Carver Gayton, the man, is even more impressive than the myth

Editor’s note: This is an edited version of Brian Carter’s foreword to Carver Clark Gayton’s new book, “Odyssey of a Seattle Native Son.” Gayton’s book ($29.95) will be released on March 25, published by Documentary Media in collaboration with HistoryLink and distributed by the University of Washington Press.

BEFORE MEETING THE MAN, I was privy to the lore of Carver Gayton. University of Washington football player and assistant coach, scion of the illustrious Gayton family, FBI agent, Boeing executive and anointed community leader.

Our paths crossed in the spring of 2004 as he led the effort to open the Northwest African American Museum at the former Colman School in Seattle’s historic Black neighborhood, the Central District. Carver swept into NAAM’s temporary offices at One Union Square, thunderously talking into his always-present earpiece and furiously working a Blackberry. He walked with an energetic bounce that read like brashness and captured my attention because of its sureness. I was an unpaid intern from a blue-collar Yakima family, and the authority and purpose he exuded were qualities I desperately coveted. After extending a warm welcome, Carver moved on to the meeting in the big office, and I returned to my desk determined to one day make the world see me in the same light.

Under his stalwart leadership, our team humbly stood on the shoulders of those who came before, guiding NAAM to its opening in 2008. Carver and I stayed in contact as my career took me to other museums in the region and eventually to my current position as executive director at 4Culture. As a funder, I now support the great number of theaters, community groups, museums and creative individuals who nurture King County’s rich and deep cultural ecosystem. In this work, I am both guided and driven by the inimitable example Carver set during those early years of my career and beyond.

Twenty years of friendship with Carver have shown me how fundamentally I misunderstood the relationship between lore and man. There is not an inevitability to the era-shaping experiences and accomplishments recounted in his autobiography. The poise and conviction I first saw in Carver all those years ago were wages earned for a lifetime in service of elemental values — loyalty, kindness and duty. I’ve had the privilege of watching Carver translate these ideals into action; the honor of witnessing the construction of an individual life acutely responsive to the needs of the whole.

Carver’s story has been a life undoubtedly marked by humanistic missteps and uncertainties, but he has always been profoundly cognizant of the inextricable linkage between what came before, what is, and what will follow. This appreciation of personal context, refracted through decades of leadership roles, honors and achievements, reveals a consistent theme: a willingness to step forward, to attempt, to dare. Not because he foresaw outcomes he’s now lauded for, but because he realized the danger inaction posed for those without the power of his positionality.

The lesson I’ve learned from Carver is that we must embrace the heavy responsibility bestowed on us all to compose a meaningful chapter in the book of our times. The gift he gave me is the understanding that we can’t read it before it’s done.