Equal Rights Drove Arline Yarbrough

Arline J. Yarbrough, whose career as a secretary and businesswoman complemented her interest in equal rights, never ran from a good fight.

In fact, if a battle would benefit the community, she relished it, going through channels, forging diverse friendships and couching facts in a cordial yet firm presentation.

Mrs. Yarbrough died Monday (Nov. 8) of heart failure. She was 87.

An early member of the Seattle Urban League, which sought to improve life for a variety of people, she sold cemetery plots for one of the area's first integrated memorial parks.

She was among the early African-American staff members at the University of Washington. She worked as a secretary to Charles Brink, who was then dean of the School of Social Work. Perhaps her happiest endeavor, says her son, Jim Yarbrough of Kirkland, was establishing the annual Relatives of Old-Timers (ROOTS) Picnic at Seward Park in 1972. The September gathering annually drew up to 1,500 black residents or relatives of black people who settled in Washington before World War II.

Mrs. Yarbrough earned a place in the former Radcliffe College "Women of Courage" Black Women Oral History Project of 1976.

She was also named "Woman of the Year" by the Kirkland Business and Professional Women's Club in 1964.

Anne Gerber, a longtime friend, called Mrs. Yarbrough a "positive" and "energetic" woman who fought discrimination.

She was born in Swink, Colo., into a large family that moved to Salt Lake City. The family then moved to Seattle, where she attended Garfield High School.

An older sister sent her to what is now Washington State University for a year. The Depression made funds tight, so Mrs. Yarbrough left college to work as a teletypist in Seattle.

After World War II, she ran a letter shop in Seattle and did a brisk business until ill health forced her to sell it.

Before she went into secretarial work full time, she and her husband were active in Christian Friends for Racial Equality, which was trying to abolish discrimination in cemeteries. She persuaded owners of Sunset Hills to allow burials of blacks.

She and her husband, who loved boating, bought a home in Kirkland in 1950. One of their joys was cruising in their 34-foot Cruise-a-Home.

She helped found the Black Heritage Society of Washington. She also was active in the King County Landmarks Commission, the National Council of Negro Women and the Seattle Central Area Senior Center, of which she was a past president.

Also surviving is her sister Doris Frye of Salt Lake City, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her husband of 59 years, Letcher Yarbrough, died in 1992.

Services are at 2 p.m. Saturday at Green Funeral Home, 1215 145th Place S.E., Bellevue.

Donations may go to Cosmopolitan Century Club Scholarship Fund, c/o Christina Humburgs, 501 26th Ave., Apt. 206, Seattle, WA 98122.