Racism may not be openly discussed in a community; but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

That was the common sentiment expressed by people who spoke at a demonstration in front of the Chefchaouen door outside Issaquah City Hall Wednesday, a combined speaking event and public art project organized by the Eastside Race and Leadership Coalition.

The event was organized in response to a recent hate crime and harassment incident at a Redmond consignment shop.

Leona Coakley-Spring and her son Shane Coakley, the African-American owners of From Rags to Riches, were operating the store Jan. 20 when an unknown white male sold them a box of dresses. After the man left, they discovered an additional item in the box — a white robe and hood in the style of those worn by white supremacy group the Ku Klux Klan.

“What I have been through has been so horrible,” Coakley-Spring said between tears at the Issaquah presentation. “To hold a [Ku Klux] Klan robe in my hands and a rope and all that stuff … I’m sorry, I can’t find the words for how I felt.”

Leadership Eastside CEO and coalition member James Whitfield noted that civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. described racists as people who are ill and need to heal.

“Love was the way to respond,” Whitfield said.

As an African-American man, he felt disgust and rage over the incident as well as compassion for Coakley-Spring and her son. Whitfield said his heart hurt for the man who chose to express himself this way — to demonstrate his hurt in this way. He said being angry at the perpetrator would not heal his hurt; it would only fuel it.

The organized demonstrations could provide an alternative means to combat racism, Leadership Eastside Managing Director Karin Duval said.

“You have to look within and you have to make a personal change,” she said.

This commitment was illustrated by an art exhibition created by the coalition, “Rejecting the Rags of Racism and Living into the Riches of Diversity.”

Attendees were invited to take part by writing personal action steps they commit to taking on a piece of colored fabric and connecting that commitment to others’ on an archway — a recognized symbol of peace in the Pacific Northwest that invites all to pass through from one state of being to another.

The archway has already been hosted in the cities of Redmond, Bellevue and Kirkland during demonstrations. Further demonstrations have been scheduled for March 9 in Renton and March 23 in Sammamish.

Discussing race can be hard in the suburbs, former Issaquah City Councilmember Russell Joe said. Joe recalled an incident in which an acquaintance said he could not believe racism existed on the Eastside.

“I was faced with a choice,” Joe said. “I could have this conversation or not have it. In the end, I chose to have it. I don’t know if I changed his mind, but I do think we both came away better for it.”

Markeese Rieux, a Bellevue resident child advocate with the YWCA Village in the Issaquah Highlands, said he had absolutely experienced racism on the Eastside.

Rieux recalled an incident from when he first moved to Bellevue as an employee of the city’s Boys and Girls Club. He was walking down Bellevue Way when teenage boys pulled up next to him in their car and began yelling racial slurs.

“I had moved from the quote-unquote ‘ghetto’ to the suburbs to chase opportunities that hadn’t been available to me,” he said. “Now, walking through the suburbs, I had this traumatic stress that taught me I had to watch my back for racism even here.”

Some local business owners have worked to fight back against prejudice. After state Rep. Jay Rodne spoke out against Muslims on Facebook, Dr. Leslie Banic placed a sign on the door of her chiropractic practice reading “Hate Has No Business Here.” She encouraged other business owners to do the same.

Though the response has been “overwhelmingly positive,” she said she had been forced to contact police after an unknown person defaced her sign and posted anti-immigration literature on her door.

Councilmember Bill Ramos said he’d been silent about systemic racism in the past, but that he would commit to speaking up and speaking out against it beginning that day.

Embracing diversity has become more important than ever as the Eastside’s demographics rapidly change, Issaquah schools Superintendent Ron Thiele said.

The district was 85 percent Caucasian when he became principal of Issaquah Middle School in 2001. Today, white students make up only 57 percent of the student population and that figure continues to shift 2 percent year-over-year, he said.

The diversity of the school’s staff has been slow to match its student body, but the district is looking at how to improve that situation through its hiring practices, he said.

Giving the Eastside’s diverse residents political representation would take a conscious effort, Joe said.

“Candidates of color are not necessarily seen on the Eastside,” he said.

The ERLC will soon host a program, “Filling the Pipeline,” designed to teach persons of color how to rise in politics.