Photo by Jill Freidberg
Sky Sawyer grew up at 22nd and Jackson. He's a student at Evergreen State College now, with an interest in Music Journalism.
Sky Sawyer
I went to elementary school at Madrona K-8, and I went there until sixth grade, until I switched over to East Side Prep, which is a super small private school in Kirkland. And I went there from seventh grade, and I finished out high school there.
My parents didn't choose to send me there. I made that decision myself, and this is not to bash Madrona as a school or anything. I felt like I was in a place where people around me didn't care about their education and they weren't trying, and so I wanted to go to a place where I felt that education was valued.
I was the first black student to ever step foot on their campus, which is crazy.
I went to our eighth grade end-of-the-year party at my friend's house, and I get there and they were like, "You want to go on the boat?" And I'm like, "A boat? Why do you guys have a boat?" And then I come back home to the two-bedroom apartment that my two younger sisters and my parents and I are staying in, and it's like initially, I had, "Man, why can't my life be like that?" And then I was just like, "I love my life and just kind of where I came from." I'd much rather prefer being from here than doing any of that. Just coming from a place like here where there's so much history and culture, I have more, I guess, street smarts than a lot of my peers. So it's like that was one thing that coming from here, I took away as a really big positive. I'm able to navigate on my own a lot more.