Painful Truths Escaped slaves bring high drama to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Restoring ‘Lost’ History First black in Oregon gets highway marker mention See Metro, page 9 Volume XLIII ‘City o/Roses' Number 35 _____ fe|g| J www.portlandobserver.coni ■ f l 423 Wednesday • September II. 2013 See Local News, page 3 F c f a h l i c h ^ r l in 1 0 7 0 Established in 1970 ■ V C U rS Committed to Cultural Diversity J r n m n m n it v Tragedy Awareness BuiiU ir* community awareness about sicPie ceil anemia bas been a focus o f Pastor Marcia Taylor o f Portland for a/m0 “ Both sene Z itb T ^ ^ m b ^ f Family s grief raises profile of sickle cell anemia D o . novan M. S mith T he P ortland O bserver by I 1 0 0 7 n • ’T ' In 1987 Pastor Marcia Taylor started a support group out of the living room of her Portland home for individu- . •. . a s and families struggling with a disease that afflicts thousands of sickle cell the — ~ lives every j year; v u i, o iv n a v v v n a anemia, u v illia , U 1C notorious blood disorder causes normal red blood cells to form a sickle-like shape, increasing the difficulty for X ° eZ ^ c e "b ^ la te M° SS haS the disease' blood to pass through the body. untreated, the disease can cause a host of problems ranging from spleen damage, kidney problems, stroke, and even death. And often times a lack of treatment can continued on page 8 i i i i i i i i i i Of