[4] Created to show that the Southend, as Marcus Green put it, “is more than just the crime section in the Seattle Times.”[5] The paper relies on community volunteers, both writers and photographers to report the news.
[6] Starting in 2021 The South Seattle Emerald has been partnering with Pogo Poetry to publish one poem by a young author a month.
[7] In 2022 Washington State's Echo Glenn Youth Facility partnered with Pogo Poetry to bring a creative writing program to their young inmates, as of July 6, 2022 three poems written by young people incarcerated in Echo Glenn were published in the South Seattle Emerald.
[9][10][11] According to founder Marcus Harrison Green the journalism that put the Emerald on the map was their coverage of the No New Youth Jail movement.
[12] An abolitionist movement focused on King County's plan to build a new Children and Family Justice Center to incarcerate youth.