"Portland Civil Rights: Lift Ev'ry Voice explores Portland's African American history with a focus on the turbulent 1960s, '70s and early '80s. At the time, issues surrounding urban renewal, school desegregation and brittle police relations were exploding both nationally and locally."DVD | Stream 
Breaking Chains by R. Gregory Nokes When they were brought to Oregon in 1844, Missouri slaves Robin and Polly Holmes and their children were promised freedom in exchange for helping develop their owner's Willamette Valley farm. However, Nathaniel Ford, an influential settler and legislator, kept them in bondage until 1850, even then refusing to free their children. Holmes took his former master to court and, in the face of enormous odds, won the case in 1853. In Breaking Chains, R. Gregory Nokes tells the story of the only slavery case adjudicated in Oregon's pre-Civil War courts--Holmes v. Ford. Through the lens of this landmark case, Nokes explores the historical context of racism in Oregon and the West, reminding readers that there actually were slaves in Oregon, though relatively few in number. Drawing on the court record, Nokes offers an intimate account of the relationship between a slave and his master from the slave's point of view. He also explores the experiences of other slaves in early Oregon, examining attitudes toward race and revealing contradictions in the state's history. Oregon was the only free state admitted to the union with a voter-approved constitutional clause banning African Americans and, despite the prohibition of slavery in the state, many in Oregon tolerated it and supported politicians who advocated for slavery, including Oregon's first territorial governor. Breaking Chains sheds light on a somber part of Oregon's history, bringing the story of slavery in Oregon to a broader audience. The book will appeal to readers interested in Pacific Northwest history and in the history of slavery in the United States.
A Force for Change is the first full-length study of the life and work of one of Oregon's most dynamic civil rights activists, Beatrice Morrow Cannady. Between 1912 and 1936, Cannady tirelessly promoted interracial goodwill and fought segregation and discrimination. She gave hundreds of lectures to high school and college students and shared her message with radio listeners across the Pacific Northwest. She was assistant editor, and later publisher, of The Advocate, Oregon's largest African American newspaper. Cannady was the first black woman to graduate from law school in Oregon, and the first to run for state representative. She held interracial teas in her home in Northeast Portland and protested repeated showings of the racist film The Birth of a Nation. And when the Ku Klux Klan swept into Oregon, she urged the governor to act quickly to protect black Oregonians' right to live and work without fear. Despite these accomplishments, Beatrice Cannady fell into obscurity when she left Oregon in the late 1930s. A Force for Change illuminates Cannady's key role in advocating for better race relations in Oregon in the early decades of the twentieth century. It describes her encounters with the period's leading black artists, editors, politicians, and intellectuals, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Oscar De Priest, Roland Hayes, and James Weldon Johnson. It dispels the myth that African Americans played little part in Oregon's history and it enriches our understanding of the black experience in Oregon and the civil rights movement across the country. Book jacket.Beatrice Morrow Cannady & the struggle for civil rights in Oregon, 1912-1936
James D. Saules and the black maritime world -- The United States Exploring Expedition and American imperialism in the Age of Sail
Oregon's Black Pioneers
- Stream
- For decades, Oregon legally excluded black people from settling in the region. Despite racists laws and attitudes, some came anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment