Memories of Stim Bullitt's KING years

It was the most expensive project that KING had ever undertaken, but Stim approved every dollar that I and my colleagues wanted to spend. We hired a black camera man named Gil Baker and a black secretary named Martha Hubbard to work with me in identifying a block in the Central area where blacks congregated; and, together with Jim Compton, who later became a Seattle City Councilmember, we identified the block and I went about interviewing all the residents.

We churned up hours of recorded interviews which I later edited into a narrative for a broadcast. The “Color Me Somebody” quote came from an interview of Ed Pratt, who wound up being murdered before the documentary could air. When the 90-minute documentary was broadcast, it became my greatest achievement in broadcasting and I think it made Stim proud. The show later was trimmed to 60 minutes for nationwide broadcast on public television.

Stim was a man of many parts. He also sank lots of money in a print campaign promoting Seattle magazine, a labor of love about social, economic, and political issues. For the magazine I undertook a monthly column on Seattle newspapers and other media, which I called “The Press Club.” My approach was to beat the newspapers over the head for their timidity.

Everything Stim did was to further the city of Seattle. While he was a businessman, these public interests always trumped money, and he would be fearless in campaigning for things he believed in. One issue stands out in my mind. In some of the interviews that I collected for “Color Me Somebody,” two of the black people who had worked for Boeing unabashedly criticized the company as not being an equal opportunity employer. When I played that part for Stim I didn’t know how he would react; and, at my suggestion that he might want to cut that sequence out, in order not to offend the mighty Boeing, his comment was: “That's what he said. Let’s leave it in.”

As I said: the best boss you could ever want.

Note: A memorial program with tributes to Stimson Bullitt will be held at Town Hall Seattle, 8th and Seneca on Seattle's First Hill, Monday May 4 at 4 pm.