King Neighborhood Facility seeks new space
u
The Portland School Board is
considering requesting the return of
five classrooms in the King Elemen
tary School building fo r use as
school space as part o f its intention
to provide space for Black students
who want to return to King. The
space is currently used by the King
Neighborhood Facility.
This year King has 710 students in
space that should provide for 525.
Science, math, curriculum labs,
a teachers’ w orkroom and two
general curriculum rooms have been
converted to classrooms.
The four classrooms have been
leased to KNF fo r twenty years,
ending in 1995. The rooms are used
by the Northeast Mediation Center,
Project BOOST, the Urban League,
the YMCA Extended Day Center,
and Highland Adult Program.
James Loving, director o f King
Neighborhood Facility, explained
that the Facility was built by the
C ity w ith federal Model Cities
tunds on property belonging to the
School D istrict. As part o f the
package, the Facility is provided the
five rooms, use o f the cafetorium,
and the School D is tric t is the
operating
agency.
“ If
the
classrooms w ithdraw n, besides
removing space we need, the Facility
would no longer be self-supporting.
We rent space to cover expenses,
and without this space, the city and
the school district would have to put
in $15,000.”
Loving suggests •• and has
suggested before - that the city and
school district build an extension to
the facility. " A two story extension
would provide a large meeting room
with a kitchen on the first floor, and
offices upstairs. This would give the
senior citizens, youth groups and
other organizations space for large
meetings and would have cooking
fa c ilitie s . W e c o nstantly have
requests for office space and are not
able to serve the community as we
should.
"A s far as I ’ m concerned, if they
will build us the space we need, they
can have the classrooms.”
••ATKMlât.
PORTLAND OBSERVER
« W P tS f«
USPS959 680
/
Volume 10 Number 2
January 17,1900
100 per copy
Portland organizations support rights suit
The Black United F ront, the
NAACP, Portland Branch, and the
Urban League o f Portland, Tuesday
endorsed and supported the civil
rights suit filed by Myra W illard
against the University o f Oregon.
Mrs. Willard, at that time A ffir
mative A ctio n O ffice r fo r the
University, filed a class action suit
in U.S. D istrict Court in July o f
1978, charging that the defendants
obstructed her in the performance
o f her duties by intentionally failing
to and refraining from itnplemen
ting an affirmative action program
developed and adopted for the pur
pose o f eliminating prohibited dis
crimination.
She also alleged that the defend
ants harassed and psychologically
abused her in the performance o f
her duties as affirmative action and
Title IX officer, with the intent to
terminate her employment. She was
denied tenure.
A 1979 on-site review by the
LEAA checks
Portland Police
On December 13, 1979 the Black
United Front requested that the O ff
ice of Revenue Sharing and the Law
Enforcement
Assistance
Ad
m in istration (I LE A ) investigate
P ortland police department for
vio la tio n o f federal regulations
Soprano. Gail Strong, daughter of M r. & Mrs. Luther Strong Sr.,
because o f racial discrimination in
recently visited Portland from Germany where she presently lives.
hiring Black officers. A reply has
She has performed in Germany, Vienna. Austria, and Italy where she
been received from the O ffice of
was a winner in the M ario Del M onaco International Voice C om
Revenue
Sharing stating that it is
petition.
gathering information regarding the
(Photo: Richard J. Brown)
com plaint. We expect to hear
quickly from LE AA
The complaint was filed because
only eleven Portland police officers
are Black out o f a force o f approx
imately 670 officers. Portland was
suppose to hire 30 new officers, only
one or two o f whom would have
been Black. No Black officers are in
The Portland Black Repertory has toured across the US, including
command positions.
Theatre is offering a four week ex Portland in I979, Survival.
The BUF learned that the
perimental Black I heatre W ork
Chicago and Los Angeles police
While in the US, Maredi has writ
shop through February 3rd.
ten several new works and has
departments have had federal
Directing the unique workshop, co-authored
w ith
American
money cut o ff because o f racial
which w ill explore Black acting playwrights. His play, Homelands,
discrimination in hiring and that the
techniques through improvisation, won the Villager Award and excited
Black police officers in New York
dance and music, is South African New York critics, and also won
City are sueing for the same reason.
actor, director and playwrite Selaelo nominations for the 1979 Audelco
The C ivil Rights D ivision o f the
Maredi. Maredi has been involved Black Theatre Awards in New York
Justice Department has filed a
in the theatre in South Africa since fo r Best P layw riting and Best
Friend o f the Court Brief in support
I964. In 19"71, against tremendous Dramatic Production.
