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September 12, 1990
"The Eyes and Ears o f The Community"
B
u 1 s ? i 5 w " e ! s
£
Gregory Gudger
Attorney At Law
Internal Strength
The mother of an adopted
little girl explains the
traumas and triumphs of
raising a child.
PAGE 2
Lillian Herzog
Founder of the "Reading
Tree" and advocate of
adult literacy died on
Sept. 7.
PAGE 3
Donald Dixon
The new basketball coach
of Portland Community
College divulges his
insights and expectations
of the forthcoming sea­
son.
PAGE 4
Learning to Love
Without Conditions
Ullysses Tucker examines
unconditional love and
intimate relationships
PAGES
MINORITY AND FEMALE applicants in record numbers showed up at Portland State University on
Friday to take the Portland Fire Bureau’s first firefighter examination in three years Among the 190
minority applicants were 72 African Americans-67 men and five women. Commissioner Dick Bogle, who
oversees the Fire Bureau, said he “expects to see improved minority and female representation in the
very near future."
Alright, Parents-Community:
Let's "Do the Right Thing"
It has been a view which at
times has been encouraging and at other
orty years o f interaction with this
times depressin g -as when I returned
from a sojourn in California to find that
com m unity-businesses and pro­
the key Black business area, schools,
fession, teaching, com m unity organiza­
churches and adjoining real estate owned
tions, designing and implementing pro-
by African Americans had been wiped
g ra m s-h a s given me an uncommon
out by freeways and the Coliseum Com ­
insight into its people, structure and
plex. This “ Urban R enew al” process
culture. Like others here, I have a per­
“ Urban “ Rem oval” ) had happened of
sonal and often intimate acquaintance
course all over the nation, but it is not
with “ three generations’ ’ o f many fam i­
this Particular Traum a as such that 1
lies, translating into many hundreds of
wish to exam ine here. Rather, as I stated
families and individuals in this sector of
last w eek, I wish to suggest and outline
the Pacific Northwest.
BY PROFESSOR MCKINLEY BURT
F
Elected Officials To Tour
New Multnomah County
Gang Programs
Follow ing a May, 1990 Legislative
E m e rg e n c y B oard d isc u ssio n o f
M ultnomah C ounty’s needs, state legis­
lative leaders gave M ultnom ah County a
green light to begin hiring staff and set­
ting up program s to stay abreast o f ex-
pectedsum m er gang violence. Six weeks
later at the July Em ergency Board m eet­
ing, $1.1 m illion was appropriated for
gang programs. This appropriation trig­
gered an additional $800,000 from the
G overnor’s office and C hildren’s Serv­
ices Division, making a total o f $1.9
m illion available for a com prehensive
package o f services to reduce youth gang
crim e in M ultnomah County. Forty new
staff were hired in July, trained in A u­
gust, and new programs opened for busi­
ness on September 1.
The $1.9 m illion is being used to
fund:
♦ A 20 bed, 30-day detention p ro ­
gram that will be used to house gang
involved youth. Education, counseling,
alcohol and drug treatm ent, and mental
health assessments will be available on
site.
♦The Gang Resources Intervention-
Team. This team is a specialized proba­
tion unit operating with significantly
reduced caseloads. The new funding
allowed probation counselors caseloads
to be reduced from 40 to 20.
♦ A wide range of services for gang
youth on probation. These services in­
clude education, mental health, alcohol
and drug and em ploym ent raining.
♦ 5 beds at the House o f Umoja.
O ver the course o f the year, this
package o f services is expected to im ­
prove public safety, divert youth from
involvem ent in gang activity, and reduce
the num ber of delinquents committed to
the McClarcn School for Boys. Approxi­
mately 300 youth a year will be served
by this program.
to PARENTS and community a number
o f survival and remedial steps to staunch
the flow o f vital forces from the very
arteries o f our existence here.
Many cultural and learning
diabilities proceed directly from such
dislocations o f the urban environment
as described above. A people perform
best when possessed o f a CULTURAL
CONTINUITY that encompasses tradi­
tions and institutions transmitted from
generation to generation. I can well re-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
BY_ULLYSSES TUCKER, JR.
regory G udger’s dream to be a
lawyer started as a youngster grow­
ing up in W ashington, D.C. He always
wanted to advocate for the underdog or
people less fo. lunate. W hy the less fortu­
nate? Because G udger him self grew up
adm ist crime, violence, poverty, and
racism. W hen his friends chose the
criminal lifestyle, Gudger opted for the
books and worked hard for a better life.
After graduating from McKinley Tech­
nical High School in 1969, G udger en­
rolled in college three- thousand miles
away at the University of Oregon’s School
o f Journalism. The riots of 1968 left him
with some painful memories and he wanted
to get away. He has been an Oregonian
ever since. In the Pacific Northwest,
Gudger found inner peace and space to
grow as a professional.
