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Racism in Oregon: An Egregious History continued from page 8
early 1970s, due in part to continuing
discrimination, inner city poverty, and
the rise of the Black Power movement,
with riots leading to wide spread vio-
lence and damage to neighborhoods. A
riot erupted in the Albina neighborhood
of Portland on July 30, 1967. The as-
sassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
on April 4, 1968, followed by the kill-
ing of Robert Kennedy on June 5, led to
even more unrest across the country. At
the Summer Olympic games in Mexico
City in the summer of ‘68 U.S. track
sprinters Tommie Smith and John Car-
los raised black gloved fists in a “black
power salute” and bowed their heads on
the medal stand during the playing of the
National Anthem. Their image became
a symbol of the troubling times and the
continuing oppression of blacks in the
United States.
African Americans weren’t the
only ones dissatisfied with the Ameri-
can government in the late 1960s and
early 70s. Protests broke out on college
campuses against the Vietnam War, of-
ten leading to violence. On May 4, 1970
National Guard troops at Kent State Uni-
versity in Ohio opened fire on students
during a protest and four students, all
white, were killed, and nine other stu-
dents wounded. That event received a
wave of publicity and notoriety. Less
remembered is an incident at Jackson
State University in Mississippi, eleven
days after Kent State, where state police
fired on black students, killing two and
wounding 11. Also mostly forgotten is
the Orangeburg Massacre in February
1968 where South Carolina highway pa-
trolmen shot and killed three black stu-
dents and wounded 27 others during a
protest on the campus of South Carolina
State University.
**
Amidst all this civil unrest, the
University of Oregon in Eugene started
a unique program in 1968 called Proj-
ect 75. The program was designed to
increase their African American popula-
tion on campus, giving scholarships to
75 students each year for several years
as a way to accomplish their goal. In
2018, on the 50 th anniversary of the start
of Project 75 OPB did an interview with
one of the alumni, Carla Gary.
Gary was an Oregon resident
who, along with the other students re-
cruited from across the country for Proj-
ect 75, knew there were high expecta-
tions for them. “We were to be, first and
foremost, academic scholars, working
toward degrees,” said Gary in the OPB
interview. “But we knew, without any-
one having to tell us, that we were going
to change the culture of the institution.
We were going to ask different questions
because we lived different experiences.
Being black in America, you live duali-
ties all the time, so we knew what was
expected. It was a chance for us to rep-
resent ourselves as both students and our
community.”
Gary later returned to the Uni-
versity of Oregon to work as an Assis-
tant Vice President, and now runs a con-
sulting firm in Eugene. When asked her
“big picture view” of what has changed
at the University of Oregon since she
started there, she noted that a new Black
Culture Center was getting ready to open
on the campus. “I never imagined that
that would have happened,” said Gary.
She also noted the large number of black
students from Portland attending the
University and the increase in black fac-
ulty members, as exciting changes.
When asked how the white col-
lege community, as well as the commu-
nity of Eugene, responded to the African
American students, Gary noted that it
was an interesting time for the City of
Eugene. “It was very disconcerting and
people were really frightened that we
had overrun the city,” said Gary. “There
were comments in the newspaper. In a
grocery store a white woman asked me,
‘Where did you all come from – there
are so many of you.’ I was from Oregon
and I wasn’t surprised, but some of the
students were from places like Missis-
sippi and they bristled at that, because
they knew what that meant and they
thought they had come to a place where
that wasn’t going to be an issue. I re-
member one of my friends saying, ‘This
feels like home.’”
Off campus, Gary said things
were even worse for the Project 75 stu-
dents. “I don’t feel this way today – I
still live in Eugene – but there were parts
of Springfield, and parts of Eugene we
did not go. We did not go because we
did not feel safe. I know there are people
who can’t believe this, but when we went
to school here there were still ‘sundown
laws’ that said African Americans and
Native Americans – ‘off the street’ by
sundown, or no one could be responsible
for your safety. There are still people
who don’t know the history of this state.”
**
Today in Oregon, African Americans,
along with other racial and religious
minorities, still face discrimination and
abuse. But while a culture of white su-
premacy still exists, changes are happen-
ing.
In March of 2019, Oregon At-
torney General Ellen Rosenblum testi-
fied in the State Senate in favor of SB
577 which would give assistance to in-
dividuals and communities impacted by
hate crimes, and would modernize Or-
egon’s hate crime laws. It would place
Oregon among a very few states that ad-
dress “bias incidents.”
Currently under Oregon law, the
crime of intimidation can be charged in
the first degree – which is a felony, only
if two or more people harm another per-
son because of “that person’s race, color,
religion, sexual orientation, disability,
or national origin.” If a person moti-
vated by prejudice acts alone, it’s only
intimidation in the second degree – a
misdemeanor. That’s what happened in
the case of Russell Courtier when he ran
down and murdered Larnell Bruce, Jr. It
was also the case with Jeremy Christian
who stabbed the two men to death on
the MAX after his racist rant. Neither
were charged with a felony hate crime.
Rosenblum is hoping to change that.
“While the number (of hate crimes) is
frightening, the truth is we don’t know
as much as we should be able to about
hate and bias crimes. The only thing we
do know is that they’re consistently un-
derreported,” Rosenblum said in her tes-
timony.
Representative Janelle By-
num, who had police called on her
when she was canvassing in her
district, is also taking action. She
sponsored HB 3409, which passed
unanimously in the House in April
of this year following the incident at
St. Helens High School where black
student athletes were subjected to ra-
cial taunts and slurs. HB 3409 lim-
its school districts in Oregon from
becoming a member of any organi-
zation that administers or facilitates
interscholastic activities if they do
not implement policies to address and
transparently respond to incidents of
derogatory or inappropriate behavior.
Representative Bynum has also
sponsored HB 3216 which would make
it an offense to unlawfully summon a po-
lice officer, with fines of up to $250, “for
reasons other than a suspected criminal
activity with intent to cause specified
harm,” – similar to what happened to her
when she was canvassing. HB 3216 also
passed in the House unanimously this
April.
Bynum’s take away from the
canvassing incident says a lot about, not
just what kind of legislator she is, but
also about what kind of person she is.
“What constitutes suspicious behavior,
and on whose part?” asked Bynum dur-
ing her interview with OPB.
“When trying to understand
what happened – and race is a compo-
nent in it – I think the most important
thing that I’m really fighting for is for
people not to jump to conclusions based
on race,” said Bynum. “People want me
to say this is completely about race. And
I’m not completely there yet because I
don’t know what the woman [who called
the police] was thinking. I don’t know
what her experience was five minutes
before she saw or felt like she needed
to report. I don’t know. The same grace
I am offering her is what I would like
for people to be offered when they are
in front of a judge, or in front of a jury,
or when I come to the door and I ask
for your vote. I want you to assume the
best in me. I don’t want you to fill in the
blanks about how bad I might be.”
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