500
Pay Your Dues with the Blues
years
of
The Oregon Food Bank benefits from the (fit
Waterfront Blues Festival, July 3-8, downtown M
See Arts & Entertainment, inside
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‘City of
Roses
...................... .....
Volume XXXVII, Number 25
Portland Jet Fighter Crashes
Eddie’s Scaty Surprise
A DNA test confirms that actor |
Eddie Murphy is the father of the
daughter of Melanie Brown, also
known as Scary Spice of the En­
glish pop group Spice Girls. Brown
gave birth in April and named
Murphy
as the
f a th e r .
Murphy
has yet
to acknowledge his newborn child.
Immigration Bill Survives
Wrestler Murder-Suicide
Law enforcem ent
officials say profes- j
sional wrestlerChris
Benoit, 40, asphyxi­
ated his son Daniel,
7, and wife, Nancy,
leaving copies of the
Bible next to each of their dead
bodies, before hanging himself in
a basement weight room. See story
in Sports, page 116.
"It’s always a surprise when I
answer the phone and it’s Obama
on the other end,” McPeak says.
McPeak, 71, was appointed Air
Force Chief of Staff by President
George H. W. Bush during Opera­
tion Desert Shield and served as a
member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
during the G ulf War.
He has a history of backing presi­
dential candidates, but not all of
them Democrats. He served as Or­
egon chairman for Republican Bob
Dole during the 1996 presidential
campaign, and endorsed George
W. Bush during the 2000 election.
Before the end of Bush’s first
term, however, McPeak began to
object strongly to his military and
foreign policy decisions and has
publicly denounced the war in Iraq
since the invasion. He campaigned
for Democrat Howard Dean during
When 1 look at the field of other
candidates I get discouraged. I think
the cupboard is fairly bare, with the
sole exception of Obama, because
he's got potential. He has a pretty
intuitive understanding of interna­
tional matters. Not like Bush, who’s
never been outside a parking lot in
Houston, Texas.
/
Is there a science to choosing
which candidate to hack?
No, but I've never talked to any­
one whom I felt was as squared
away as Barack Obama. He won’t
be perfect, but we have to ask our­
selves, what kind of mistakes do we
want to live with? He'll make the
right mistakes.
S en . Barack Obama
Gen. Merrill M cPeak
the 2004 election and then served
as an advisor for the John Kerry
campaign.
“Gen. McPeak has a well-re­
spected voice in the international
community and we fully anticipate
the campaign staff and senator will
seek his advice on a regular basis,”
said Jen Psaki, Obama’s campaign
spokeswoman.
Now enjoying his life in a Port­
W hat Lssuesdid you discuss with
land suburb and working in the Obama?
private sector, M cPeak’s heavy
[During our first meeting) he
criticism for the Bush administra­ wanted to talk about national secu­
tion is as gentle as a blunt axe. He rity issues and the war in particular.
spoke with the Portland Observer I think 1 gave him perspective. I’m
about his role in the Obama cam­ a middle of the road kind of guy
paign and shared what advice he's who’s interested in making this
given Obama so far.
W hy doyou support ( )hama?
Behind
Judge brings
unique
perspectives
by C harity
P rater
F or the P ortland O bserver
For a man who grew up in Compton,
otherwise known as South-Central Los
Angeles, Kenneth Walker has come a long
way to become who he is today.
An African-American man who grew up
in poverty and hung around friends that
were into crime and drugs, Walker is an
example of the obstacles in life that can be
overcome with persistence and a dedica­
tion to learning.
This spring, Gov. Ted Kulongoski made
the long-time Portland attorney one of
only two black judges in the state court
system by his appointment as an Oregon
Circuit Court Judge in Multnomah County.
Walker’s life began to turn around when
he left Los Angeles in 1970 a, the age of 17
to get his GED through a special program
at Washington State University. He was
then able to lake his GED back to his high
school in LA and receive a diploma. It was
on his return to LA that he realized the
severity of crime and poverty and knew
that he wanted to return to the Pacific
Northwest.
“When I lived there as a child, I could
not see the forest through the trees," says
Walker, “It was not until I left that I could
really see how bad that place really was. I
knew that was not the place for me.”
Once he returned to Oregon perma­
nently, he began attenuing Lane Commu­
nity College in Eugene where he was the
Vice President of thc student body. Soon,
he was elected to the National Student
Association and had the opportunity to
live in Washington, D.C. for a year.
In 1976, he graduated from the Univer­
sity of Oregon where he earned his Bach­
elor of Arts in community service and
public affairs.
"I thought that I would get a good job
after I earned my B.A. but when I got to
Portland I got a job as a night security
guard working for $600 a month," says
Walker, “That is when I realized that 1
wanted to go to law school.”
In 1980, he graduated from law school
and began working as a general attorney.
Only three years later Walker started the
first African-American law firm in Oregon,
which kept him busy for 17 years, until his
appointment to the bench in March.
photo by C harity P rater /T he P ortl and O bserver
Circuit Court Judge K enneth Walker is proud o f the diversity h e brings to the bench.
