Louise Jones McKinney (1930-2012) was a longtime educator, philanthropist, community activist, and patron of the arts in Seattle. Louise McKinney came to Seattle in 1958 with her husband, the Reverend Samuel B. McKinney, who became pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church. McKinney had a long career as an educator in Seattle public schools, as a teacher, principal, and tireless advocate for disadvantaged children. When she retired in 1994, she was serving as the Director of Academic Achievement for Seattle Public Schools.

This photo shows Louise McKinney standing under scaffolding at the John Hay Elementary School in the Queen Anne neighborhood in 1983. She had been principal at Hay for the past 3 years, and began and directed its Early Childhood Education Center, one of the district’s most desirable special options programs. McKinney asked to be reassigned from Hay, in protest over the dilapidated state of the school’s buildings, where promised repairs had yet to be completed, and where McKinney questioned her ability to provide an adequate program for students in such inadequate, even dangerous, facilities. McKinney was reassigned to Sacajawea Elementary, and the following year funds were approved to build a new John Hay building. The two original John Hay buildings still stand as of 2021.

Caption information source: “Principal rebels at her school’s condition” by Mary Rothschild, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 27, 1983, p. C1.
Caption information source: Lousie McKinney (1930-2012) contributed by Olga Bourlin, May 27, 2013, blackpast.org website, retrieved at
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/mckinney-louise-jones-1930-2012/