Tacoma-born Dennis Flannigan lived a life devoted to public service. His contributions began in the Freedom Summer of 1964 when he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to register Black voters in Mississippi. Returning to Tacoma, he ran for public office at both the local and state levels, losing narrowly both times. He then moved to the nonprofit sector and took the lead in founding the Emergency Food Network, the first of several organizations he helped initiate. In 1988, Flannigan returned to the political arena as an elected member of the Pierce County Council. Fourteen years later, he was elected to the State House of Representatives as a Democrat. After his death in 2024 at age 84, The News Tribune wrote that Flannigan would be remembered "for his humor, progressive policies and ability to reach across the aisle" ("Dennis Flannigan, Influential ...").
Early Lessons
Dennis Flannigan was born on October 3, 1939. His Irish father, James was a cabinetmaker, union man, and founder of a small life-insurance company specifically for union members. His mother, Anne, was a Norwegian homemaker who was active in the PTA. Dennis had four siblings who between them, reported The News Tribune, "could play piano, sing opera, drive a commercial truck, keep all their fingers while working in a sawmill, run a store, sell paint and property, catch salmon and steal nickels out of pinball machines” ("He Broke Rules ...").
Flannigan attended Jason Lee (now known as Heritage) Middle School and Stadium High School, then worked at Buffelen’s Woodworking mill on the Tacoma tideflats. As a teenager, Flannigan experienced a transformative moment that led to his commitment to social justice. He described it in a 2008 interview:
"I was a 13-year-old … white kid and up in the Hilltop neighborhood which was mixed race … My brother owned an apartment … and I was out there mowing the lawn … and a woman came out who was African American, part of a mixed couple. She asked me if I wanted a tuna fish sandwich, I looked like I had worked hard. I had not been around African Americans, and I said no. I just was flummoxed, didn’t know what to do. I thought, my God, you’re supposedly Catholic … I thought, if everyone’s created equal, if you’re supposed to do unto others, you’ve just flunked all the tests … That moment was the moment that began my journey" (Weston).
After working in the mill following graduating from high school, Flannigan decided to continue his education at the University of Puget Sound. He was to say, "The day UPS opened, I drove up there and asked, 'Can I go to school here?' 'For $275, yes.' That began a love-hate relationship with UPS" ("He Broke Rules ...").
As a student, Flannigan's commitment to social justice and opposition to the Vietnam War led him to publish an underground newspaper he named The Braille – a parody of the UPS student paper The Trail. His publication, among other things, poked fun at UPS donors, for which he was called into a meeting with university administrators. 'Do it again, and you’re gone' they told him. He did it again, and they were true to their threat.
The year was 1964. No longer in school, Flannigan made a momentous decision. Despite pleas and tears from his mother, he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to work with Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998) in Freedom Summer. The week prior to his training at SNCC in Oxford, Ohio, civil-rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney had been murdered in Mississippi. The many students in training were warned of the risks and were told they could go home with no stigma attached. Although some left, Flannigan climbed on the bus and headed south to Mississippi. In a 2008 interview, he noted: "I think its like going to war, its like going to Iraq now. You’re scared, and much of you doesn’t want to … for young men (it’s a question of) manhood, and have I got the nerve … it’s a part of life … (but) I felt it necessary for my soul and for the souls of my country" (Weston).
While in Shaw, Mississippi, Flannigan wrote letters to friends in Tacoma. In vivid detail, he described the fire-bombing of Black churches, beatings of civil-rights workers, friends being shot or jailed without due process, and ongoing threats and intimidation. The letters were read at a Tacoma bookstore and published, in full, in the UPS student newspaper The Trail. The following is one account:
"Our ‘Project Leader’, Charles McLaurin was beaten on the 11th of June in Columbus Miss. Not only was he beaten but four others along with him for failing to respond to the term n****r when asked by the Mississippi State Patrol whether they were n****rs or Nigras. Two were beaten for over ten minutes. All were scheduled to be sentenced to the county farm for terms of 20 years …no offense has ever been committed" (Flannigan).
Trouble in Tacoma
After returning to Tacoma in 1965, Flannigan married his college sweetheart, Ilse Silins, and was hired by Thomas Dixon, head of the Antipoverty Hilltop Multiservice Center, as director of the Hilltop Housing and Relocation Office. From there, Flannigan went to work for Governor Dan Evans (1925-2024) developing minority employment programming. But political controversy was brewing in Tacoma.
In 1967, conservative populist Washington State Senator A. L. "Slim" Rasmussen was elected Tacoma mayor along with allied City Council candidates Helen "Becky" Banfield and Anthony "Tony" Zatkovich. (In Tacoma’s form of government, council meetings are presided over by the mayor with a council-appointed city manager administering the day-to-day city operations.) City council meetings became raucous affairs with Rasmussen, Banfield, and Zatkovich attacking City Manager David Rowlands as well as Director of the Human Relations Commission Lynn Hodges. Within two years, local progressive political activists, led by Flannigan among others, organized Action Committee for Tacoma – a group formed to recruit candidates for the upcoming 1969 city council elections.
In the summer of 1969, Flannigan announced his candidacy, along with seven others, to run against eight-year incumbent and Rasmussen ally George Cvitanich. Flannigan had lined up an army of volunteers and people willing to make donations to his campaign. The goal was to build momentum toward the November election with a ground game and messaging developed by trusted friends and marketing gurus John Brown and Chuck Pennington. His seven primary opponents had neither resources nor broad-based support to mount viable primary campaigns.