“I am almost scared to tell people how
fun it is to have this job!" says Walker.
“There was so much pressure to win being
an attorney and now there is no pressure
anymore.”
As a hobby, Walker is a football official
for varsity and junior varsity teams.
“ Being a judge is a lot like football. You
call the balls and strikes. Make sure people
are treated equally. Make the game fairand
let the chips fall where they may," says
Walker. "The first day I was appointed I
knew that this was the perfect job for me."
He now works to maintain quality and
balance in the courtroom. He makes sure
that everyone of every race and gender is
continued
Zh
S
on page A3
Case Study in Legal Fight Has Tragic Ending
by R aymond R endleman
U/ —
O
O'
on page A 6
a Troubled Youth
Lifelong diligence outshines
end-of-life struggle
Á x m
continued
Leaving
page B6.
The Senate voted Tuesday on an
immigration measure to sanction
millionsof illegal immigrants. Presi­
dent Bush said the bill offered a
“historic opportunity for C on­
gress to act." The test-vote of 64-
35 was to stimulate the conflict-
ridden legislation. It still faces
hurdles in the Senate.
Wednesday • lune 27, 2007
Retired general works on
Barack Obama campaign
An F-15 jet fighter front the 142nd
Fighter Wing Oregon Air National
Guard went down off the Oregon j
coast approximately 35 nautical
miles west of Cannon Beach at
by S arah B lount
around 1:35 p.m. Tuesday. The
T hl P ortland O bserver
aircraft was carrying one pilot. The
Retired Air Force General Merrill
condition of the pilot was not im­ “Tony" McPeak, an Oregonian liv­
mediately known.
ing in Lake Oswego, has the dis­
tinct honor of serving as an advisor
Harris Made Principal
on U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presi­
C y n th ia H arris
w as o f f ic ia lly | dential campaign.
McPeak was contacted by the
named Jefferson
High School prin­ Obama campaign earlier this spring
to become an advisor to the presi­
cipal T uesd ay .
She has served I dential hopeful. He accepted the
call and now serves Obama as a
as interim leader
non-paid national campaign co-
since Leon D udley’s leave of
chairman.
absence last spring. See sto ry ,
M cPeak says the Democratic
page A2.
candidate has called him a couple
Repeat is One for the Books tim es on his trusty Blackberry,
After complet­
seeking advice on a series of Sen­
ing an unlikely
ate votes on appropriations for
run to a second
the Iraq War, including whether
c o n s e c u tiv e
there should be a date for depar­
national cham­
ture and what m ilestones to set.
p io n sh ip , the
O regon S tate
University Bea­
vers now quali fy as a college base­
ball dynasty. See story in Sports,
GOP War Support Falls
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Insider in Our Backyard
.Week in
Thc Review
Sen. George Voinovich said T ues-
day the U.S. should begin pulling
troopsout of Iraq, joining Richard
Lugar as the second Republican
lawmaker in as many days to sug­
gest President Bush's war strat­
egy is failing.
Established in 1970
T he P ortland O bserver
A funeral last week cast some
light on the human suffering that
can result when court-appointed
lawyers are unfit toaidmentally-ill
black men.
Johnny Orr never got the legal
representation he needed to die in
dignity, according to his family and
friends.
An avid golfer and hard worker.
Orr suffered from a stroke in 2002
and lost his comfortable suburban
home.
Gresham N A ACP representative
Ruth Pitts-London and other advo­
cates were inspired by O rr’s legal
wrangling and pushed for requir­
ing lawyer diversity-training for all
attorneys, but found their proposed
bill stalled this week as the Legisla­
ture session in Salem winds to a
close,
"Dealing with his issue points
out how much legal-representation
reform is needed," says Calvin
Henry, president of the Oregon
Assembly of Black Affairs.
People close to Orr said that
because of cultural differences he
could never find a lawyer he could
trust or a lawyer who could trust
him.
•♦»1
♦
IT
z
Johnny Lewis Orr
sm ile s in his
Aloha hom e
years before a
stro k e led to the
re p o sse ssio n o f
the house.
A dvocates u se
his life to
a d d ress the
problem s that
m inorities and
th e mentally-ill
have in obtaining
a d eq u a te legal
advocacy.
Pitts-London likens O rr's story
to “modern-day slavery," saying
that much suffering stems from the
trouble blacks have in obtaining
and keeping good lawyers.
To help clients navigate legal
issues, lawyers should be able to
empathize with the root causes of a
clients' mistrust of the legal sys­
tem, Pitts-London argues.
Bom in AIabama on J u ly 2 5 ,1942,
Orr grew up amid the tumultuous
epicenter of civil-rights struggles,
ingraining in him an intense aver­
sion to legal affairs that advocates
say is common among minorities.
After moving to Portland and
graduating from Roosevelt High
School. Orr worked his way up to a
management position at Montgom-
continued
on page A3