Page 2
The
Portland Observer Black
History Month
February 20, 2013
York: Too Long Ignored
Law student’s
black history
discovery
C ari H achmann
T he P ortland O bserver
by
It was the summer of2004, third-year Lewis
& Clark College law student Charles Neal
was reading an American history book when
he stumbled across a passage that enlight
ened him to the existence of a black slave
named York.
A slave to William Clark of the Lewis and
Clark expedition, Corps of Discovery, York
was the first documented black man to ex
plore the Willamette River and visit the fu
ture site of Portland, Ore.
Neal was surprised to learn that one, as a
grad student he was just now learning about
this man who was so instrumental to the
success of the expedition, and two, that on
a campus bearing the names of the famed
pioneers, he could find no recognition of
York
Neal set about changing that. After shar
ing his sentiments with a friend and fellow
PHOTO COURTESY OF JEFF JAHN
law student Matthew Abosedra, and paying
York: Terra Incognita, a statute on the Lewis & Clark College campus representing
a visit to the campus archivist, the two ap
the person named York, a slave to William Clark o f the Lewis and Clark Corps o f
pealed their idea— to install a memorial of Discovery expedition. York was the first documented black man to explore the
York on campus— to then college president
Willamette River and visit the future site o f Portland.
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Dr. Thomas Hochstettler.
“Speaking to the degree of our persis
tence, it became pretty clear that saying no
was not going to be a viable option for them,”
said Neal. Hochstettler, along with other
administration, embraced the idea and prom
ised to give the project proper attention.
A committee was formed, funds were
raised, an artist commissioned and three
years later, York: Terra Incognita was in
stalled on the Lewis & Clark campus as a
permanent memorial of York, too long ig
nored by history.
Dedicated in the spring o f 2010, the six-
foot tall statue mounted in bronze stands
between the college’s Watzek Library and
the Manor House.
“I am very happy and thankful to Lewis
and Clark College for supporting this and
putting in their resources to get it done,” said
Neal, reflecting on the project. Today, Neal
works as an Energy and Environmental
Sustainability Manager for a community
college district in the Bay area, California.
Because no photographs or paintings of
York exist (back then, it was rare for a whites
to have their black slaves rendered) the sculp
tor who installed the statue, Los Angeles
artist Alison Saar, decided to construct a less
realistic and more symbolic portrait of York.
With neither the physique nor facial fea
tures of the sculpture claiming to represent
how he looked, Saar made York’s back and
continued
on page 7
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