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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
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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.
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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
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