it become a museum and community-service center, complain that they were cut out of the process in 2003, when the Seattle School District sold the building to the Urban League.

Wyking Kwame Garrett, son of one of the occupiers, Omari Tahir-Garrett, was arrested at the museum's opening celebration after he took the stage, denounced the project and refused to leave.

Gayton said the dispute played no role in his decision to retire, and he noted that the original activists, including Tahir-Garrett, are named in a display in the museum.

Gayton's path into the director's job was an unusual one. In the fall of 2004, he was serving on a search committee considering three finalists for the post, but none had the group's enthusiastic backing. When Gayton was out of the room, another committee member, Constance Rice, suggested Gayton be considered for the job.

When Kelly asked Gayton to step into the director's role, Gayton took two months to think it over because he knew it would be demanding. "I couldn't go into it reluctantly," he said. "Once I decided to take it on, there was no turning back."

Gayton is the great-grandson of an escaped Kentucky slave and a member of one of the Seattle area's oldest African-American families, with roots in Seattle dating back to 1888.

One of his immediate retirement plans is to spend time this summer with the youngest of his four children, Chandler, 17, who will be a senior at O'Dea High School in the fall.

Love said it's too early to say how the museum will seek a replacement for Gayton.

Thomas, an artist and writer with a background in arts administration, said she has not decided whether to formally seek the position. Another possible in-house candidate is the museum's education director, Brian Carter, who holds a master's degree in museum studies from the University of Washington.

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com