The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999. Trade ministers and other officials from the WTO's 135 member nations met in an unsuccessful attempt to plan negotiations to further deregulate free trade. Tens of thousands of activists for many causes gathered to protest what they saw as the WTO's favoring of corporate interests over social and environmental concerns.

On November 29, 1999, members of the National Family Farm Coalition, Family Farm Defenders, Global Exchange, Pure Food Campaign (later the Organic Consumers Association), Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, and other food sovereignty activists gathered outside the downtown Seattle McDonald's for a protest "picnic." In this photo, Bill Christison, president of the National Family Farm Coalition, and Jose Bove, a French farmer and anti-WTO activist, celebrate their protest against McDonald's with French wine, American and French cheese, and French bread. The demonstration shut down the intersection of Third Avenue and Pine Street in Seattle.

Caption information sources: "WTO Meeting and Protests in Seattle (1999) - Part 1," by Kit Oldham, HistoryLink.org Essay 9183; and "WTO Meeting and Protests in Seattle (1999) - Part 2," by Kit Oldham, HistoryLink.org Essay 9213.
Caption information source: "Twenty Years Later the “Spirit of Seattle” Lives On!" by John Beck, National Family Farm Coalition website, retrieved at https://nffc.net/twenty-years-later-the-spirit-of-seattle-lives-on/
Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "20 years later: Looking back at the Battle in Seattle, the WTO riots" by Zosha Millman, retrieved at https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattle-history/article/WTO-Riots-Battle-Seattle-1999-anniversary-13431709.php#photo-797431