5(ty
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of
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M artin L uther K ing J r .
and R osa P arks s p e d a i edition
‘City of Roses’
Volume XXXVI, N um ber 2
Students Oppose Jeff Plans
Je ffe rso n stu d e n ts a tten d in g
school board m eeting M onday op
posed plans calling for school uni
form s and separate program s for
boys and girls, saying they dis
crim inate and are unequal because
they treat them differently from other
kids in the school district. See story
page A5.
40 years after
civil rights, focus
stays the same
by S arah B lount and K hava D akko
T hu P ortland O bserver
Portland resident Kay Toran, the chief
executive officer o f V olunteers o f Am erica
O regon, is a living exam ple o f som eone
Music Icon Remembered
continuing Rev. M artin Luther King Jr.'s
F u n eral s e r
struggle for econom ic and social justice.
v ic e s
are
She has accom plished a life's work o f
s c h e d u le d
addressing
the needs o f fam ilies and chil
Friday in Los
dren.
A n g e le s fo r
Her deeds in public service follow the
L o u R a w ls,
extraordinary strides for equality that were
th e v e lv e t
m ade by black A m ericans nearly a half cen
voiced sin-ger
tury ago.
w h o s ta rte d
Rosa Parks galvanized Am ericans in a
as a c h u rc h
fight for justice by refusing to give up her
choir boy and
w ent on to record such classic tunes seat to a w hite man on a bus. K ing professed,
as “Y o u ’ 11 Never Find Another Love in his fam ous speech at the M arch on W ash
Like Mine’’and "Lady Love.” Rawls ington, that A frican A m ericans w ere not yet
free 100 years after the abolition o f slavery.
72, died Friday o f cancer. See story
T oday, like King and Parks before her,
p age A2
Toran do esn ’t feel progress has developed
Alito Questioned on Abortion quickly enough, and unapologetically calls
S u p r e m e for social change. She said the long legacy
C ourt nomi
o f racism against African A m ericans co n
nee Samuel tributes greatly to poverty.
A lito sa id
"T here’s still racial discrimination," Toran
T uesday he said, “but it’s in different and in subtle
w ould deal form s, and th e re 's institutional racism. We
with the is
have to acknow ledge that this still exists.
sue o f abor
Until then, people will be frustrated that they
tion with an aren’t able to live up to their potential. W e're
o p e n m ind not there yet because o f the denial and
as a justice unfortunate practices that are hurtful and
though he defended his 1991 judi
cial vote saying w om en seeking
abortions m ust notify their hus
bands. In the second day o f Senate
hearings, A lito also said no presi
dent o r court is above the law - even
in tim e o f war.
Iraqi police were searching T ues
day for an A m erican journalist who
was kidnapped over the w eekend
when gunm en am bushed her car
and killed her translator in western
Baghdad. M eanwhile, the death toll
o f U.S. troops has risen to 2,201
Obesity Hurts Heart
N o rth w e s te r n U n iv e r s ity r e
search e rs. trac k in g 17,643 pa
tien ts fo r three d ec ad e s, found
that being o v erw eig h t in m id-life
su b stan tia lly in c re ase d the risk
o f d ying o f h eart d ise a se later in
life - even in peo p le w ho began
th e stu d y w ith h e a lth y b lo o d
p ressu re and c h o lestero l levels.
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Wednesday • lanuary II. 2006
C h ild re n
& l-amilivN
photo by
M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Volunteers of America Oregon Chief Executive Officer Kay Toran says the
struggle for social and economic justice, celebrated in the lives of Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, will continue until we fully acknowl
edge discrimination in all forms.
hateful."
Toran looks back to the men and w omen
who helped raise aw areness o f these issues
during her own life growing up in the 1960s.
People like King, Malcolm X, President John
F. K ennedy and his brother Robert F.
K ennedy, each met their death through
political martyrdom. Though their legacy is
forever burned into our collective memory;
the nation hasn’t seen such dynam ic lead
ership since.
“People will not take a stand like Dr.
M artin Luther King Jr. did," she noted.
“Perhaps people value longevity over stand
ing up for what they believe.”
T o ran , w ho has fash io n ed a ca reer
through working with children and families,
believes the absence o f role models has also
contributed to social injustice. O ur leaders
need to be nurtured and sought out, she
said, especially for single parent homes.
"W om en are raising boys that are ex
pected to someday be heads o f households,
yet there are very few male role m odels,” she
said, citing church, schools, fam ily and o r
ganizations like the Boys and G irls Clubs as
im portant m odels for our youth.
