FOUR BUSLOADS of housing advocates, city employees, and journalists rolled out to a large gravel parking lot on the edge of a North Portland field last Friday, April 23, to see Ed Washington’s childhood home. Washington stood next to a historical marker and pointed into the empty field. His home was right about there in the predominantly African American neighborhood when the Vanport Flood washed it away in 1948.

The Fair Housing Council of Oregon celebrated its 20th anniversary last week with a citywide bus tour featuring highlights of Portland’s not-so-distant racist past.

Ever wonder why Portland ranks as the whitest city west of the Mississippi? Maybe it has something to do with the Oregon Constitution banning black people from the state until 1927. Or that the Ku Klux Klan performed initiation ceremonies in the Rose Festival during the 1920s. Or that Portland real estate agents excluded African Americans from buying homes in the city during World War II, forcing them to set up in the nation’s largest housing project, Vanport, which was then destroyed in a flood when a government-built dike broke.

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, who came along for the bus tour, says the state has handled approximately 200 cases of housing discrimination in the past two years, taking on cases of landlords or real estate agents who won’t rent or sell a home to someone because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, or a disability. Fifty percent of those cases involve discrimination based on a disability.

The recent mortgage crisis revealed discrimination of a different sort: An Oregon Center for Public Policy study in 2008 showed that Oregonians of color were twice as likely to get a sub-prime loan than whites of the same income level [“It Will Get Worse,” News, Nov 27, 2008].

Fair Housing Council of Oregon Education Director (and official tour guide) Diane Hess wobbled in the aisle of a charter bus heading down North Williams last Friday, clasping a microphone in one hand and a fact sheet in the other. “The Portland Board of Realtors wrote into their code of ethics that members could not sell homes in white neighborhoods to ‘Negroes or Orientals,'” Hess told the crowd. “This was on the books until 1952.”

Hess pointed out bus windows to the vacant lots and chain-link fences that line North Williams between Broadway and Fremont. “This was the central, vibrant artery of Portland’s African American community. There were a lot of nightclubs, restaurants,” said Hess.

In 1960, 80 percent of African American Portlanders lived in this neighborhood. Then urban renewal swooped in, allowing Legacy Emanuel hospital to demolish 10 blocks of homes and businesses for a planned expansion. The plans fell through. The lots remained vacant. The neighborhood lost half its population. A 1993 city study of the area noted that skeptics referred to “urban renewal” as “negro removal.”

But there’s no time to pause on North Williams! The buses roll on to the site of the Vanport Flood and then to the Expo Center, where Oregonians of Japanese descent were forced to live in farm animal stalls for months after Pearl Harbor, before being shipped off to internment camps.

The tour takes an upbeat turn as the buses squeeze down the streets of New Columbia, the North Portland public-housing complex that recently reopened after a $135 million remodel. The original Columbia Villa, which used to inhabit the site, was the very first project of the Housing Authority of Portland, the city’s public housing agency, back in 1941. When it was first built, though, the Villa’s 480 units were white-only. These days the residents of the 800 homes speak 22 languages.

Other Portland landmarks zip by as the buses crisscross the city: PGE Park, which as Multnomah Stadium in the 1920s hosted Ku Klux Klan rallies against “Koons, Kykes, and Katholics,” the building on NW 10th and Hoyt (now a Rite Aid and condo complex) where Portland’s Mayor Earl Riley housed the city’s Romani Gypsy population in the winter of 1944, before he scored federal funds to ship them in cars to Texas.

And then in the quiet Laurelhurst neighborhood, the bus pauses outside a nondescript apartment complex on SE 31st and Pine. Pear trees are in blossom. Two cyclists ride by. This is where skinheads beat Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw to death in 1988.

“We still live with the aftermath of these policies,” says Hess. And the bus rolls on.

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

18 replies on “Highlights of Racism… the Tour!”

  6. Precisely. No amount of sarcasm could make Bath Time’s comment anything but offensive and moronic. Hey Bath Time, here’s an idea: why don’t you take your thumb (that’s the opposable digit on the innermost part of your hand) and stick it in your… No wait, here’s a better idea: Move to Arizona.

  8. What a bunch of unimaginative and self righteous responses.

    You guys totally missed the point of my little joke.

    Which itself was kind of off topic from the article…so you’re right on the money!!
    Good job.

    😀

  9. Bath Time!, I reported your comment. I don’t care if it is supposed to be socially critical, it’s obnoxious and offensive.

  11. oregun1, sure Bath time’s comments were obnoxious, and un-funny, but I’ve seen more offensive. I think you should cut him some slack, these comments didn’t have that hateful kernel that would make them truly offensive. Besides, you can’t go reading the comment section of the weekly paper with thin skin. people are going to type things that they’d never say in person.

