A historic, unforgettable year: 2020 in pictures
It was an extraordinary year unlike any other.
T
he first Covid-19 outbreak in the United States stopped Seattle in its tracks. Toilet paper, hand sanitizer and masks vanished from store shelves.
Streets eerily empty. Spouses separated by panes of glass. Businesses boarded up — a canvas for the city’s muralists to offer some degree of hope. It was a surreal new reality with no end in sight.
And then came May.
Following the murder of George Floyd at the end of the month, thousands poured into Seattle’s streets to continue a fight that’s hundreds of years old. Demanding justice for Black Americans and an end to police brutality, protesters were met with tear gas and flash bang grenades on Capitol Hill. For months, every single day, throughout the region — people marched.
By October, a tumultuous presidential election began to reach a crescendo.
And within weeks of Joe Biden being elected came the arrival of the first Covid-19 vaccines. As frontline workers received the first shots, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. In a year marked by unrelenting tragedy, heartbreak and loss – it was also one marked by resilience. Individual people saw in the devastation an opportunity.
Hand-sewn masks were delivered to healthcare workers risking their lives. Volunteers handed off boxes of produce at drive-through food banks. Mutual aid networks replenished the swept away tents and sleeping bags of the unhoused. On a recent December morning at Cal Anderson park, one protester yelled, "We're all we got!"
The crowd answered: "We're all we need."
The following images were taken by KUOW staff photojournalist Megan Farmer throughout 2020 in the greater Seattle area.