A new exhibit sheds
light on Astoria’s
history of racism
and segregation
‘Blocked out’
BY PETER KORCHNAK
A new exhibit at the Clatsop County
Heritage Museum challenges visitors to
confront a somber side of Astoria’s history:
racial discrimination and segregation.
“Blocked Out: Race, Place, and the
Making of Modern Astoria,” on view now,
tells this often unknown story of Oregon’s
oldest town.
The centerpiece of the exhibit is a
graphic map of Astoria depicting, in red-
color overlays, locations where instances of
discrimination occurred.
The idea, according to Dr. Chelsea
Vaughn, curator for the Clatsop County
Historical Society, who organized the
exhibit, is to “connect racial discrimina-
tion to geographic space and locate ways
in which actual physical places perpetuated
and codified” these practices throughout
Astoria’s history.
The Astoria Column location is high-
lighted in the map because the year prior to
its construction, the Ku Klux Klan burned a
large cross atop Coxcomb Hill. Klan mem-
bers’ governance of Astoria in the 1920s led
to the collapse of Astoria’s Black commu-
nity, Vaughn said, pointing to census data.
Today’s American Legion building is on
the map as the 1940s site of a separate USO
that Black servicemen operated because
they were barred from fraternizing with
white soldiers (this was in the same space
where the klan had held meetings decades
earlier).
The historical society itself is in the red
zone because it had displayed Chief Com-
comly’s skull in the 1950s. “It’s very much
about being accountable as well,” Vaughn
said.
Texts, facsimiles and photographs sup-
port the historical narrative with spe-
cific, documented stories. The exhibition
eschews physical objects, Vaughn said, in
Photos by Peter Korchnak
Dr. Chelsea Vaughn, curator at the Clatsop County Historical Society, stands next to the new exhibit ‘Blocked Out: Race, Place, and the Making
of Modern Astoria’ at the Heritage Museum.
ABOVE: Ku Klux Klan masks
are seen in the exhibit.
LEFT: A photo of the Ku Klux Klan
at Columbia Field in 1924.
‘Blocked Out: Race, Place,
and the Making of Modern
Astoria’
On view at the Clatsop County Heritage
Museum
1618 Exchange St., Astoria
Visit astoriamuseums.org or call 503-325-
2203 for hours
See Page 15
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2021 // 11