PaseAfe_________________________ î,!C|J n r tla n b © b a e r u e r __________________________ November 2.200s
Ball Elementary Principal Tamala Newsome leads her students in Monday's ceremony celebrating the construction o f a new school to replace the outdated and aging Ball school site.
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Reality forNew Columbia School
continued
fro m Front
“I’m excited to see us m ove for
ward with this investm ent for fam i
lies in this north Portland neighbor
hood, said Dan Ryan, a Roosevelt
alum nus serving his first term on
the School Board. “The children
will have a state-of-the-art facility
that will build on the school’s aca
dem ic achievem ent created by Prin
cipal T amala Newsome and her staff.
The presence o f the Boys & Girls
Club on-site will also benefit a num
ber o f the surrounding schools in
the Roosevelt cluster.”
The project, w hich is supported
by private fundraising and a sig
nificant contribution from the Hous
ing A uthority o f Portland, incorpo
rates shared space with the Boys &
G irls Club o f Portland, and a new
gym being constructed by P ort
land Parks and Recreation at the
U niversity Park center.
Slated toopen in Septem ber2006,
the entire project is valued at more
than $20 m illion but will cost the
school district less than $9 million
Civil Rights Era Women
fro m A 3
“A fter the bus boycott got go
ing and (M artin Luther) King got
involved, they w o u ld n ’t even let
Rosa Parks speak at the first mass
m eeting,” she said. “She asked to
speak, and one o f the m inisters said
he thought she had done enough.”
O lson added that Parks is often
depicted as a deferential w om an
w ho defied segregation law s at the
urging o f m ovem ent leaders, but in
fact she had foryears quietly pushed
for racial ju stice — and she had
carefully planned the actions that
led to her arrest.
“She w as not ju st a sym bol,”
Olson said. “She w as an agent.”
Septim a Poinsette C lark, often
called the “queen m other” o f civil
rights, w as an educator and N a
tional A ssociation for the A dvance
ment o f C olored People activist
M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Brew er N unn, C h a iro f the H ousing
A uthority o f Portland. “H ow ever,
as a result o f the partnership with w e live in a new day and age. This
HAP, the Boys & G irls C lub and co m b in ed facility both co m p le
the use o f New M arket Tax Credits. m ents our core goal o f providing
The district sees the new school new , affordable housing at New
as a dem onstration o f its com m it C o lu m b ia an d r e in f o r c e s th a t
ment to stretching available tax dol strengthening children and their
lars to meet current and future stu fam ilies ultim ately benefits the im
dent achievement needs, create part m ed iate n e ig h b o rh o o d an d the
nerships to advance com m unity and larger com m unity beyond.”
district goals, and attract families
Construction will begin im m edi
back into Portland Public Schools.
ately. E ighty p ercent o f the new
“T his w onderful partnership has residents o f N ew Colum bia, a neigh
draw n together public, private and borhood forged from the destruc
non-profit organizations to build a tion o f the old C olum bia V illa hous
new neighborhood school for the ing project, w ill have m oved into
benefit o f our com m unity” said new housing units by next y e a r's
S chool B oard C o -C h a ir D avid fall opening. O ther children living I____
W ynde. “W ith capital dollars so in the su rro u n d in g P o rtsm o u th An artist's rendering shows the look o f the new Boys and Girls Club which is slated to be built
scarce, w e w ant to use this ex p eri neighborhood will also attend the next to the new Ball Elementary School in north Portland's New Columbia community and adjacent
ence as a model to com e up with new Ball Elem entary.
to the current University Park Community Center.
creative solutions for im portant
projects in
o th e r n e ig h b o rh o o d s in o u r
school district.”
“This is not the type o f project
that housing authorities typically
have undertaken,” added K andis
Bertha Gilbert, 22, is led away by police after she tried to enter a
segregated lunch counter in Nashville, Tenn., in this May 6,
1964, file photo.
con tin u ed
photo by
decades before the nation’s atten
tion turned to racial equality.
F annie L ou H am er, a M is sis
sippi sh a re cro p p er, w as b eaten
and ja ile d in 1962 fo r try in g to
reg ister to vote. S he c o -fo u n d e d
the M ississip p i F reed o m D em o
c ra tic P arty an d g av e a fie ry
sp eech at th e 1964 D em o c ratic
N atio n al C o n v en tio n .
Vivian M alone Jones defied seg
regationist A labam a G ov. G eorge
C. W allace to enroll in the U niver
sity o f A labam a in 1963 and later
worked i n the ci vi I rights di vision o f
the U.S. Justice D epartm ent.
Even today, Bond said m ost
N A A C P m em bers and m ost local
branch presidents are w om en.
“T h e r e ’s a C h in e se s a y in g ,
’W om en hold up h alf the w orld,” ’
Bond said. “ In the case o f the civil
rig h ts m o v e m en t it’s p ro b ab ly
three-quarters o f the w orld.”