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m
Hage ó-'-The Portland Observer--M arch 20, 1991
One o f the senior m em bers o f Port­
land’s perform ing arts club is Ralph
Black, a singer/m usician o f refined tal­
ent and personable social grace. He
arrived in the Portland area in 1959, and
since that time, he has perform ed in
nearly every loung where jazz music is
played.
R alp h B lack
signed w ith the
World Pacific Jazz
label in 1962 and has
added his vocal ex­
pertise to such well-
known local groups
as Billy Larkin &
The Delegates, the
Ron Steen Trio, and
Tom G rant. F or |
those who can still Ralph Black
remember The Three Star Restaurant
and Lounge or the U pstairs Lounge,
both prom inent night spots of the late
1960s, an integral part o f those m em o­
ries is Ralph Black and his com petent
blend o f jazz and blues. In the early
1980s, he was a voice that could be
heard at Bourbon Street, where he and
his band. The Ralph Black ensem ble,
played nightly and on through the 8 0 ’s.
He graced the stages of Father’s, Atrium,
Third Avenue, and Brasserie Montmartre,
most recently having finished a two
Center Closure
Eminent Without
Funds...Now
From front page
The current am ount in arrears is ap­
proximately $20,000 including grow ­
ing interest and penalties.
In addition to letter w riting and
phone calling, Board Chair Ralph Davis
and Stan Peterson have contacted banks
in the community. It was hoped that a
Ioan could be arranged using the build­
ing as collateral. The building is free
and clear and valued at about S 150,000.
It was planned that the proceeds from a
loan of approximately S50.000 would
be used to pay o ff the past due and
current IRS bill and some other opera­
tional bills also past due. The balance
of the proceeds would be used to help
meet operating costs for a few months
until the current funding campaign could
get into full swing and anticipated fund­
ing could begin to materialize. Those
plans include but are not limited to
applying for some 8 to 10 grants, in
person presentations to 5 to 7 key con­
tributors with substantial means to help
the Center, a fee increase (anticipated
April 1 5 ,1991)and an all out campaign
to appeal to the members o f the com ­
munity, countless numbers that have
been somehow connected with the Center
down through the years. There are plans
to appeal again to the community
churches, after an unsuccessful attempt
in October 1990. Virtually all the
churches have m em bers with connec­
tions to the C enter and several of the
churches have used the Center facili­
ties in past years and som e conducted
worship services before they went on to
obtain their own building. It was al­
ways M iss Collins policy was not to
charge for use o f the building. One
Board member commented recently that
if every person who has gone through
the Center would give ju st $20.00, there
would be enough money to take care of
the pressing problem s until the new
funding efforts pay off.
A fter all these years of tireless
service to the com m unity and a battle
with C hildren’s Services Division, it
would appear that this institution may
not survive this situation with IRS. It is
estimated that the Center has until March
15 before operations will be forced to a
halt. There is yet optim ism that one of
a few things will take place: the com ­
munity will respond in mass, some
generous benefactor will step in with a
bridge loan, or the IRS will somehow
grant the Center another month.
If you have resources or ideas that
will help the Center with this pressing
need, you are encouraged to contact
Stan Peterson at the C enter of Ralph or
A Lion At Bay?
Representative Katz Urges Governor
Roberts To Continue Gang Fight
Paint The Town Black
year billing at The Lake, where he com ­
bined his talents with those o f Benny
W ilson.
His interest in community activi­
ties became known when he partici­
pated in a fund raiser for Jesse Jackson
during the 1988 Presidential campaign,
and his resume now
includes the Vice
presidency of the
Colton Club Revis­
ited Foundation that
exists to provide
College scholarships
for musically gifted
students. For any
c o m m u n ity -b a se d
charity event, he can
be depended on to
lend his time and
considerable talents.
Ralph Black will be making his
first appearance as p a rto f the Inner City
Blues Festival on March 21, and he is
available to play at weddings, parties or
social dances, accom panied by Ron
Steen. Interested persons can contact
him at 287-3759. An entertainers enter­
tainer, Mr. Black plans to release a
com pact disc with the also venerable
Leroy Vinegar. Three decades o f per­
forming in the Portland area and Ralph
Black show s no signs o f slowing down.