Since his graduation from the U of O
(Spring, 1975), Gudger has spent the
bulk o f his career working as a journalist
and with the Metropolitan Human Rela­
tions Commission. At the Commission,
he started as a Human Relations Special­
ist and Program Coordinator before en­
rolling at W illiam ette U niversity to
complete his dream. He later cam e back
to MHRC after graduation from Law
School in 1968. Gudger has received
countless awards for his community
involvement, professional endeavors, and
volunteer efforts. He was also voted by
the Downtowner M agazine as one of the
“ O regonians To Shape Portland In The
90’s ” .
A divorced father o f three beautiful
daughters (Imani Sertha, 14; Eboni Sagi-
rah, 5: and Neysa Andrea, 4), G udger
glows when he talks about achieving his
lifelong dream and the challenges he
faces daily as a lawyer. How does a
person go from being a journalist to
leading a human rights organization to
being an attorney?
G udger-” One does that by follow­
ing a common thread or by dedicating
your life to a certain area. I view m yself
as a communicator. I view m yself as an
activist and advocate. I also view m yself
as a person, who is dedicated to helping
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
Marion Barry: Can We Talk Now That
the Smoke Has Cleared?
BY ULLYSSES TUCKER, JR._______
"...Well, it is argued, Mayor Barry
is a person o f celebrity, a role model. So
are many rock singers, film actors, and
athletes who in recent years have con­
fessed to drug use. Few i f any such
persons have persued and prosecuted as
has B arry..."
Benjamin L. Hooks
Executive Director
NAACP
W ashington Post, 1990
Now that the primary smoke has
cleared from the recent drug trial of
W ashington, D.C. Mayor, Marion Barry,
I will attem pt to share my perspective as
a nation’s capital political insider (in the
ghetto) and journalist. As stated count­
less times to colleagues in the media
industry, there was no way in the world
that Marion Barry could be rode out of
town and to a Federal Pen as many ex ­
pected. In culturally polarized towns
like Boston, Chicago, Birmingham,
Cleveland, or possibly even St. Louis,
Barry would not have stood a chance
because the jury would not have been
majority black. W ashington D.C. is full
of black people, black churches, black
businesses, black radio stations, black
newspapers, and black people...it’s full
of black pow er. W hen you get only two
whites on a jury, in a city where Marion
Barry has touched and helped so many
families with services/jobs, there was no
way the charges would/could stick. I
won money on the outcom e, bcl ieve it or
not. People did not believe that it would
happen, the outcom e, like it did. I know
D.C. general attitude on the streets and
in the ghetto. Regardless of how much is
wrong in your life, the white man or fed­
eral governm ent is perceivd to be the
problem. Marion Barry got caught, in
their minds (the great majority) because
they set him u p -n o t because he was irre­
sponsible, used drugs for years, or lacks
regard for the law. The white man did
not make him take drugs. Barry took
drugs on his own free will. Had he not
been a drug abuser, he would have never
found him self in a position to be “ stung' ’
in a STING OPERATION.
W here does right and wrong come
into play here? I know the speed limits
established by the state of Oregon, its
DUI laws, the penalties for carrying a
concealed weapon without a permit, and
what will happen if 1 decided to sell
drugs and got caught. We all knoe right
from wrong. So does Marion Barry, who
knows he dodged a bullet in this case. I
used to say that Marion Barry had to ei­
ther be the smartest man in the world
D.C. had the dumbest law enforcement
people in the world, because he never
got caught. Now, I conclude that it’s the
latter. Barry is a dumb human being and
the law enforcement o f the city, who
allowed him to walk in several other
attem pts to “ bust” him, is just as shal­
low. Ever amazing, I talked to my grand­
mother shortly after the trial and she said
that Barry was still her mayor. I asked
why. “ Because he begged his pardon
and admitted his m istake.” There arc a
great many “ oldtim crs” , especially in
the black church, who feel the same way
as my grandmother. Besides, Barry helped
her to cut through miles of “ red tape”
when she had problems obtaining checks
from the Social Security Administration
after retirement. He has been God to her
ever since.
Barry had always been a “ grass-
root street hustler’ ’ or ’ ‘activist” to pul it
in the language acceptable to a Western
society. My first encounter with him
came as a thirteen year old, who worked
for a group called OPERATION PRIDE,
a grassroots or­
ganization that
employed young
people/ex-offend-
ers to spread rat
poison, clean up
allies, neighbor­
hoods, and areas
plagued by slum ­
lords or damaged
during the 1968
riots. He promoted
pride in the com ­
munity and pro­
vided thousands of
black people with
jobs.
W e took
pride in moving
old exars and being
called the RAT
PATROL.
One
dollar and sixty
cents per hour was
a lot in those days.
Barry had so much
p ow er on the
streets during the
riots that he liter­
ally told people to get off the streets and
go home. Mayor W alter E. W ashington,
the Mayor at the lime, stood aside help-
Photo by Ullysses Tucker, Jr.
Icssly. Barry rode the credibility straight
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6