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‘City of Roses’
Established in 1970
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Volume XXXVI. Number 6
Wednesday • Februaiy 8. 2006
Redlining to
Gentrification
Homebuying roadblocks
improve, but still exist
S arah B lount
B ouie
T he P ortland O bserver
by
and I saiah
Portland’s history has al
ways been marked with cor
relating race and housing
concerns. From the early
days of the Oregon Territory
to the city’s evolving char
acter of the 1990s and Uxlay,
Portland has persevered, and
in m any cases suffered,
through legal and illegal real
estate practices that have
served to separate and stifle
home ownership for people
of color.
Additional stories on
Mack History am i the
American Experience.
inside
Coretta Scott King Funeral
A m ourner holds the program for the Coretta S c o tt King funeral cerem ony a t the New Birth M ission
ary B aptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. Tuesday. Four p resid en ts, hundreds o f dignities and th o u sa n d s
o f m ourners attended. S e e s to r ie s a n d a d d itio n a l p h o to s in sid e .
Transcending
the ‘Bookstore’
Labels
Grass roots
storefronts open
on Killingsworth,
Mississippi
by S arah B lount
T he P ortland O bserver
Two new book shops, the Black
Rose Collective and In Other
W ords, transcend the “book
store” label, since both double as
d riv in g fo rces in the local
grassroots and activism commu
nities.
In Other Words, the latest credit
to north and northeast Portland,
spikes Killingsworth Street's bud
ding literary scene with the femi
nist ideal.
The shop moved earlier this
month from its former home in the
high-rent district o f Southeast
Hawthorne Boulevard. Store man
ager and program director Sue
Bums describes In Other Words
as foremost by, for and about
photo by I saiah
B oi ie /T he P ortland O bserver
Sadie Byington browses the shelves o f “In Other Words, ” a popular feminist bookstore that
just relocated this month from Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard to the intersection o f North
east Killingsworth Street and Williams Avenue.
women. They carry btxiks on race,
gender, transgender, size, inter
sex (a person born with ambigu
ous genitalia, chromosomes or
hormones) and environmental and
political current events.
The shop is located at the cor
ner of Killingsworth and North
Williams Avenue, in the center of
Their new space is larger by
a burgeoning set of neighbor nearly 2,(MX) extra square feet,
hoods quickly gaining the city's which they used to expand their
eye. Burns said staff and volun health and midwifery section and
teers are eager to join the existing a potential computer resource cen
g ra ssro o ts co m m u n ity that ter. The extra r<x>nt also serves as
stretches from Alberta Street to
continued
on page 45
North Mississippi Avenue.
Laws excluding blacks
from living in Oregon Terri
to ry and c o n s titu tio n a l
laws after statehood were
in practice until 1926. Even
after their eradication, ra
cial discrim ination made it
difficult for African A m eri
ph < rro by L saiaii B ouie /T he P orti and O bserve *
cans to find housing.
A
sign points out historic boundaries
Nearly acentury ago, Port
of
a redline district that once excluded
land realtors held to a code of
people
of color from buying homes in
“ethics” excluding “Negroes
certain
neighborhoods.
and Orientals” from many
neighborhoods. The real es
hoods for different racial groups,
tate industry began to define the
and certain areas of cities were not
meaning of a white segregated neigh eligible to receive loans at all. This
borhood as one that did not have a meant that ethnic minorities could
black-occupied residence within
only secure mortgages in certain
four blocks. In the 1930’s the Albina areas, and it resulted in a large in
neighborhood of inner north and crease in the residential racial seg
northeast Portland, traditionally
regation in the United States.
white and working class, was one of
During the 1950s and 1960s,
the few where blacks were permitted
Portland was affected by urban
to live.
revitalization. Entire neighbor
In 1947, the formal practice of hoods were leveled to allow for
re d lin in g in P o rtla n d began.
industrial growth, adding to an
Redlining is the practice of denying existing housing shortage. The
or increasing the cost of services,
Albina neighborhood was dealt a
such as banking or insurance, to major blow , due to the construc
residents of certain areas. In the tion of the Rose Q uarter’s M em o
United States, the practice is illegal
rial Coliseum and Interstate 5.
when the criteria are based on race,
The Home Mortgage Disclosure
religion, gender,children in a family,
Act of 1976 and the Community
disability or ethnic origin.
Reinvestment Act of 1977 outlawed
Redlining began in the 1930s in the practice of redlining. The U.S.
Philadelphia under the Housing Act government imposed regulations
of 19.34. The law gave the Federal
that required all banks to provide a
Housing Authority (FHA) the abil map to anyone who asked showing
ity to improve housing conditions the locations of home loans they
and standards, and later led to the
had made so that individuals could
formation of the Department of ensure that redlining was no, tak
Housing and Urban Development
ing place.
(HUD).
However, racial discrimination
While it was designed to develop
continued to play a significant role
housing for p*xir residents of urban
in real estate. In 1990, The Orego-
areas, (hat act also required cities to
continued
on page A 7
target specific areas and neighbor-
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Sharp Jabs on Bush Budget
T. Week ¡n
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Hill Enters Governor’s Race
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Former Oregon Treasurer Jim Hill an
nounced Tuesday that he will challenge
Gov. Ted Kulongoski for the Demo
cratic nomination in the May 16 pri
mary. “Let's be hones, about it. Ted has
not been a good Democrat,” said Hill,
who made history in 1992 when he
became the first African-American to
win statewide office in Oregon.
Tobacco Judgment Upheld
The Oregon Supreme Court upheld a
$79.5 million punitive damages award
Ted Kulongoski
Jim Hill
Thursday to the family of Jessie D.
W illiams, a Portland African Am eri
can sm oker who died of lung cancer
in 1997, saying the amount isn 't ex
cessive given the “reprehensible” con
duct of tobacco giant Phil Morris in
marking cigarettes.
Republicans joined Democrats
with sharp jabs of President
Bush's proposed federal bud
get Tuesday, Sen. Arlen Spec
ter, R-Pa., called cuts in educa
tion and health “scandalous”
while Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-
Maine, said she was “disap
pointed and even surprised” at
theextent of the administration's
proposed cuts in Medicaid and
Medicare.
Man Killed on Sidewalk
Police said they have no motive or
suspect in the shooting death of a man
walking on the sidewalk about 5:24
p.m. Saturday at Northeast Garfield
and Failing Street. Police said the
i
victim , Robert Seeger, 24 had no
crim inal history or gang affiliations.
Iraqis, U.S. Marines Killed
Two bombs exploded minutes apart
near a central Baghdad square on Tues
day, killing a, least seven people and
wounding 20. Elsewhere, the U.S. mili
tary said four Marines died in separate
explosions in western Iraq and masked
gunmen killed a Sunni Arab cleric.
Oregon Troops Deployed
O regon’s 4 1 ” Brigade Combat Team,
comprised of 900 men and women
from all over the state, were m obi
lized for deploym ent to Afghanistan
Saturday. Gov. Kulongowski saluted
the troops’ courage and their w illing
ness to serve.