  12. – – – – – – – – COMMENT – – – – – – – –

    People who take great pride in being easily offended…sincerely get on my nerves and seem like self obsessed drama queens to me.

    But more important than that they show a real lack of curiosity and tolerance of other people’s opinions. Especially when it’s needed most.

    Sarah Mirk…I’m sorry for taking comment section attention away from your well written article. It ties the past instances of racism in Portland with policies and beliefs that, sadly, are still with us. And I thought it was well written. Good job.
    🙂

    To me, understanding WHY people are racist (what fears trigger that. Is there a basis for those fears? HOW do we talk someone down from those entrenched beliefs? Should we try? Etc…) is crucial to keeping that bus from continuing to roll along. Just saying ‘Booo racists!’ or banning racism from public discourse doesn’t solve anything. It’s still there…just festering away.

    Anyways, I’m sorry if me and my obnoxiously unfunny, cowardly-racist-bullshit-ANTI-humor comment stood in the way of anyone’s otherwise relaxing, hilarious experience with the ol’ Port Merc!

    Really, sorry if I offended you.

    Sincerely,
    BATH TIME!

    – – – – – – – -EXTRA STUFF THAT I EDITED OUT BUT IF YOU’RE INTERESTED HERE YA GO- – – – – – – – – – –

    I thought that one of the Internet’s best uses is that people can openly discuss things they wouldn’t dream of admitting in public? The inner shadow gets some exercise, the ID is let loose. We can then see what’s inside us and others. We can have open conversations we wouldn’t dare air in public. (Oh my fucking God I’m clever! ‘dare air’? Genius.)

    Anyhow,
    what’s funny to me is that my pathetic little joke where I attempted to lampoon white guilt and poke fun at the question of how to make up for racism without being more racist… is just the tip of the fuckin’ iceberg!

    We haven’t even begun to delve into the meat and potatoes issues and I’m already getting flak.
    (where’s my flak catcher?)

    Issues like:

    ~ What is the difference in preferring one *culture* to another…and racism?

    ~ Is cultural / racial diversity worthless if we are expected to like every spice and flavor equally?

    ~ Is white pride more racist than black pride?

    ~ At what point will affirmative action no longer be needed?

    ~ Does racism only apply to thinking that one group has inferior / superior genetics? what about hair? music?

    ~ Can minorites be racist? Or is that bias specific to the dominant culture?

    ~ What about the fact that we’ve ALL had racist thoughts sprout up in our minds.

    ~ Is that even true??

    ~Why not?

    ~ Does asking questions like this, or seeming ‘obsessed with race issues’ make someone a racist?

    ~ etc.

    Maybe to some the topics surrounding race are boring & obnoxious. Shallow, simplistic. What the fuck do I know?…maybe the topics are great but my delivery and handling of them is horrid and tedious.

    Escape is always a mouse click away.

    In other words, my lack luster comedy and boring ‘racial’ commentary is worth what you paid for it.
    Go figure. We’ll see where this goes from here…if anywhere.

    Anyways, it’s been fun, I always enjoy defining my beliefs through online commentary!

    Be well, enjoy life!
    Learn to laugh at stupidity, as I sometimes can do …and the world will be endlessly entertaining.
    Or so I’ve heard.

    P.S.
    Wow, I can’t believe I just spent a fucking hour and a half on this!!
    And you just wasted 5 minutes reading it! hahaha!
    (sigh)
    I don’t even want to THINK about the issue of race for a few days now.
    Bleck!

  13. Yes, I’m sure if not for racism, blacks would have been flooding into cold, gray, and rainy Portland.

    Does the author even realize that this type of stuff went on – and worse – in other parts of North America? This article is yet another attempt to make non-racist whites feel guilty for the sins of long-dead people.

  15. I don’t know what “Bath Time” originally said that got his comment removed, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
    Once the Merc. did this article, it was very VERY predictible that the on-line article would be hit by some racist douchebag.

    typical

  16. what the hell are you bitches arguing about? I cant find shit on the internet about racism in portland except by the god damn mercury! Thats because portland’s racism is entirely glossed over. I appreciate these tidbits. It’s good to know that this state is as much of assholes as the rest of the states. And you bitches and your sarcasm arguments…. jesus. Theres a time and a place. Really. Stop being dickheads.

  18. Yes, it’s true… Portland was not always the eco friendly, sustainable, Prius clogged, cycle commuting, craft beer brewing, indie rock hippie town we’ve come to know over the past two or three decades. This place has a seriously dark past, and not just where black folk and the Klan are concerned. Once you start digging around in the historical accounts, it gets pretty fascinating, pretty quickly. Check out a book called “Portland Confidential” for an interesting look at P-town’s history of vice…

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