Roscoe Bass was an longtime educator and civil rights activist. He graduated from the Kansas State Teachers College and came to Seattle in 1958 as a substitute teacher. Bass served as the principal of Garfield High School for six years and is credited with helping turn it into one of the best schools in Washington. Bass also worked in the school district's desegregation office and was principal of Sharples Alternative High School when he retired in 1994. Throughout his career, Bass promoted equal education for all and tirelessly advocated for children, alongside his twin brother Robert, who was also a longtime Seattle educator.

This image shows Bass at a public meeting of the Central Area School Council, held at Garfield High School during Bass' term as principal. The meeting's purpose was to update Central Area residents about a school district plan to move racial minority teachers and staff from schools in the Central Area and reassign them to majority white schools, while replacing them with white teachers reassigned to the Central Area. The plan was very unpopular with both Central Area residents and Seattle educators working in the Central Area, who fought it by finding exemptions to the plan for as many teachers as possible.

Caption information source: "8 minority teachers may not be forced to transfer," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 14, 1976, page A3.
Caption information source: "Roscoe Bass, revered Seattle educator, dies at 85," by Brian M. Rosenthal, Seattle Times, November 14, 2011, retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/roscoe-bass-revered-seattle-educator-dies-at-85/