One of the first three black students to enroll at Seattle's elite Lakeside School, Thomas "T.J." Vassar, Jr. (1950-2013) went on to Harvard, then returned to Seattle, became director of LEEP (Lakeside Educational Enrichment Program) and a member of Lakeside’s faculty, and later served on the Seattle School Board. Mr. Vassar was a highly-regarded local advocate for diversity and social justice in schools.

In this image, taken when he was president of the Seattle School Board, Mr. Vassar speaks about his hopefulness in settling the strike begun the day before by the school districts' 3,700 teachers, secretaries, and other members of the Seattle Teachers Association. The city's 43,500 public-school students were out of school for 19 days, returning on October 1, 1985, after Governor Booth Gardner helped negotiators reach an agreement.

Caption information source: The Seattle Times, September 3, 1985, page A1
Caption information source: "Lakeside School (Seattle)," by Mary T. Henry, HistoryLink.org Essay 10621
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.