o f the Black officers in New York
odds, he and some fellow Blacks
The Experimental Black Theatre
The Black United Front police
formed an experimental theatre Workshop is open to all interested
hot line, 288-9160, is still open for
workshop, open for all races.
artists. Beginners, students and
people who have been harassed or
The group worked for two years professional actors are encouraged
brutalized by the police.
on acting, playw riting, technical to participate. Registration fee is
Special thanks to the Urban
production and directing before $20. per person or $2.50 per class
League for making their numbers
presenting a play. From their im and can be paid at the workshop.
available for the hot line and to the
provisation
workshops,
they Participants should dress in leotards
N A A C P fo r putting the in fo r
produced several plays: Crossroads, and jeans or any non-restricting
mation flyers about the police in
Zzzip, Uhlanga, Smallboy, and the clothing. Call 249-2886 for in fo r
their newsletter.
highly acclaimed production what mation.
(Please turn to page 6 col. 3)
African playwrite leads
theatre workshops
Eugene branch, NAACP, revealed
that only 4.1 per cent o f the
graduate students at the University
in 1978 were minorities, including .8
per cent Black. When the suit was
filed, the University had only 11 per
cent women and .4 per cent Black
on its full-time tenured faculty.
Speaking for the Black United
Front, co-chairman Ronnie Hern
don said, “ We are painfully aware
o f the discrim ination that Black
people face in Oregon’s educational
system. From grade school to
graduate school, in stitu tio n a l
racism is a daily experience fo r
Black people. It is inexcusable for a
slate and federally supported
educational institution such as the
University o f Oregon to have such a
miniscule number o f tenured Black
faculty members. It is p itifu l that
the University o f Oregon recruits
Black athletes with more vigor than
it recruits and m aintains Black
faculty.”
Freddye Pettet, executive director
of the Urban League o f Portland,
said, “ Educational institutions are
central to any Black child’s dream
o f escaping the problems o f pover
ty. In many instances, education
and a ffirm a tiv e action plans
generate the only hope fo r the
unemployed individual. But reality
at most institutions shows that faith
may be misplaced. Even after ear
ning degrees, university doors, as
well as others, are often not open.
Discrim ination based on sex and
ethnic background keep those doors
tightly closed.”
Lucious Hicks, president o f the
P ortland Branch, N A A C P , ex
plained that the NAACP National
Convention
supported
Mrs.
W illard’s case last summer. He ad
ded the Portland Branch’s support.
“ For the first time, an affirmative
action o ffic e r, a Black woman,
squarely placed the blame fo r
discrim ination where it belongs:
with those institutions and top o f
ficials that neglect to implement the
mandate o f the United States
Congress for equal employment op
portunity.”
Third generation attends PSU
Three generations o f the McClen
don family o f Northeast Portland
gathered recently at M ultnom ah
County Library in downtown Port
land to celebrate the holiday visit of
daughter Ida Alice McClendon, Jr.-
as she prefers to be known—and to
note what all three share in com
mon: past or current enrollment at
Portland Stale University as well as
jiast or current employment with the
bounty libiary.
Mrs. Ida A. McClendon (right)
received a BS degree in Humanities
at PSU in 1957. She has worked in
the M ultnom ah County L ib ra ry
system ever since, except for periods
spent in Seattle while obtaining a
Master's degree in librarianship at
the U niversity o f W ashington.
Currently Mrs. McClendon serves
as head of the popular library at the
county lib ra ry ’ s central branch.
Mrs.
M cC lendon’ s husband,
W illiam H. M cClendon, Sr.,
teaches part-time in PSU’s Depart
ment of Black Studies. His full-time
position is Deputy Director o f A f
firmative Action in Oregon; Gover
nor Victor Atiyeh’ s office.
Like her mother, Ida Alice Mc
Clendon, J r., (le ft) majored in
humanities at PSU and was
graduated with a BS in 1966. During
her years at PSU she worked as a
page in Stack Services at the county
library, progressing to a directories
clerk in the Social Sciences section.
She now works in Berkeley as a
com m unications analyst in the
Communications Planning O ffice
o f the president at University o f
C a lifo rn ia ’ s system-wide ad
ministrative offices.
William H. McClendon, III (cen
ter) also is taking up the fam ily’ s
PSU academic tra d itio n . He
enrolled as a freshman last fall and
currently is studying Business A d
ministration, concentrating in the
accounting field. He works as a
Ida A. McClendon. Jr; William H. McClendon III and Ida A. M c
Clendon - three generations Involved In Portland State University.
