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King Brings Message of Hope to Portland
Resident remembers
1961 visit to Vancouver
Avenue Baptist Church
by S ean P.
N elson / T
he P ortland O bsery eh
Late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
carried a message full of hope on a November 1961
visit to Portland.
King appeared downtown at the Portland Public
Auditorium after the Jefferson High School Choir
sang. Then-Gov. Mark Hatfield and MayorTerry D.
Shrunk brought him greetings on behalf of the both
the city and state.
‘There must be people in this nation with a sort of
divine content, it is no longer a choice between
nonviolence or violence, it is a choice between non
violence or nonexistence," the Baptist minister told
an audience of .3,500.
An African-American parishioner remembers
King’s visit and his reception at the Vancouver
Avenue First Baptist Church.
Although King was slain, the historic church at
3138 N. Vancouver Ave. still stands.
“They had a reception for him at the parsonage so
he could meet the ministers,” recalled Henry Knight,
78, a member of the church for 53 years.
Hatfield helped plan the reception to introduce Dr.
King to Pacific Northwest ministers, including the
Albina Ministerial Alliance.
‘Tom e he was one of a kind," Knight recalled. “He
had a sharp wit. I don’t know anyone I could compare
him to.”
King also took time out to talk to college students.
He appeared as part of the Urban League of Portland s
Equal Opportunity Program at Portland State during
a commemoration of the Civil War with music and a
discussion of the battles at Shiloh, Gettysburg,
Vicksburg and Chancelorville.
“We are on the border of the promised land of
integration. But challenges remain,” King said.
King, just 32 years old at the time, believed then
that true integration of the races would occur before
the turn of the century.
‘‘Americans must rise above the narrow confines
of their individualistic concerns to the broader con
cerns of all humanity. They must rid themselves of
the notion that there are superior and inferior races,”
he told area residents.
A little more than 7 years later, on April 4,1968, the
Oregonian carried a different story on Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.— the story of his assassination.
American civil rights movement, was killed by an
assassin’s bullet Thursday night.
“King, 39, was hit in the neck by a bullet as he
stood on the balcony of a hotel there. He died less
than an hour later at St. Joseph Hospital.”
“MEMPHIS, Tenn. ( AP)— Nobel Laureate Mar
tin Luther King Jr., father of nonviolence in the
Like the rest o f the world, Knight was sad
dened by Dr. K ing’s assassination.
photo by D avid P lechi TT hf . P ortland O bserver
Henry Knight, 78, stands outside the Vancouver Avenue Baptist Church at 3 1 3 8 N. Vancouver Ave., where he m et Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1961.
a rio t.
To me he was one o f a kind. He had
a sharp wit. I don't know anyone I
could compare him to.
- Portland resident Henry Knight, talking about his 1961 meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King In Portland
“That was very disturbing and upsetting,”
he recalled.
King had come to M em phis lead protests on
behalf of the city’s 1,300 striking garbage work
ers, most o f them A frican A m ericans. T ennes
see Gov. Buford Ellington immediately ordered
4,000 N ational G uard troops back into the city
and re-im posed a curfew that had been ordered
a week earlier after a King-led march turned into
“Police said incidents o f violence, including
several fire bom bings, were reported following
K ing’s d eath,” the article noted.
Dr. King’s surviving wife, Coretta Scott King,
spoke on the prospect o f her husband’s assas
sination when she presented a “Freedom C on
c e rt” in Portland on March 10, 1965. Mrs. King
said she and her husband were accustom ed to
fear.
“My husband has no fear o f death. He has
said it does not m atter how long you live, but
how w ell... if you have to do this for a great
cause...you are doing right.
“ 1 have tried to prepare m yself for w hatever
com es, because somehow I have felt all along
that what we were doing is right. If you believe
in your convictions, you must stand up for
them . If you really believe in a cause enough,
you are w illing to die for that cause,” Mrs. King
said.
PCC: Celebrating Educational
Equality and Excellence
11
Intelligence plus
character. That
is the goal of a
true ed u c atio n /'
Martin Luther King Jr.
Q,
Portland Community College
joins all citizens in honoring
the memory of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. His dedication
to the pursuit of equality, his
contributions to civil rights
and his insistence on
excellence in character and in
actions shaped our nation's
conscience.
-IL
0
3!S
PCC is founded on the
principle of equal educational
opportunity. Like Dr. King, we
too have a dream.
-e»*
Our dream is to make the
Cascade Campus the nation’s
premier urban community
college campus. We are reaching that goal by
building and planning for the future. We hope
the community will focus on the dream with us.
In the next few years, here is what is planned:
■ A new building on the corner of Killingsworth
and Kerby, open to the community, and
housing a gymnasium with seating for 600
people.
■ Three other new buildings, fronting on
Killingsworth and Albina, and improvements
to existing buildings.
A
D BD 001
»
• z
Architectural rendering, PCC Cascade Campus 2004
i New, modern science labs in Jackson Hall.
i Better lighting, beautiful landscaping and
community access to the campus.
■ PCCs goal is that at least
20 percent of the construction
contracts will go to minority,
women and emerging
small businesses
(MWESB).
i A healthy balance of campus, commercial
and residential properties in the area.
400 new full-time jobs in the community
during the next four years.
Portland
Community
College
Educational opportunities to meet the growing
needs of the community until at least 2010.
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