Whether or not you're celebrating the Fourth of July this weekend, there's plenty to do to round out your (hopefully) long weekend. We've compiled our top picks for social distancing-friendly happenings below, from 4 the Culture: A Celebration of All Black Lives in Jefferson Park to a Seattle Symphony rebroadcast of selections from Gustav Holst's The Planets. For even more options, check out our complete streaming events and protests & resistance calendars, as well as our guides to the best movies to stream at home this weekend, things to do for the Fourth of July, and anti-racism resources and events.

All events are online unless otherwise noted. Don't forget to wear a mask to all in-person events!

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Jump to: Black Lives Matter | Fourth of July | Other Events

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BLACK LIVES MATTER

COMMUNITY

4 the Culture: A Celebration of All Black Lives
Join Eastside 4 Black Lives in Jefferson Park (with your picnic blankets and masks in tow) for a day of performances celebrating Black lives by artists like KB Tha Genius, Alpha Patron, Nësträ, Northwest Tap Connection, and others. 
Saturday (Beacon Hill)

PROTESTS & RESISTANCE

Let's Get Free! A Day of Action
Join Africatown Seattle and the King County Equity Coalition for a day of antiracist action in the Central District.
Saturday (Central District)

Rally for Black Lives: F*ck the Fourth
This peaceful rally will urge residents of North Seattle to hold their precinct and representatives accountable for racist violence. 
Friday (Sand Point)

READINGS & TALKS

The Black People Who Were Left Behind
Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective teams up with the Depressed While Black Insta to present "The Black People Who Were Left Behind: On Psychiatric Jails & Mental Illness," a conversation with Imadé Borha and Yolo Akili about the ways Black people are often stranded at the intersection of prison, psychiatric care, and racism. BOBBY ROBERTS
Friday

Page Engage Part II
Members from Seattle Black Collective Voice will lead a discussion of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s From #BLACKLIVESMATTER to Black Liberation, which won a 2016 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize.
Friday (Beacon Hill)

Quarantine Book Club: 'Giovanni's Room'
"Nothing is more dangerous than isolation, for men will commit any crimes whatever rather than endure it." James Baldwin wrote those words in 1954, while at the same time drafting Giovanni's Room, one of the most beautiful and frightening novels of the 20th century. In it, Baldwin imagines his way into a white man's mind—a tall, blond, cowardly white man, isolated by his own obliviousness. Though the book is widely considered a landmark of queer literature, it is many other things too: a suspense novel, a murder mystery, a love triangle (the narrator is torn between the love of a man and the love of a woman), a tragedy, and an unflinching depiction of the dark sides of whiteness. It's a slim, intense novel—only 169 pages—and while it is now considered one of the most daring and successful artistic gestures in American history, it was initially rejected by Baldwin's publisher, and more than one person told him it was not a good idea. They did not believe the world was ready for a book like this, and didn't believe Baldwin's reputation would survive. They were wrong. The book was a bestseller, and almost instantly regarded as a masterpiece. Over four weeks, we will be reading Giovanni's Room and meeting weekly to discuss it, at a pace of about two chapters a week. For each weekly meeting, I will prepare a brief talk about some aspects of Baldwin's life or a close analysis of something in the text, and everyone else in the club (including you!) will have opportunities to share and discuss their reactions to the novel as well. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Saturday

FOURTH OF JULY

COMMUNITY

Tacoma Rainiers 3rd of July Fireworks Show
Watch on Facebook Live as the Tacoma Rainiers set off fireworks from Cheney Stadium. 
Friday

MUSIC

A Boston Pops Salute To Our Heroes
The Boston Pops Orchestra will pay tribute to frontline workers with a livestreamed performance from Boston's Symphony Hall. Tune in on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, and Boston’s WHDH-TV.
Saturday

A Capitol Fourth
Enjoy some prerecorded entertainment from Patti LaBelle, Renée Fleming, and hosts John Stamos and Vanessa Williams before zoning out to colorful eruptions of TNT on the West Lawn of the Capitol. Watch on PBS. 
Saturday

Dueling Pianos Streaming Show!
If the heaviest string instrument of all brings joy to your ears, double up with dueling pianist stalwarts Jeff and Rhiannon, who will perform a special livestreamed show on the 4th. 
Saturday

