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V‘)
M a r t in L u t h e r K in g J r .
Januaiy 15. 2014
2014 s p e c i a l e a t lio n
Building African-American Pride
c o n t i n u e d f r o m page 35
A nation or
civilization that
continues to produce
soft-minded men
purchases its own
spiritual death on an
installment plan.
-- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
INVEST TODAY
IN YOUR
CHILD'S FUTURE
they secured a building on N ortheast M orris
Street, and fixed it up with their own labor.
They recruited kids at the grassroots level,
patrolling the neighborhood for children with
idle time during sum m er break. The desks at
the Black Education C enter were soon filled
with 120 students that sum m er in 1970.
By 1974, the center expanded to being a
full-tim e private school. Though the Black
Education C enter was forced to close down
in the late 90s it became a staple in Portland’s
African-American community.
“Portland was pretty fertile ground for some
o f the things we d id ,” she says.
H arris’ proactive approach to culture and
education followed her through the years, an
attribute perhaps rooted in the mentoring she
received years ago from her grandm other.
W ith fondness, H arris recalls how her
grandm other w ould say to her as a youth,
“Y ou’ve got a good head on you, you get the
best education, ‘cause can’t nobody take that
away from you.”
W ith a sm ile creeping across her face,
Harris says, “she was absolutely right.”
Fittingly, now adays Harris, who received
her M asters in Education from Portland State
University, serves as director of the Region X
Equity Assistance Center at Education North
west, a position she has held since 1994.
It is all seem s a natural extension o f what
she’s been doing since her high school years
when she collaborated with other student
government leaders and a handful o f teachers
to get classes started again am idst a lengthy
teacher’s strike.
‘I know how fired up I get when culture is
a part o f w hat I ’m doing,” she says.
H am s uses the A frican-A m erican holiday
o f K wanzaa as example. This tradition started
in 1966, and H arris and others gave that
tradition roots in Portland in 1970.
She w arns that young people aspiring to
become leaders in the community should study
the successes and failures o f not only national
figures, but those who spearheaded things in
their own backyard.
“We have to look at the shoulders o f people
we stand on. W ithout a Fannie Lou Ham er,
there would not have been a Barack Obama.
There w ouldn’t have been,” she says.
She continues this thought by referencing
Rev. Dr. M artin L uther King Jr., saying “he
had m ore than a dang dream .”
“I always tell people you need to study Dr.
King, you need to read his writings,” Harris
says.
In doing so, she says people will discover the
intricacies that fueled the great Civil Rights
leader; like the unnamed cast of supporters from
King’s church that constantly checked in on him
throughout the intense struggles of the time.
Ever the educator, Harris recom mends that
people look for m ore inform ation on King
and the M ontgom ery Bus B oycott he so fa
mously led.
Check out the book “Strides Tow ard Free
dom ,” she says. “I think one o f the areas we
really need to tighten up on is teaching our
kids, their history and culture.”
It all adds up to another piece to the civil
rights puzzle, as King so famously demanded
in his “I Have a Dream Speech” 50 years ago
on the N ational M all in W ashington, D.C.,
that his “four little children will one day live in
a nation where they will not be judged by the
color o f their skin, but the content o f their
character.”
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-- Rev. Dr.
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