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O ctober 12, 2011
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Derrick Bell, acivil rights scholar
who went on to become Harvard’s
first black tenured law school pro
fessor, died Oct. 5. One of professor
Bell’s Harvard students was Presi
dent Barack Obama. Parents, you
may ask, what does this mean to
children in Portland Public Schools?
Derrick Bell was instrumental in
stopping Portland’s racist policy of
busing only black children to ac
complish its warped notions of
school integration.
In 1979, Portland’s black commu
nity organized to stop this despi
cable busing practice. In 1980, Der
rick Bell was the incoming Dean of
the University of Oregon Law
School. While traveling through
Portland on his way to the Oregon
campus, members of the local black
community asked Bell if he would be
a surprise speaker in their support at
a Portland School Board meeting.
He agreed, and for almost an hour
calmly destroyed any intellectual
underpinnings for busing black chil
dren to improve academic perfor-
life working and advocating for the
people of north and northeast Port-
kind. I don't think one can find a
more committed proponent of edu
cation, nor a more dedicated cham
pion for members of traditionally
underrepresented communities."
Senator Carter's personal and pro
fessional association with the col
lege dates back some five decades,
when she began taking classes at the
Cascade Campus to support her bac
calaureate studies.
"PortlandCommunity College has
been the access and success to the
renewal of my life," said Senator
Carter. "I began my renewing jour
ney with PCC as a student in the fall
of 1968. Aftercompleting my master's
degree, I interned as a student in the
spring of 1973. The rest is history."
Carter credits the forward think
ing of PCC's faculty and administra-
tion - p a rticu la rly Dr. Amo
DeBemardis, PCC's first president -
for giving her the opportunity to go
to work for the college.
"Because of the opportunity
thinking of Amo DeBemardis, I be
gan my work as a member of the
counseling faculty in September of
1973,"Carter said.
Sen. Carter's successful stint as a
counselor and instructor with the
college as well as her growing stat
ure in the community, led the Louisi
ana native to seek public office. She
ran successfully for the Oregon
Page 5
Scholar Derrick Bell and Portland Schools
m ance. A few
months after Bell’s
presentation and
l
co n tin u ed pres-
L
v sure from the com-
munity, the decade
plus busing program was ended.
It is important to read Professor
Bell’s work. The following is taken
from his May 8, 2000, Brooklyn
College, Samuel Konefsky Memo
rial Lecture, Revisiting Brown v.
Board of Education:
“On May 17, 1954, I was on a
troop ship heading home from a
y e a r’s military duty in Korea. 1
entered law school that fall, and
after the first year, began submit
ting so much writing on racial
issues that the faculty advisor to
the law review warned me, only
h a lf in-jest, that I was trying to
turn the publication into the Uni
versity o f Pittsburg Civil Rights
journal.
“At that point, like many, I as
sum ed that the Brown decision
marked the beginning o f the end o f
Jim Crow in all its myriad form s and
that fo r black Americans, fo r too
long burdened by our subordinate
status, there was to paraphrase the
Spiritual, “a great day a-coming.
“A nd why not? Brown rep re-
Margaret Carter Honored
c o n t i n u e d f r o m page 3
Fortiani» (fibserucr
House of Representatives in 1984,
becoming the first African American
woman to be elected to the Oregon
Legislature. She followed this with a
successful bid for the state Senate in
2000, where she eventually served
as President Pro Tempore and co-
chair of the Joint Ways & Means
Committee and co-chair of the Joint
Ways & Means Committee. She
capped her public career as Deputy
Director for Human Services Pro
grams at the Oregon Department of
Human Services.
While in Salem, Sen. Carter con
tinued as a vocal advocate for higher
education in general, and for com
munity colleges and PCC in particu
lar. In 1989, she was instrumental in
establishing the Cascade Campus
Skill Center, which was renamed in
her honor in 2007.
"Sen. Carter's history with the
college and the campus is deep and
abiding," said Gatewood. "And it's
only fitting that we name a building
in her honor."
Carter herself was delighted that
her name will be forever associated
with PCC.
"I came to PCC and moved on,"
she said. "My children came to
PCC and moved on. My grand
children came to PCC and moved
on. And with 15 great-grandchil
dren, I am sure that PCC will help
generate educational opportuni
ties for a third generation of my
family. Kudos to PCC and its ‘op
portunity thinking.' "
seated the culmination o f two de
cades o f litigation all aimed at
gaining reversal o f P lessy v.
Fergusson, the 1896 Suprem e
Court decision providing consti
tutional legitimacy to the grow
ing number o f state laws requiring
the segregation o f blacks and
whites in public facilities, schools,
and virtually every area where the
two races might intersect.
“Focusing on segregation in
the public schools, the challenge
in the fiv e cases the (Supreme)
Court brought before it in the
Brown decision, the Court said
whatever the state o f public edu
cation when Plessy was decided,
it was now o f fa r more importance,
and the evidence showed, school
set asides were not only inferior,
but harmed the hearts and minds
o f black children fo rced to attend
them in ways so serious as un
likely to be undone.
“Thurgood Marshall, then di
rector counsel o f the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund, invited me to join the
staff where, from 1960 until 1965,1
handled and superv ised most o f the
Southern school litigation that at
one point reached 300 cases.
“J o in in g a law fa c u lty
(Harvard) in 1969, I gained a
broader perspective on the by then
quarter-century-long campaign
‘Overhead power lines are
closer than you think.”
to desegregate the public schools.
For reasons I will explain, 1 recog
nize now that the Brown decision,
while serv ing the nation's foreign
policy and domestic concerns, pro
vided petitioners with no more
than a semblance o f the racial
equality that they and theirs have
sought fo r so long. In fact, Brown
was actually an anti-subversion
decision carefully couched in civil
rights rhetoric. ”
More next week.
Ron Herndon is a long time ad
vocate fo r educational opportuni
tiesfor African-American children.
He has served as director o f Head
Start in Portland since 1975.