Macy's Fireworks Show
To prevent New Yorkers from congregating in large groups, the city has modified its massive Macy's Fireworks Show to five-minute bursts of colorful sparks scattered throughout the five boroughs during the week of July 4. On the holiday, watch a recap of the spectacles on NBC.
Saturday

Willie Nelson's 4th of July Picnic
Team Luck shows its dedication to keeping their raucous 4th of July celebration going even in the days of a pandemic by taking their traditional party online, starting with an episode of Prime Cuts starring Chef Scott Roberts, and following that up with livestreams from Luck's Saloon and Chapel Stage, and closing the whole thing out with a concert film. Bottom Line: It's a chance to blaze up and hang out with Willie Nelson on Independence Day. Not bad. BOBBY ROBERTS
Saturday

OTHER EVENTS

COMEDY

Hannibal Buress: Miami Nights
Hannibal Buress (whom you've seen on Broad City, The Eric Andre Show, and Saturday Night Live) has a new special all about his arrest in Miami in 2017, and it's premiering for free on YouTube. Jasmyne Keimig has described him as "a masterly storyteller whose anecdotes keep accruing layers of hilarity as they go."
Friday

FILM

Watch Party: 'Happy Birthday, Marsha!' & 'More Than He Knows'
Join the Seattle Pan Bi Alliance for a watch party of two short films: "Happy Birthday, Marsha!" (about the influential transgender artist and activist Marsha P. Johnson) and "More Than He Knows" (about a seemingly straight-presenting couple who get to the bottom of things on a route staycation).
Friday 

FOOD & DRINK

Food Not Bombs Free Market
Seattle Food Not Bombs will give away free vegan and vegetarian groceries—from produce to deli items to bread—to anyone in need.
Sunday (South Lake Union)

MUSIC

Baby Van Beezly: Quarantine Livestream
Celebrate our musical neighbors to the north with a night of Canadian dance jams with throwback queen DJ Van Beezly. She'll be spinning hits by the likes of Avril Lavigne, Carly Rae Jepsen, Alanis Morissette, and many other Canadian exports.
Saturday

Big Sam's Funky Nation
Big Sam's Funky Nation has staked a claim on "Noladelic PowerFunk," a high-energy blend of rock, hip-hop, jazz, and funk, tied together with New Orleans-style brass. They'll lift your spirits in this virtual concert.
Friday 

Busty and the Bass
Trained in the jazz program at Montreal’s McGill University, the nine-strong ensemble Busty and the Bass make smooth, libidinous funk and R&B that can slip easily into a hip-hop context, if necessary. They put excellent musicianship into the service of rocking a party with sophistication. If D’Angelo’s sly, seductive groove science and Parliament-Funkadelic’s audacious arrangements float your boat, Busty and the Bass will make you sweat, classily. DAVE SEGAL
Friday

Doe Bay Artist Residency Program
Local artists have been invited to post up in the Orcas Island-adjacent Doe Bay Resort (which is currently operating at 50% capacity) to bring live music to the people throughout the summer. Catch sets in-person from resident performers like beloved folk artist Tomo Nakayama (this weekend), fierce foursome Thunderpussy (coming up next week), funk-inclined genre-bender Quinn DeVeaux (also this weekend), and others.
Friday-Sunday

Elton John
If your primary frame of reference is “Hakuna Matata,” you maybe don’t realize that, for a few years in the ’70s, Elton John was MASSIVE—the biggest thing in music since the Beatles. And if a balding, bespectacled piano player seems an unlikely superstar, keep in mind that this was the fellow behind tunes like “Levon,” “The Bitch Is Back,” “All the Girls Love Alice,” and “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” So let the sun come up on this chance to see him in his prime, with this rare recording of a 1976 Edinburgh concert. NED LANNAMANN
Friday

The Groove Theory
Every Friday this summer on the Cloud Room's Instagram Live, boogie into the weekend with Deejay Hershee's mix of '90s R&B, hip-hop, disco, and soul.
Friday

Kremwerk x Bottom Forty Livestream
Kremwerk and Bottom Forty present an online dance party with resident DJs Nark, Joey Webb, and Sammy Calanthe. 
Saturday

