Page 4
The
Portland Observer Black HistOiy Month
February 24. 2010
Black Oregon Pioneer Legacies Revealed
Group wants to establish museum
(AP) — The legacy o f John W.
Jackson is slowly being uncovered,
helping to illuminate the state's early
African-American history.
The discovery of Jackson, a black
pioneer, Civil War veteran and re
spected farmer who lived in the Sa
lem area in the late 1800s, may not
have happened if it weren't for a
chance meeting last summer at the
World Beat Festival in Salem.
Gwen Carr o f the Oregon North
west Black Pioneers learned that a
Salem family came across references
to a slave while delving through old
family records for details about their
ancestor Adam Stephens, a well-
known pioneer who has a Salem
school named after him.
Both Stephens and Jackson were
members o f the Hayesville Farmers
Club, and, as it turns out, their grave
stones are not far from one another
at the cemetery. There are two stones
for Jackson, one that was placed by
a veterans organization to honor his
service in the Civil War.
Jackson now joins a growing list
of Oregon's black pioneers, all o f
whom the Oregon Northwest Black
Pioneers plan to feature in an Afri
can-American museum in Salem.
One census record and grave
stone at a time, Gwen Carr and her
colleagues are uncovering Oregon's
black history and learning that it
extends surprisingly further than
once thought.
"Most people think that it's rel
Although most o f Oregon's black
egated primarily to the Portland area, history dates to the m id-1800s, there
and for the most part it has been," is a record o f black people arriving
C arr said. "But in addition to that, even earlier. Portland author Eliza
we are finding that it extends to beth McLagan describes the first
every com er o f the state, from the recorded instance in her book "A
shores o f Tillamook and Clatsop Peculiar Paradise."
County all the way to the northeast
"On Dec. 21,1787, the Lady Wash
to Wallowa County and even down ington set sail from the Cape Verde
in Southern Oregon in Malheur and Islands, heading south and west to
Harney counties."
ward Cape Hom and into the Pacific
The all-volunteer group, founded Ocean, then turning north to explore
in 1993, has discovered that there is the coast o f the North American con
early African-American history in tinent. Among those on board was
27 o f Oregon's 36 counties.
Marcus Lopez, the first black person
Louis A. Southworth (1830-
"That surprises a lot o f people; to set foot on Oregon soil."
1917), was a respected
frankly, it surprised us," Carr said.
Interestingly, some o f these early
homesteader near Waldport on "But I think it just attests to how rich
d iscoveries w ere at a tim e in
the Oregon Coast and later
our history is here, and we find great Oregon's history when black people
donated land for a school-
pleasure every time we find just a weren't even allowed in the terri
house.
tidbit o f information."
tory. By 1844, Oregon had declared
Because so much black history both slavery and the residence o f
research already has been done in blacks within the territory to be ille
the Portland area, she said, the group gal.
chose to focus initial efforts on the
Organizers are in the process o f
Mid-Valley. So far they've identi developing plans for the museum,
fied more than 100 black pioneers in including identifying a location and
Oregon, with the majority in Marion se c u rin g g ra n ts and o th er
and Polk counties. Those findings fundraising opportunities, as well
will be published in a book by the as collecting artifacts.
Oregon Northwest Black Pioneers,
It would be the first statewide
which they hope to publish in the African-American museum in Or
summer.
egon, and organizers envision it as
Last year, the group placed a a full-scale operation that would
gravestone at Pioneer Cemetery in attract visitors from across the na
Salem in memory o f the 43 black tion, in a central location with ample
pioneers buried there. Each o f their meeting space.
names is etched in the stone.
Building a museum from the
There never has been a large ground up is no easy task.
population of black people living in
It begins with developing a com
Oregon. Even today, they account pelling subject-something the Or
for about 2 percent o f the popula egon Northwest Black Pioneers al
tion.
ready have done.
Experiences For A
— lifetime
R e m e m b e r in g
Black History
- K Month
Doctor Survives Racial Hostility
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503.284.7930
1130 NE Alberta Street
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DeNorval Unthank, doctor and
civil rights activist, spent m ost o f
his life confronting social and in
stitutional racism.
After m oving his family to an
all white neighborhood in Port
land in 1929 and opening a private
medical practice in the city, he and
his family were frequently targets
o f racial hostility with broken w in
dows, threatening phone calls, etc.
Refusing to submit to racism, he
worked to overcome the economic
and social barriers in Oregon.
In 1958, the Oregon M edical
Society named him D octor o f the
Year. For his role in bringing down
racial barriers, the city o f Portland
named DeNorval Unthank Park in
North Portland in his honor in
1969.
Unthank was the recipient o f
several citizenship aw ards, the
first African American member o f
the Portland City Club, president
o f the local chapter o f the Na-
DeNorval Unthank
tional A ssociation for the A d
vancem ent o f C olored People,
cofounder o f the Portland Urban
League and sat on O regon’s Com
m ittee for Equal Rights and the
Council o f Social Agencies.
Thanks to the Black Pioneers
o f the Pacific N orthw est for this
story.