Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (July 3, 1980)
I I i i |B „ Portland Observer July 3. ISSO P blacks and the Police in Portland Justice °rders Black wring Pert I By J. Boles The Portland Police Association has taken itself to court to fight a new civil service rule which would create two lists o f potential new cops, and the Black United Front is running a hotline to gather data fot possible court action against the Portland Police Bureau for alleged racially prejudiced behavior. These are the two events in the local headlines recently, but it has to be remembered that they are only the latest local legal stopping places in a peculiar American history, for unique in human history is the story of the Black American. Up from a legal servitude that detined him before the world as subhuman and which allowed white America to rule him with pain and terror, the Black American has risen to a place where his right to equal treatm ent is usually the stated public policy. The heritage o f slavery continues to trouble us all, and continues to be a factor fo r Am erica all over the world: witness the Iranian terrorists cynical release o f Black hostages early in the Tehran standoff. Oregon has been no better to Blacks than any other northern state. It bigotry has been expressed less frequently here, it is probably because there are fewer Blacks here. Probably no more than 30,000 at present in Portland. Blacks num bered less than one-third o f one per cent o f O regon’ s p o p u la tio n in 1920, according to E. K im bark MacColl writing in his recent book, “ The Growth o f a C ity.” There are about 2,500 in P ortland then. A bout 3,000 by 1927. By 1950, 9,500, over h a lf o f whom lived Williams Avenue - Albina area. It was no accident that Blacks here concentrated themselves in a small area. O ffic ia l public policy encouraged this, for whites feared their property values would fall if Blacks lived near them. M acColl cites sources which indicate that the Portland Board o f Realtors enfor ced sanctions against members who allowed Blacks to buy property anywhere else in town. And the o f fic ia l policy o f the H ousing A u th o rity o f Portland maintained segregated housing. The number o f Blacks jumped during W orld War II when many came to work in the shipyards. They were housed in crackerbox develop ments in Vanport and the Guilds Lake areas. After the war, the Van- port Hood conveniently solved the problem o f what to do w ith the area, and Blacks flooded out o f th e ir residences either relocated quickly in the Albina section or left town. The Guilds Lake area was disposed o f by HAP to make room for industrial development with very little e ffo rt made to relocate the residents. Newspaper accountgs o f the Vanport flo o d are notably lacking the kind o f “ human in terest” reporting that such a disaster in a white neighborhood would have generated. About one-third o f the Black work force in Portland found itself unemployed in 1947, for jobs were denied them in most sectors. The N ational Urban League described Portland in 1947 as “ just like any southern town...the most prejudiced city in the West.” Public policy exuded racism even at the highest levels in the state, for it was not until 1953 that the Oregon legislature passed a public accom m odations b ill that outlawed discrim ination in public industry, who feared that mixing races was “ bad business.” And it took Oregon 60 years longer than the federal government to repeal por tions o f its constitution that denied suffrage to nonwhites. Police attitude The battle for equal opportunity at jobs has taken many forms in recent decades, beginning with A. Phillip Randolph's organization o f the sleeping car porters in the late 1920s and 1930s. These and other menial jobs were in general all that were available to Blacks until the late 60s. The concentration on railroad jobs created an early day Black neighborhood that isn’ t there anymore: the North Burnside area, where about 1,000 Blacks lived to be near their jobs. Local police were on record as calling it "coon tow n,” and the area had a reputation for toughness. This indication o f a police a t titude toward Blacks is supported by Det. Robert Janisse, a Black 8-year veteran o f the P ortland Bureau, who cites a commonly-held belief J - - - The Department o f Justice ob tained a consent decree today requiring the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, police and fire departments to hire and prom ote more Black persons and women. Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti said the decree was filed in U.S. District court in Fort Lauder dale, F lo rd ia , resolving an em ployment discrimination suit filed at the same tim e. The decree w ill become final upon approval by the court. The suit charged the city with violating the C ivil Rights Act o f 1964 and the nondiscrim inatio n provisions o f the revenue sharing and law enforcement funding laws by pursuing employment policies that discriminate against Blacks and women. The suit said there are only six Blacks and 13 women among the city’ s 405 police officers and four blacks and no women among the 275 fire fighters. that sort o f thing, but we weren’t in terested in that...We were more in terested in trying to effect some plans...w e came up w ith several things.” The Black