Black History Today: Marcus Harden, community superhero
/Black History Today, an annual series created by Marcus Harden in honor of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond. Check back every day in February as we recognize the people actively shaping the future.
“I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.”
By Matt Halvorson
Superheroes are a dime a dozen on the big screen these days, but they can be easy to miss in real life. Like the caped crusaders with otherworldly powers, the real superheroes around us often seem to masquerade behind a secret identity, rarely getting the recognition and thanks they so deeply deserve.
Marcus Harden is one of those heroes for not only the South Seattle community where he grew up, but for every life he has touched as an educator and a school founder, as a student and as a leader and as a friend.
Marcus grew up in Rainier Beach and attended Emerson Elementary, the same school my son has called home for the past five years, on his way to becoming a proud Rainier Beach Viking. He left those hallowed halls for a pit stop at Bethel College before earning his BA in political science and government from the University of Washington. He went on to intern in Hilary Clinton’s office in the Senate, and then spent almost a decade as a counselor and program director for Seattle Public Schools. He recently completed a second tour of duty as a UW student, earning his Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Administration in 2018.
Now, Marcus has taken his talents to Atlanta, as they say, where he is the co-founder and “lead learner” of the Academy for Creating Excellence (ACE Academy), an all-male school with a mission to create high-quality educational experiences for young men, with a focus on African-American/Black and Latino males.
Marcus gives without being asked, and he seems to have a knack for giving just what people didn’t know they needed. I’ve been told that when you see a job that needs to be done, it means you’re the one to do it, and that seems to be a principle that has guided Marcus through life. He has been everything to his community, from mentor to friend to parent, from teacher to counselor to school leader. He’s been the self-proclaimed mayor of Skyway and friendly neighborhood Batman. He was even the PA announcer at Rainier Beach High School basketball games.
He is always seeing the big picture, and so his day-to-day work is more than the sum of its parts. When we think of Marcus as being an educator, for instance, he isn’t just an educator. He chooses to be an Exemplar. He is consciously working to make the environment safer and the profession more inviting to other young Black men, knowing that he can be an example in a field that so desperately needs more Black men in theclassroom.
He knows he can be the same for his students, too, and so he is a mentor and guiding light for them as well, daring to accept even the most challenging tasks when the mission is so important.
Through his work and the way that he moves through the world — is there a distinction between professional and personal life when the work itself is so personal? — Marcus breaks down stereotypes and weakens the chains of oppression in the world around him. As a 6-foot-6-inch Black man of indeterminate weight, as he’s said, he knows people are all too ready to see him as a threat. The irony, of course, is that in his heart (which is appropriately huge), Marcus is a protector, and he has been exactly that for so many of the people around him whose love and respect he earned so long ago.
Marcus is the creator and the voice of the Black History Today series. Even as his own heroics have gone uncelebrated, he has written more than 50 tributes since 2018 to the unsung champions, guardian angels and history-makers in his life. And so, today, for just a moment, we recognize and thank Marcus for showing us the power in dedicating yourself to lifting up the people around you.
Marcus is a quiet superhero, a champion of the people, and a brilliant educator and school leader. For all these reasons and so many more that he keeps hidden under his cape, Marcus Harden is Black history today.
Matt Halvorson is a writer, musician, activist and father living in Seattle.
