Page 4
July 15, 2015
Jamilah Bourdon plates a free breakfast for local students as part of a grassroots effort to empower and support Portland’s black community.
Empowering
Lives
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Showdogs is a full service salon. We do
baths, all over hair cuts, tooth brushing,
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baths, and ear cleaning. We also have health
care and grooming products to keep your
pet clean in between visits.
Show Dogs Grooming Salon & Boutique
926 N. Lombard
Portland, OR 97217
503-283-1177
Tuesday-Saturday 9am-7pm
Monday 10am-4pm
Yo dawg is gonna look like a show dawg
and your kitty will be pretty.
About seven Portland orga-
nizers with the All African party
took up the call and started a free
breakfast program this past year in
the New Columbia neighborhood
of north Portland, bringing chil-
dren food and offering lessons in
sustainability and activism on a
rotating basis. During the school
year the program fed about 25 stu-
dents per day, but over the sum-
mer the program has expanded its
hours, allowing parents to have
relief from caretaking while chil-
dren take some time out of their
day to learn aspects of African his-
tory, food growth, and grassroots
community building.
Organizer jamilah bourdon
(who prefers her name in all low-
er case, like bell hooks) has been
involved with the organization for
about a year and a half and says
she is happy with the program.
“The work that we are doing
is to make sure that not only are
these kids’ bellies full, but to en-
courage them and remind them
that they are important,” she
said. “We are teaching kids about
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It’s not just physical defense. It’s
the ability to defend your commu-
nity and yourself with education
and history and providing for your
community on your terms.”
Adrienne Cabouet, another
organizer for the All African par-
ty, who is also active with Black
Lives Matter, explained how it’s
important to counter the erasure of
African history from general edu-
cation.
“We have to create a system
stronger than white supremacy,”
she said. “It’s about divesting
from systems that oppress you
and creating things that serve your
community that you build,” she
said.
The All-African People’s Rev-
olutionary Party, which bills itself
as a pan-African socialist organi-
zation that connects all people of
African-descent for collective ed-
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its headquarters in Guinea-Bis-
sau. The Oregon chapter, which
is based in Portland, opened up in
2013.
Organizers of the New Colum-
bia free breakfast program say
their goal now is to ensure that
it will be become self-sustaining
and that other communities can
run their own breakfast programs
wherever they are needed.
“The cause continues long after
the leader is gone,” said bourdon.
“One day, we hope the children
who are eating now might feed
other children; that they will feel
this project, and this community,
belongs to them just like their his-
tory does.”
Both organizers we spoke with
suggested that, if others saw val-
ue in what they were doing, they
would consider opening up free
breakfast programs in their own
communities, and that it was im-
portant to them that people be in
charge of their own organizing.
Those who are interested in ei-
ther donating to the current New
Columbia breakfasts or starting
their own are encouraged to vis-
it aaprporegon.org or like their
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olutionary-Party-Portland-Or-
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group is also accepting new back-
to-school supply donations for
students at the moment as well,
including backpacks, notepads,
writing implements, and calcula-
tors.
Donations for food to the free
breakfast program can be dropped
off at the organization’s commu-
nity meeting location, In Other
Words Bookstore, 14 N.E Killing-
sworth St. The breakfast program
currently runs on Mondays and
Fridays from 8 to 10 a.m. at Co-
lumbia International Cup Coffee
Shop at 9022 N. Newman Ave. In
September, the program returns to
its school year schedule of 7 to 8
a.m. on Mondays and Fridays.