M
January 10,2007
a r t in
L uther
•ta i
K
in g
J r
Page BIt
'/ l i o n
Activist Advances Local, Political Causes
Keeping progress
on justice issues
in focus
B y C harity P rater
T he P ortland O bserver
Jo Anil Bowman, 49, sits in
her office thinking fora moment
about her upbringing, her expe
riences, and her appreciation
for Dr. Martin Luther King.
“ It wasn’t until adulthood
when I really began appreciat
ing MLK. 1 was always more of
a Malcolm X fan, only because
I couldn't imagine being abused
and not having a right to strike
back,” Bowman says. “Nowa
days, we are still fighting rac
ism, just during a different time
of war.”
Bowman is the associate di
rector of Oregon Action and
has been since 2004. There, she
is committed to educating low
income people and advocating,
politically and otherwise, for their
best interest.
“We are focused on getting
people connected and excited
about our political system,” Bow
man says.
Oregon Action is a member-
ship-based organization that fre
quently works on combating lo
cal issues.
“One member of ours is an
immigrant and spoke about get
ting pulled over by the police
four times in a short period of
time,” she says. “And to ad
dress that we held community
meetings so the police could
share their policies with the com
munity and the community could
share with them their view
points.”
Along with addressing racial
profiling, Oregon Action works
to register new voters during
election times, and advocate for
low income people who other-
photo bv M ark
W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Community activist Jo Ann Bowman (left) and Turiya Autry, professor o f Black Studies at Portland State University, attend a fall seminar on
racial profiling and resistance in Portland.
wise might think that they have
no effect on influencing their
local community.
Bowman was born and raised
in Baltimore, Md. and fora brief
period of time attended the Uni
versity of Maryland. She soon
left her col lege career to join the
Navy. She spent four and a half
years traveling in the service.
“The most amazing place we
stopped at was Mombasa, Af
rica (along the Kenya coast),”
she says, “ It was the first time I
had ever been to a place where
a majority of the people looked
just like me. It was incredible.”
Bowman’s parents’ genera water and mountains.
“ I chose Portland because 1
tion lived through segregation
“It was a toss up between knew one person here that I
continued
on page 1116
and she remembers them telling Denver and Portland,” she says. could stay with until I got a job.”
her about it. Sadly, she believes
that her generation has, in a
sense, protected their children
from the history of racism by not
2736 NE Rodney Avenue
passing the stories down.
After the Navy, Bowman
Portland, Oregon 97212
worked in real estate and de
(503) 281-4891
cided to move on after she no
ticed that the real estate indus
try was on a downward swing.
She moved to Oregon in 1990,
from Oakland, Calif. She wanted
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