United Front, for one thing, issued a sheet o f information fo r persons dealing w ith police. Despite a disturbing similarity to a list o f instructions for persons living in an occupied territory, and a fu r ther kinship w ith the rules and regulations o f apartheid South Africa, the list o f instructions found favor with Capt. Kuntz o f North Precinct: “ I thought it was very well-written. There was good per tinent inform ation, and 1 thought that in that case did a distinct service to the community, because it did a great deal to alleviate the questions that people have when they get stopped." * W /'a.. DET. ROBERT JANISEE FREDDYE PETTET about police among Blacks: “ For so long police have been viewed as being oppressive to m inorities specifically, and there’ s a lot o f justification for th a t...if you look back at history o f not only the Port land police department but police departments all over the country, usually when they were first organized one o f their specific pur poses was to keep Blacks in line, and they were beatin heads and throwin people in jail. Kids growing up still believe that’ s the way it is...” concern...all the person was doing was taking the complaint and giving it to an attorney or a citizen’ s com mittee...nothing was being done ex cept accepting a com plaint, so I can’ t really understand why it was such a p ro b le m .” )the Urban League contracts with the city to provide the Youth Service Center, and objectors claimed operating the hotline conflicted w ith that con tract). “ To this date I don’t accept that there was a conflict with the contract,” Pettet adds. The Urban League official adds that the hotline is still getting one or two calls a week, “ but that’s con siderably lower than what it was three or four months ago...l think i t ’ s im portant that o ffice rs in whatever community that they’re in understand that their behavior if unacceptable is going to be repor ted.” Police response REVEREND JOHN JACKSON The lis t, according to Rev. Jackson, instructed citizens not to run away, to keep their hands in sight o f an officer at all times, to have a reason for being in a white neighborhood, etc. The Black U nited Front also talked with an official at Emanual Hospital about photographing vic tim s o f beatings, according to Jackson, and set up contacts with lawyers to work on the civil and crim inal complaints against police o ffic e rs , and form ulated other plans. A nd, it set up a hotline fo r gathering data about police behavior in the Black community. S y OFFICER DWIGHT FORD O ffic e r D w ight F ord, a Black with three years on the bureau who now works in minority recruitment, is more direct: “ I t ’ s been a tra d itio n a l thing. Blacks in the community have viewed the police bureau, and oftentimes rightly so, as an extension o f oppression because when the crap hits the fan, who comes in? W ho does the beating, stompin and kickin? And I don’ t mean that happens necessarily today...a lot o f people still believe that that happens in the Black community.” Black proteat BUF Hotline Information about this hotline is hard to find. Ronnie Herndon, the co-leader with Rev. Jackson of the Black United Front, says the BUF is on the verge o f having enough data in affadavits to go to a lawyer and begin proceedings to find the City of Portland in contempt o f court based on an out-of-court settlement o f an Am erican C iv il Liberties Union lawsuit brought some years ago. H erndon and Jackson believe promises made then to the Black community have not been kept. Herndon says the phone line (s s till collecting in fo rm a tio n . The num ber he gives is 288-9160, a num ber also found on posters around the community. This num ber belongs to the Urban League in its offices on N. Vancouver. However, on tw o separate oc casions, a caller to this number seeking in fo rm a tio n about the hotline was referred to Avel Waters M ayfied at 288-6708, a number which answers in the Urban League Youth Service Center at King N eighborhood F a c ility on NE Seventh Avenue. Ms. Waters Mayfield denied on both occasions that she knew anything about the hotline, becoming moderatly defen sive in doing so. She referred both callers back to the Urban League. Enough people, apparently, for 75 to 100 to turn out at a meeting called by the Black United Front last year, according to Rev. John Jackson o f the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, a Black man long active in civil rights locally, and a gravelly- voiced orator whose eyes always seem to reproach a listener. In Jackson’ s own words: “ Well, last summer when we were in the process o f putting together some ideas (about school desegregation), we kept getting these expressions, “ When you going to do something about the police? When you going to do something about the police? Politics As Usual So one T h u rsday,...w e held a Freddye Pettet, executive director meeting and asked all the people o f the Urban League and former that had been accosted in any staffer fo r M ayor Neil Goldsch way,...and they came out...and they midt, says the Urban League is in had a lot o f complaints, but the only deed answering the number, and problem was that they were so up adds that the former location in the set, m ilita n t, and so vigorously King Facility made more sense at the desiring to do som ething, we