Toran believes these issues o f econom ic
justice and poverty belongs in the front
pages o f new spapers everyday. Recent
headlines brought poverty and discrim ina
tion issues to the forefronts o f our minds
when H urricane Katrina exposed an ugly
reality to an unsuspecting public.
“An interesting thing happened right
after Katrina,” Toran said. “Rosa Parks died.
It takes a national event to start a movement.
It seems to me >ur highest priority in Aippricn
ought to be our citizens.”
W hen asked if the exposure o f abject
c o n tin u e d
’3 ^ ' on p a g e A 5
A Decade of Change on Alberta
Heating Help Falls Short
Journalist Kidnapped
www.portiandobserver.com
Following in the Footsteps
T,Week¡n
TheReview
O regon receives em ergency heat
ing and energy funds from the Bush
A dm inistration, but local officials
say the additional federal aid isn’t
enough to keep many low -incom e
fam ilies warm. T housands o f O r
egon fam ilies still face, quite liter
ally, being left out in the cold. See
sto ry , p ag e AS
Established in 1970
Political power
comes with King,
but displacement
comes with
gentrification
B obby B urk
F or T he P ortland O bserver
Looking less like the “Soul o f the C ity”
and m ore like the suburbs, it’s easy to see
that northeast Portland is undergoing a
radical transform ation. The changes com e
with a population that is less black and with
more money. And now here is all o f this more
evident than in the A lberta Arts District.
T he cozy streets o f A lberta show a vi
brancy and vigor that com es with people
w anting to live, com m une and flourish, not
ju st reside. A variety o f local coffee shops,
art galleries, restaurants and other unique
businesses have blossom ed and m ultiplied,
causing one to realize that A lberta is a
destination for the city at large.
T he neighborhood has shed its "bullet
zone" image from years o f gang problem s
with the “rat-a-ta,-tat"ofdrive-by shootings.
Beka A m blin, m other and small business
ow ner, was lured to A lberta in 1992 by real
estate prices she could afford w hile working
as a bar maid. She faced a tough decision;
either purchase a tiny house in the already
trendy and expensive area o f Laurelhurs, or
have a choice o f a larger home i n an econom i -
cally-challenged neighborhixxl. Her north
east Portland castle turned out to be four
stories and five bedroom s worth o f cheap
ness.
“W hen we first moved here they w ouldn’t
deliver pizza to our house,” said Amblin,
“we had to meet them at the Safew ay be
cause the pizza guy said we were a liability
issue to com e the extra 14 blocks."
Thirteen years later, Amblin ow ns a sec
ond hom e as well as a business in the heart
o f N ortheast, her journey to prosperity par
alleling that o f the area.
bv
photo by
B obby B i rk /F or T he P ortland O bserver
Robert Williams adapts to changes in his neighborhood off Alberta Street.
For many though, and especially for the
black com m unity, the story o f progress has
not com e w ithout disruptions. M any people
o f color are left scratching their heads,
troubled that a black com m unity with deep
roots in the Northeast is shrinking
“W e are w itnessing what is essentially
the d eco n stru ctio n o f w hat used to be
P ortland's black com m unity," said Darrell
M illner, P rofessor o f Black History at Port
land State U niversity, w ho believes that a
generational backlog o f econom ic and racial
factors have caused many to relocate to
areas like G resham , H illsboro and W ashing
ton County.
T o understand how Alberta lost its dis
tinction as a mostly black com m unity, one
has to Im k back to a tim e when the true soul
o f the northeast was established am idst
turmoil and strife.
As Am erica moved into W orld W ar II, a
w artim e m anufacturing industry blossom ed
in Portland and fell alm ost entirely into the
hands o f w hites-only labor unions. These
wartime laborers left many manual labor jobs
vacant, and so black people w ere welcom ed
into Oregon from areas like Louisiana, G eor
gia and other areas in the South to fill these
gaps in the labor market. The jobs were
physically debilitating and paid very little.
making it difficult to achieve econom ic pros
perity.
A prime example o f the challenges people
o f color were facing at the tim e can be seen
in arenas like housing, w here, according to
M illner, decisions about where blacks could
buy hom es, what kind o f hom es they could
live in and how they could pay for and
finance those hom es w ere made by politi
cians and financial institutions.
Local African A m ericans w ere often
turned dow n for m ortgages simply because
they w ere black. L andless and near penni-
c o n tin u e d
on p a g e A l l