Portland Observer Section I I Thursday, June 29, 1978 Page J
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A n NA A CP Pioneer
by Gregory Gudger
Marie Record Smith, wearing a sleeveless, blue Rower-print dress, sat at her small
dining room table with a pitcher o f juice, beating the heat and humidity outside, in the
evening coolness o f her home.
The whole setting was characteristic o f this veteran o f the wars for equality and
human rights; adapting to meet the challenge.
Ms. Smith, still very scrappy at “ 70 and above,” is, and has been active with the
N A A C P for over 41 years, making her the “ Grand Dame” o f the Portland Chapter
which will host the 69th Annual National Convention o f the nation’s oldest Civil
Rights organization July 3rd-7th. For all o f her struggling for the cause o f human and
civil rights, her battlescars are far outshone by her numerous decorations o f merit.
Last year, for example, she received the Russell A . Peyton Humanitarian Award
from the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission. The year before. Mayor Neil
Goldschmidt proclaimed June 3, 1976 Marie Smith Day for her dedication, deter
mination and service to the Greater Portland Community. In 1950, she was named
“ Negro Citizen o f the Year” ; a first to accompany being the first woman president o f
the Portland Chapter o f the N A A C P (1949-50).
Though age and the advent o f new champions have slowed her some, Ms. Smith
remains active with church activities and the N A A C P .
Looking ahead to the convention, and appropriately enough in retrospect, the
greatest accomplishment o f the local chapter, she feels, makes it possible for the
^ N A A C P convention to be held here: passage o f the state Public Accommodation Law.
“ Just before,” she said, recalling in local Branch’s lobbying efforts for mandated
equal rights, “ we got a little old FEP (Fair Employment Practices) bill with no teeth in
it. But, each time we got one passed, they got better and better.”
The local Branch didn’t have the money to compete with well-financed lobbying ef
forts, she recounted, but a ministerial group organized by N A A C P National and
headed locally by a fiery young Methodist Minister named Harold Jones I I I , put on
pressure that may have affected the decision.
“ We really had no trouble getting the Multnomah Delegation to vote for our bill; we
had to influence the legislators from the southern part o f the state,” Ms. Smith said of
the N A A C P strategy.
“ We got permission from the Bishop (Bishop Gerald Kennedy o f the Methodist
Church) to write 500 letters to white ministers to convince them and to appeal to the
church people.”
The key, she said, as to combat the ignorance o f those in areas where there were no
or few Blacks. “ Ignorance is the basis for prejudice; the people didn’t even know what
was happening.
“ Portland benefitted much more than we d id ,” she said noting the increased income
o f hotels as a result o f opening a new market. Prior to the bill’s passage into law
Blacks had to rent entire hotels to have gatherings. The Y W C A , to which Ms. Smith
was the first (again) Black member, refused to have it’s conventions in Portland
because o f the city’s segregation policies.
Now, with some 8,000 money-lodged conventioneers coming (enough to fill 30
large hotels), the effects and benefits o f the N A A C P ’s efforts are quite lucid.
This year’s convention will be the second attended by Ms. Smith. The first was the
1956 convention in San Francisco. During her tenure as the first woman president of
the Portland chapter, Ms. Smith let others who were younger attend instead. “ As a
member o f the Eastern Star and having attended so many o f their conventions, I want
ed others to benefit from the experience,” she said.
Marie Smith
Ms. Smith well remembers the 1956 convention, however, because it marked the
national debut of a rising young political star. A fter the youthful southern minister’s
speech, she recalls, “ A . Phillip Randolph told him that he was a God sent young man,
and that he was going to make a place in this world.” That 20-ish southerner was M ar
tin Luther King, Jr.
This year’s convention emphasizes youth: youth unemployment is a priority issue as
well as academic excellence which is encouraged with the advent o f the Afro-Academic
Cultural and Technological Olympics competition.
Young people have always been a concern for Ms. Smith, having worked for most of
her life with church youth groups as teacher and church superintendent.
In the ‘40s she had fought to have racially biased literature like "L ittle Black Sam
bo,” removed from school curriculums.
During her tenure as president, she helped organize the local N A A C P Youth Council
and sponsored an awards ceremony to honor Black graduates from high school and
college. In the program for the 1949 awards, familiar names o f currently active and
community-oriented individuals appear: King Neighborhood Facility Director James
Loving, Dentist Samuel Brown, and T. V. Newsman Richard Bogle, among others.
Ms. Smith is concerned, however, with what she feels is a retrogression o f Portland
schools.
“ The schools are going backward. A t one time, Oregon had some o f the best schools
anywhere. Now, you find teachers who just don’t know how to handle Blacks in a
class.” She feels one-sided busing is divisive and detrimental to both students and
neighborhoods.
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She hopes that the convention takes up the issue o f local schools. "Schools are where
we can change things because that’s where kids spend a great deal o f their day.”
Progressive, however, some problem areas still exist ( “ we have problems while we're
living and undercover when we die,” she injected during a discussion o f segreated
graves). “ W hat we have to remember,” she added, “ is to keep the worst from over
shadowing the good.”
Welcome to Portland
69th Annual
NAACP
National Convention'
Benjamin Hooks, Executive Director
National NAACP
Rev. John H. Jackson, President
NAACP Portland Branch