Stack Services page at the library
which is so familiar to his aunt and
grandmother.
Two other McClendon fam ily
members also have pursued studies
at PSU in past years: Andrea Lee
McClendon-Sanders and W illiam
H. McClendon, Jr.
The stumbling giants and the present danger
By Richard Barnet
EDITORS NOTE: (The danger to
world peace arising from the Soviet
takeover in Afghanistan could be
graver than the 1962 Cuban tnissle
crisis, warns Richard J. Barnet,
former State Department official in
the Kennedy Administration. He is
the author o f many books in
cluding, “ The Roots o f War,” and
the forthcoming “ The Lean Years,
the politics o f the Age of Scarcity.”
Barnet, in his in flu e n tia l study,
“ The Giants: Russia and America,”
argued that inept leadership in both
superpowers paved the way for the
kind o f crisis we now face in the
Middle East.)
As the 1980s begin the w orld
seems closer to a major war than at
any time since the 1930s. Detente
has broken down under the pressure
o f a new militarist foreign policy
consensus in the U.S. and the Soviet
invasion o f Afghanistan. A political
chain reaction is building to the
point where the fragile bonds that
inhibit escalation to wider war may
be snapped.
The arms race in Europe is about
to take a giant step forward with the
decision to deploy cruise missies and
the continuing buildup o f Soviet SS-
20s. The Carter Adm inistration's
efforts to stop nuclear proliferation,
as inadequate as they were, are
being sacrificed to the “ new
re a lity .” Despite its defiance o f
U.S. a n ti-p ro life ra tio n policies,
Pakistan will be given aid in order to
punish the Russians for the invasion
o f Afghanistan and to deter further
aggression. Quick reaction forces,
U.S. bases in the Middle East and a
major rearmament program for the
next decade with a $2 trillion price
tage are, it now appears, the
inevitable consequences o f the
breakdown of detente.
The new cold war brewing is con
siderably more dangerous than the
cold war of 20 years ago, for the
rules o f the game have broken
down. Under the informal, implicit
rules o f the old cold war the U.S.
conducted military interventions in
Iran, Guatemala, the Dominican
Republic, Vietnam, Cambodia and
elsewhere and the Soviets invaded
Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
These were all violations o f
customary international law and the
UN Charter, but they did not con
travene the operational code o f the
cold war, which was based on
shared perceptions o f power. The
U.S. was free to dispatch its forces
around the world outside the Soviet
bloc w ithout courting a risk o f
nuclear war. The Soviet Union, as
the Cuban Missle Crisis showed,
was not. Outside the area occupied
at the end o f World War II by the
Red Army, Soviet expansionism was
contained.
With the invasion o f Afghanistan
the Soviets have demonstrated that
the old rules no longer apply. While
it is absurb to talk o f a shift in the
"balance of power,” the willingness
to send m ilitary forces outside the
Soviet bloc and to brook the predic
table consequences is new. And now
it raises new and disturbing
questions about possible further
moves.
By themselves the Afghan events
as the Soviets call them, do not har
bor the risk o f U.S. Soviet war. But
the political chain reaction already
in process has been speeded up.
Both superpowers are stumbling
badly, and this reality, rather than
the mythical Kremlin master plan, is
the most ominous threat to world
peace. Neither side appears able to
influence the behavior o f the other.
Also, the new cold war is being
played out against a background o f
much greater global instability than
was present 30 years ago. In the
Third W orld, too, old ground rules
have broken down. According to
o ffic ia l views, p op u latio n s were
supposed to be passive, not afire
with religious passion. The resour
ces o f the Third W orld were sup
posed to be cheap and easily
available to the industrial w orld.
Now most o f the global oil supply is
controlled by shaky T h ird W o rld
regimes and the pricing structure is
sending shock waves through the
industrial world.
In reaction to the collapse o f the
old rules, we have the clamor for
more bases, quick reaction forces
and
convert
p a ra -m ilita ry
operations. Yet military power is a
hopeless instrument for solving the
security problems o f the 1980s. It
did not deter the taking o f Iranian
hostages. N or could it achieve their
rescue. The massive nuclear arsenal
and the airborne divisions did not
keep
the
Russians
out
of
Afghanistan. We can establish bases
in the M id d le East and show the
fla g . But the bases w ill become
targets for sabotage and terrorism -
Please turn to page 3 col.