Kremwerk x SIN Livestream
Resident DJ Shane will bring Kremwerk's recurring fetish-friendly dance party to wherever you are. 
Saturday

Lost Horizon
The team responsible for Glastonbury's Shangri-La has come together to present this two-day arts and music fest unlike any other huge livestream event in at least one way: It's going to be completely in VR (and there's an accompanying recommended specs chart to make sure you can "attend" with your PC), so you can move through the environment while hearing tunes by Fatboy Slim, Carl Cox, Jamie Jones, and more. BOBBY ROBERTS
Friday-Sunday

NVCS Presents: Weener (A Tribute to Ween)
Weener will offer their renditions of your favorite songs by Pennsylvania rock band Ween at this virtual tribute show.
Friday

Pickathon Presents: A Concert a Day - Cass McCombs
You can learn a lot about singer/songwriter Cass McCombs from the stories he weaves into his wistful, lovely songs. His 2019 album, Tip of the Sphere, is tinged with weirdness; one of its best tracks recounts a rambling, Melville-esque mystery about a robbery, an explosion, and a whaling ship. McCombs doesn’t let listeners get too romantic, though—later he sings drolly about an “American canyon/Where trucks and homes are bigger/And the cops are mostly white/And they have a recycling center.” Rock might be dead, but McCombs has found a way to reanimate it. ISABEL LYNDON
Sunday

The Royal Room Staycation Festival - The Jukehouse Hounds
Dance in your living room to keys and strings from Keith Lowe, Rob Mitchell, Kelly Van Camp, and Johnny Sangster of local band the Jukehouse Hounds, performing live from the Royal Room's virtual stage. 
Sunday

Selections from Holst The Planets
Take a sonic road trip through our solar system with this prerecorded performance of Gustav Holst's iconic The Planets in all its dazzling glory.
Saturday-Sunday

Tanglewood Music Festival
Boston Symphony Orchestra's lauded summer music festival is pruning its lineup a bit to accommodate this year's virtual platform, but the participating artists are not to be sneezed at. Look forward to sets from the Boston Symphony Orchestra (performing the Brahms Piano Quintet), plus festival regulars like Gil Shaham and Yo-Yo Ma. 
Friday-Sunday

Virtual Birdland
Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra come together as one from locations as far-flung as Madrid, LA, and NY, and bring the people good music accompanied by live commentary and conversation every weekend. Funds benefit the ALJA Emergency Artist Fund. BOBBY ROBERTS
Sunday

Virtual Spring Awakening Music Festival
If you, like us, assumed that Spring Awakening here referred to Steven Sater's hit musical about teenage sexuality, you would be wrong. It's actually an EDM festival that happens every year in the techno-rich town of Chicago, and it's going digital this weekend. Tune in for live sets from artists from LA, Denver, the Windy City, and beyond, knowing that proceeds will benefit MusiCares. 
Saturday-Sunday

Voices of Siihasin Benefit Concert
Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter (and mental health advocate) Jewel will co-host this benefit concert for the World Central Kitchen (which distributes food staples to children and families of the Diné Tribe) with Diné environmental activist Lyla June. Check it out on Jewel's Facebook Live. 
Sunday

We Are NRG Livestream
LA dance music duo ARMNHMR (Joseph Chung and Joseph Abella) will head up this virtual concert presented by Insomniac TV, with all proceeds benefiting the Equal Justice Initiative, Change.org, and Rave Recovery. Australian DJ Blanke, LA's Jayceeoh and Lione, and Long Island's Ray Volpe will round out the bill. 
Friday

READINGS & TALKS

The Jack Straw Reading Series
The 24th annual Jack Straw Reading Series will take place on Facebook Live. Catch weekly readings of poetry, prose, fiction, and creative nonfiction from the 2020 Jack Straw Writers (like Maisha Banks Manson, Elaina Ellis, Wryly T. McCutchen, and Ebo Barton, who make up tonight's lineup) hosted by former Seattle Civic Poet Anastacia-Reneé Tolbert.
Friday

VISUAL ART

Vashon Summer Arts Fest
If you can make it over to Vashon this summer, check out work by local artists like Denise Dion, Christopher Allen, Steven Ellis, Robert Thomas, and many others IRL.
Friday-Sunday (Vashon)