On the final day of filing for the primary, Flannigan was convinced by a campaign advisor/friend to switch to another council position race against politically vulnerable Tacoma Deputy Mayor Gerry Bott and candidate John O’Leary, a key Rasmussen ally. This was a fateful decision that stunned his campaign team and resulted in Flannigan finishing third in the September primary, eliminating him from the general election. O’Leary went on to win in November but was recalled from office on September 15, 1970.
Flannigan worked briefly on the staff at Western Washington University in Bellingham, but returned to Tacoma in the summer of 1972, filing to run as the Democratic Party State Representative for an open seat in Tacoma’s North End 27th Legislative District – an area where he had scored well in his 1969 campaign. Flannigan appeared to have a clear shot at winning – until redistricting combined the 27th and portions of the 26th Districts to include the residence of incumbent 26th District State Representative A. A. "Doc" Adams, also a Democrat. Adams ran as the incumbent and narrowly finished first in the primary with 6,065 votes to Flannigan’s 5,668.
After this second tough loss, Flannigan left politics to focus on the nonprofit sector. While working for the Comprehensive Mental Health Center in Tacoma, he was asked to serve on the board of the nascent Pierce County Drug Alliance and was later appointed its director. When asked if he was a former user-turned-counselor, he replied: "No. I don’t even drink coffee. I don’t drink tea. I never used drugs. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke" (Lawrence). His success with the Pierce County Drug Alliance led the Tacoma Pierce County Municipal League to honor him with its Community Service Award.
Next, Flannigan joined with community activist Nancy Mendoza to form the Emergency ’82 food drive (now the Emergency Food Network), which Flannigan directed. The success of that program, in large measure, was the reason Tacoma received the 1984 All-America City recognition from the National Municipal League.
Back in the Ring
In December 1986, Democrat Jim Salatino abruptly resigned from the Pierce County Council. Flannigan’s friends and supporters urged him to return to the political fray and submit his name to the Democratic Party Central Committee for consideration (under state law the party’s precinct committee officers would be submitting three names to the council for appointment.) Flannigan was reluctant at first but put his name forward and was elected as the first choice of the party. Also on the list was powerful state senator Lorraine Wojahn. When Wojahn announced she could not take the council seat until the end of the legislative session, the Pierce County Council appointed Flannigan by unanimous vote. He was formally elected to the seat in 1988.
Flannigan’s most notable achievement on the county council was his creation of the Safe Streets Program – described by President Bill Clinton as the best community mobilization program in the nation. A chance encounter Flannigan had with educators in Olympia and a series of conversations that followed led him to fully realize the extent of the menace presented by the Los Angeles crack-dealing gang members who had invaded the community. Flannigan brought together leaders from the private and public sectors to develop a coordinated attack on the drug and gang problems. With five phone calls he raised $500,000 in seed money for the effort and helped organize a community meeting at Foss High School that attracted nearly 2,000 people. He convinced respected administrator Lyle Quasim to be Safe Street’s first director. Flannigan summed up the Safe Streets success story: "The community bought into it because they could come together and disagree without being disagreeable. It was just struggling together" ("He Broke Rules ...").
Flannigan left the county council in 1996 due to term limits. Six years later he once again ran for state representative from the 27th District, after incumbent Ruth Fisher retired. This time he won the Democratic primary in 2002 with almost the same number of votes (5,648) as he had received in 1972. No Republicans filed for the seat.
Although Flannigan was uncomfortable in the harshly partisan environment in Olympia, his charm and grace were captivating. Some of his colleagues referred to it as the "Flannigan mystique." Former state representative Larry Seaquist summed it up this way: "Dennis has a unique way of summarizing issues at moments of peak tension and division. The result, invariably, was to restore that sense of common enterprise and tolerance which is essential to the conduct of the legislature" (Baarsma).
Flannigan succeeded in securing major funding for the restoration of Tacoma’s Murray Morgan Bridge, the Chinese Reconciliation Park, and the Joy Building at the University of Washington-Tacoma. He also chaired the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse.
Full Circle
When his beloved first wife Ilse died of cancer on December 11, 2009, Flannigan was overcome with grief and quit politics. On his last day as a member of the House of Representatives, a special session was called at which colleagues from both sides of the aisle paid tribute.
In what might be termed a back-to-the-future moment, the University of Puget Sound granted Flannigan a diploma in 2012 in the form of an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. The award granted during the commencement ceremony was front-page news in The News Tribune. The story summed up the irony of the moment: "University of Puget Sound administrators kicked Dennis Flannigan out of school for messing with the way things are supposed to be. Close to 50 years later, they gave him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree for the same thing" (Merryman).
Flannigan did have a rich life beyond public service. He had eclectic and wide-ranging interests that included one of the largest privately owned and curated record collections in the city. His interest in music led to him having a gig as a disc jockey on KRAB FM in Seattle. He was a connoisseur of Mad magazine and honed his own skill as a cartoonist; his doodles on napkins became legendary. Flannigan was keen on the idea of making Pierce County the "Education County" and founded the Tacoma Area Council on Giftedness and the Pierce County Reading Foundation. He was survived by his second wife Jayasri Ghosh, whom he married in 2015, his two children Erik and Ann, four grandchildren, and Ghosh’s three children.
