Aretha Basu (She/Her)

by Abi Aguilar Romero (She/Her)

Aretha Basu was born in Pennsylvania but grew up in Seattle’s Central District since age five. Basu’s activism began young and stretched across time and medium. As a University of Washington Bothell student, Basu was responsible for pioneering and implementing the diversity center. At only 20, Basu was responsible for organizing a 1,200-person BLM march, one of the largest of 2014. When Basu first arrived at UW Bothell as a freshman, she wasn’t involved in on-campus activism. Basu says she never planned to become an activist during college, but a study abroad trip she took to Ghana after her first year changed everything. She was exposed to the lingering effects of the historical slave trade and the current brutal realities of child trafficking. She joined the Identity, Dialogue, Expression, Action project (IDEA project), where she and her friends would hang out, and they realized they needed a space to accommodate marginalized students; they needed a diversity center. This encouraged her to run for student government with four other student organizers, who became the self-proclaimed “Diversiteam,” determined to open the center on the Bothell campus. Basu won as the first-ever write-in candidate to win. It was a long road; three of her four years in college were dedicated to opening a diversity center at the Bothell campus. But Basu was always determined to hold her school’s administration accountable for their promise to provide this space for their students. The diversity center opened its doors on May 1st, 2017.

Basu was not only involved in on-campus movements. She is one of four co-founders of Women of Color for Systemic Change (WOCFSC), which was listed as one of the “Most Influential People of 2015” by Seattle Magazine. WOCFSC is a local community organizing group focusing on tackling police accountability and empowering youth of color. In her third year, she talked at a TEDx event on the role of South Asians in perpetuating anti-Blackness. Basu graduated in June 2017 with a degree in society, ethics, and human behavior. After her time at UWB, she interned as a field organizer in 2017 for Seattle City Council candidate Teresa Mosqueda. She worked as a community outreach and field coordinator – door knocking, phone banking, and recruiting volunteers. Basu spent five years as a legislative aide for Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, focusing on issues related to policing, the criminal legal system, labor, arts, technology, and the city budget. In 2022, Basu led Councilmember Mosqueda’s office’s work on divestment from the Seattle Police budget and investment in a $30 million city-wide participatory budgeting process.

Basu has not stopped her activism. She now works as the Political Director of Puget Sound Sage and Sage Leaders. They aim to chart a path to a living economy in the South Salish Sea and Duwamish River Valley regions by developing community power to influence, lead, and govern. Basu’s activism demonstrates how women of color are always the backbone of organizing a number of movements.