tim e because that o ffice is open co u ld n ’ t q u ie t’ em down long from 8 a.m. to midnight. However, enough to talk about the possibility there was an o ffic ia l objection and plan and so forth...we felt that raised over locating the hotline in a what they were saying ought not to city facility like the King Center. have been said pub licly, because Pettet believes "th e objection was to they were setting themselves up to having a hotline, period, that point be molested, or to be troubled by was never raised when we had, when the police...They wanted to march it was w ith school desegregation down to the police station, and all issues...the school district raised no Neither C hief Bruce Baker nor Commissioner Charles Jordan is aware o f the specific accomplish ments o f the hotline, though Baker notes that his office gets more com plaints than that from white citizens alone. Police Commissioner Jor dan, who says he has a “ relation ship” with Ron Herndon, has had no recent in fo rm a tio n about the hotline. Baker says that “ i f they have gathered any information then I wish they would share it with us.” Stan Peters, president o f the Port land Police Association is emphatic about the hotline: “ I think they’re misguided and misguided and misinformed and they have tunnel vision. Narrow-minded and near sighted. I think Ron Herndon hasn’t the foggiest idea o f what goes on in the real world. I think he has an ax to grind or something. He’s got his own thing going and whatever that is 1 don t k n o w .” Peters is unacquainted with Rev. Jackson. STAN PETERS H erndon, a slender, fragile- looking form er Reed College student described in one newspaper article as “ the engine” behind a sit- in in 1968 at Reed in which the protesters demanded and got a Black Studies program at that school, is an educator and former participant in Volunteers In Service To Am erica (V IS T A ). He has emerged as the main spokesman for the Black United Front, though his involvement in the struggle for his peopie’ s rights is not new. He notes with a laugh that when he sent away for his FBI file a couple o f years ago, the o n ly thing the August federal agency could find on him was a tra ffic citation in Coffeyville, Kansas, more than a decade ago. — — — Drew S. Days. I l l , Assistant A t torney General in charge o f the Civil Rights D ivision, said the consent decree requires Fort Lauderdale to seek to attain a goal o f employing Blacks in 11.25 precent o f the police and fire jobs and o f hiring sufficient women to eliminate discrimination. To meet this goal, the city is required to hire Blacks for 30 per cent o f the police and fire vacancies in each o f the next five years, the city is also required to hire women for 30 percent o f police vacancies and in proportion to the number of men and women who apply for fire fighter vacancies for the same time period. Mr. Days said the decree also en joins the city from engaging in any discrim inatory employment prac tice, provides for the promotion of Blacks and women in proportion to their eligibility and forbids the city to use unvalidated hiring tests as an excuse for failure to meet the hiring goals. $100 total move in to vets low down FHA, FHA 246. and conventional terms also, model open Sat. & Sun. noon to 5 p.m. 92nd Ave. at Burton Road. Vancouver. Washington. Call for a showing anytime. ■■ "W" a This Model - 4 bedrooms with family room, 2 baths, brick fireplace, w/carpets, double garage, appliances, 10X20 concrete patio. Energy ef ficient with 10 year Home Owner Warranty. Price only $58,800. Other Models priced from $48,500. HAZEL DELL BRANCH 716D N.E. 99th Street Vancouver, W A 98665 Phone 206-574-1522 Vancouver or 503-241-3723 Portland, OR MINNEHAHA BRANCH 47 St. Johns Road Vancouver, W A 98661 Phone 206-694-8577 Vancouver or 503 223 8229 Portland, OR Pacific Citizen Power o f the Week Betty Thompson is an idealist, yet is busy working in practical programs to make life more fruitful for others. Mrs. Thompson has been active in club work since the age of eight, and prior to coming to Oregon in 1964 she was President of the Association of Colored Women's Clubs in Wyoming. She recently completed six years as President of the Oregon Associa tion of Colored Women's Clubs and is a Past Regional President. Her interest in club work is not merely sociel, but is a way of providing scholarships and promoting education. She has served in all areas of the War on Poverty effort. She was on the organizing committee and later on the board of the Albina Citizens War on Poverty Committee; was a volunteer, board member and later an employee of PMSC; and for a time was acting director of the Foster Grandparents Program, a fun ded program. She has typically been employed in management, and was responsible for establishing the Crisis Unit at the Albina Human Resource Center. A former member of the Governor's Committee on Aging, she is a member of the board of the Senior Adult Service Center and is secretary of the Task Force to establish a senior center. Having served on many boards and committees, Mrs. Thompson is currently on the Board of Metropolitan Family Services. She is a member of St. Philip Episcopal Church. Mrs. Thompson and her husband, Vernon, have raised four children - Connie, Gail, Frank and Linda. BROUGHTTO YOU BY Pacific Power . ■ • • ■