Rep. Vera Katz
State Representative Vera Katz
urged G overnor Barbara Roberts to
continue funding state law enforcement,
prosecutorial and social service pro­
grams addressing youth gang and hate
crime violence in Oregon. In a letter
co-signcd by five other Portland state
representatives, Katz asked that G ov­
ernor Roberts maintain or expand the
state’s com m itm ent to the Youth Gang
Enforcem ent Team, dedicated gang
prosecutors and social service programs
targeted at youth gang members.
“ W e can no longer deny that we in
Oregon have a problem with gang vio­
Continued from front page
lence and hale crim es,” wrote Katz.
Katz noted that law enforcem ent offi­
cers and community leaders expressed
concern that failure o f the state to
maintain its financial support and com ­
mitment o f personnel could jeopardize
current public safety efforts.
“ To prevent the loss o f m om en­
tum in the fight against gangs, funding
for the multi-agency law enforcem ent
presence, the dedicated gang prosecu­
tors and the juvenile court counselors
needs to be m aintained at present lev­
els, if not increased,” added Katz.
Katz also made a personal appeal
to Roberts to become involved in coor­
dinating the various state and local
agencies responding to the gang crisis.
More importantly, your personal lead­
ership presence is needed to ensure
that the various law enforcem ent, court
and social service agencies brought to­
gether by Governor G oldschm idt arc
not allowed to gradually drift apart,
leaving the state with no coordinated
reponse to the gang problem ,” wrote
naive enough to assist the establish­
ment media in an effort to convert an
educational travesty into a CLASSIC
GREEK TRAGEDY.featuring two
bigger-than-life black protagonists
(Remember the old ghetto joke about
two slave m asters” bet’cha my nigger
can whup your nigger (sic)” ? No! Let
them do some REAL ‘investigative
reporting’. W hat has transpired fiscal-
wise in this district the last two decades
may yet have the Proposition 5 sup­
porters crying “ Beyond waste! This
looks like a Contra A ffair” .
A standoff centers now around
an arbitration process forced upon the
administration and school board by
pressures from the com m unity and the
Black United Front led by Ron Herndon.
The first two meetings of a "Task Force”
were fairly impressive. M ost outside
appointees indicated a serious intent to
carry out their charge of refo rm -an d ,
im portantly, within a short but attain­
able time frame. However, it is not
clear if their mission goes beyond an
effort to implement the controversial
"12-point plan" for remedial action.
An accountable school board will be
the key to the success o f the task force
mission.
When we speak o f "two dec­
ades" o f contem pt, consider the follow ­
Katz.
Katz was joined in the letter by
other Portland legislators, including
Reps. Beverly Stein, Mike Burton,
Margaret Carter,Ron Cease, and John
Minnis.
Talent Sought For Oregon State Fair
New ook Links Marcus Garvey
To Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s
represented perhaps the most concen­
trated outpouring of African-American
artistic talent. All the arts seemed to
bloom at once and the big names o f the
era have becom e legendary. They in­
clude poets and writers like Langston
Hughes, Claude McKay and Countee
Cullen; musicians such as Duke Elling­
ton and Bessie Smith; artists and sculp­
tors such as A ugusta Savage; actors like
Paul Robeson and many others.
The renaissance has traditionally
been seen as gathering momentum in the
m id-1920s and stim ulated largely by
white patronage. Tony Martin, profes­
sor o f Black History at W ellesley C ol­
lege, now suggests that the renaissance
started several years earlier and owed
much to the influence o f Marcus G ar­
vey. His argum ent is contained in A fri­
can fundamentalism: a Literary and
Cultural Anthology o f G arvery’s Har­
lem Renaissance, published by The
Marjority Press.
M arcus G arvey’s Universal Negro
Improvement Association, headquartered
in Harlem, became in the 1920s the
largest African-Amcrcian and Pan-Afri-
can mass movement in history. H istori­
ans have long credited Garvey with pro­
viding the underlying African conscious­
ness that infused the work of the renais­
sance.
Martin demonstrates, however, that
G arvey’s influence was much more
pervasive. The Garvey movement itself
entered directly into the literary and
cultural arena and produced a vast quan­
tity o f the earliest w riting and artistic
work of the period. Garvey’s own weekly
newspaper, The Negro W orld (the most
widely circulated Black newspaper in
the world at the time), published a vast
amount o f poetry, short stories and ar­
ticles o f literary and artistic criticism.
The organization produced plays (some
written by Garvey himself) and sup­
ported several in-house choirs and or­
chestras.
Some of the biggest names o f the
Harlem Renaissance got their careers
via G arvey’s movement. Contralto
Marian Anderson sang at Liberty Hall
(the movement’s meeting place) in 1922.
Zora Neale Hurston published her earli­
est poetry and stories in G arvey’s news­
paper. Augusta Savage, later one of
A fro-A m erica’s most famous sculptors,
was married to one o f the Garvey o r­
ganization’s leaders. Arthur Schomburg,
Afro-America’s most famous bibliophile,
ing (and I was not alone). Between
1969 and 1971, I was in conflict with
both administration and board over their
refusal to even consider im plem enta­
tion o f proven technology for enhanc­
ing perform ance o f minority students (I
had won a "National Science Founda­
tion Award" in the D alles for a class­
room-based computer/communicalions
project, and my book, "Black Inventors
o f A m erica", was already in use in
many districts around the country.
Thoroughly disgusted and frus­
trated, 1 flew to W ashington, D.C. fo ra
w eek’s sem inar conducted by Dr. Julius
Hobson (1971). He was the black
econom ist who successfully sued a
"Portland-type" school administration
and board, "Hobson vs. W ashington,
D.C. Board o f Education". He estab­
lished m alfeasance and the deliberate
neglect of black children, ranging from
texts and equipm ent, to history and
curricu lu m -an d reclaim ed millions of
dollars o f federal "minority program
funds" diverted to construction, repairs,
overhead, other salaries, etc." Next
week I will detail why this case is so
im portant, and why I failed in my effort
to institute a sim ilar suit here while
head o f the M inority T eachers’ O rgani­
zation in 1974 (the system could have
been reform ed years ago).
sign up soon, said Chris Cummings,
Showcase Stage Coordinator.
M usicians, magic acts, com edians
and other stage perform ers w ishing to
be considered for this year’s program
should contact the O regon State Fair,
378-3247, and ask for an applicaton.
Talented Oregonians can gain valu­
able exposure and nam e recognition by
appearing on the Oregon State F air’s
Showcase Stage this year betw een
A ugust 22 and Septem ber 2. The Show ­
case Stage is becom ing more and more
and popular am ong fairgoers and per­
formers alike, so perform ers should
published in G arvey’s Negro W orld, as
did hundreds, perhaps thousands of
others, famous and unknown, from
around the Black world.
Martin has shown that the Garvey
movement published A fro-A m erica’s
pioneer regular book review section in
the Negro World. It also organized the
earliest literary competition of the ren ­
aissance era, in 1921.
The Garvcyite artists were perhaps
even more race conscious than their
later counterparts of the mainstream
Harlem Renaissance. In many ways the
G arvcyite renaissance resembled the
Black Arts movement of the 1960s and
1970s, which provided a literary counter­
part for the Black Pow er movement.
The title, African Fundam ental­
ism, is taken from Marcus G arvey’s
most famous essay o f the same name.
The book contains the Harlem Renais­
sance poems, stories, book reviews and
literary, dram atic and musical criti­
cism o f those who appeared in G ar­
vey’s publications. The list includes
Alain Locke, Hubert H. Harrison J.A.
Rogers, Zora Neale Hurston and many
others. Tony Martin has provided an
introduction, commentaries and notes.
METRO WASHINGTON PARK ZOO
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
FOR AFRICAN CULTURAL PERFORMANCES
AT METRO WASHINGTON PARK ZOO
FRP#91R-5-ZO
The Zoo Department of the Metropolitan Service District (Metro) is requesting
proposals for a summer cultural show to complement the opening of the new
Africa Rain Forest exhibit.
Proposals will be due on March 29,1991 at 5:00 p.m. PST at the Reception Office,
Metro Washington Park Zoo, 4001 SW Canyon Road, Portland, OR 97221.
Details concerning this proposal can be obtained by contacting Ms. Jane Hart­
line, Metro Washington Park Zoo, (503) 220-2447.
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LaVemc Davis.
Jesuit High
Placement Exam
Jesuit High School invites all in­
terested eighth grade boys to take the
school’s Placem ent T est on Saturday
morning, April 6, from 8:30 to 12:15.
There is a $ 10.00 fee for the exam . R e­
freshments will be served. Test takers
are not obligated to enroll, but those
who plan to enroll as freshm en next
year m ust take the te s t
Applications for the 1991-92 school
year arc being accepted now. Please
call Jesuit High School at 292-2663 for
reservations and further information.
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