Page 2
Week
in
Review
The
August 12, 2015
Police have made no arrests but
believe all three victims know
each other and are working with
family members to identity ev-
eryone involved.
Candidate Ousted By Protesters Suicide from downtown
Democratic candidate Bernie Portland building
Sanders was rushed on stage at a
speech in Seat-
tle on Saturday.
Black Lives Mat-
ter activists said
they were calling
on the senator to take action on
saving black lives and called on
him to release his plans to reform
policing. Sanders did not address
the crowd and left without speak-
ing. He appeared later the same
day at the University of Wash-
ington and on Sunday drew more
than 28,000 to hear him speak in
Portland despite local protestors
marching outside the venue. Mara
Jacqueline Willaford, (pictured
left), holds her fist overhead as
Democratic presidential candi-
date Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,
stands nearby at a rally Saturday
(Credit Elaine Thompson/AP).
Authorities have identified a
woman who fell to her death last
Monday night from the top of
Portland’s Standard Insurance
Center building. 46-year-old Jua-
na Elena Valdez was confronted
by a security guard who tried to
prevent her from jumping but he
was unable to stop her and she
dropped to the pavement below,
according to a police report re-
leased Thursday. Little is known
about the Hillsboro victim, ex-
cept that records indicate she had
a history of financial problems.
Shooting Victims Identified
Missouri authorities declared a
state of emergency Monday after
police arrested dozens of activists,
include civil rights leader Cornel
West, outside the St. Lois federal
courthouse Monday, following
another weekend of unrest in Fer-
guson, the city where unarmed
black teen Mike Brown was shot
and killed just over a year ago by
a white police officer. Inset Pic-
ture: People come to the aid of a
distraught woman after gunshots
were fired near a protest in Fer-
guson, Mo., Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015
(Credit Jeff Roberson/AP).
Gresham police have released
the name of the three people in-
volved in a Saturday afternoon
shooting that resulted in one fa-
tality. 27-year-old Kevin Dwayne
Vearnado of Portland was found
dead outside an apartment com-
plex around Northeast 162nd Av-
enue and Halsey Street. Nearby,
Malcom Xavier Jesse, 21, was
found with a non-life-threatening
gunshot wound. A third victim,
29-year-old Collett Renee Harris,
took herself an area hospital for a
non-lethal gunshot wound as well.
Ferguson Protests Escalate
Established 1970
P ublisher : Mark Washington, Sr.
E ditor : Michael Leighton
E xecutive D irector : Rakeem Washington
A dvertising M anager : Leonard Latin
Office Manager/Classifieds: Lucinda Baldwin
C reative D irector : Paul Neufeldt
R eporter /P hotographer : Olivia Olivia
Our Roots Run Deep
C ontinued from F ront
that dated back over a century,
Hanks said he was able to build
several profiles from some of
the earliest black pioneers with
names and original home ad-
dresses in what is now called the
downtown and Old Town areas.
Being a history lover and
wanting to share what he had
learned, Hanks started leading
groups on public walking tours
of some of the locations, last fall.
“The early pioneers of color
who lived downtown and in the
Pearl District are from a forgot-
ten chapter in Portland’s histo-
ry,” Hanks explained. “They
were just ordinary people like
most of us today. They came to
Portland in search of freedom,
community, and economic inde-
pendence.”
Hanks found that many of
the early black Portlanders were
former slaves, with names such
a Julius Caesar Taylor and the
Crawford family.
Several of them were also
business owners. During the
1860s, Hanks says he discovered
that one black pioneer founded
a Portland real estate company,
while another owned a saloon
and almost got killed one night.
Another early black resident,
he says, was instrumental in the
integration of Portland public
schools in 1870s. One runaway
slave even ended up owning a lo-
cal home.
Hanks suspects that some of the
earliest black people arriving in
Portland had once been part of the
Underground Railroad, a famous
escape route for runaway slaves
predominantly fleeing the South.
The first black newspaper had
an office two blocks away from
what’s now Pioneer Courthouse
Square, work that would eventu-
ally lead to the opening of other
black-owned newspapers like The
Portland Observer.
“There are many more histori-
cal facts on the tour, such as the
first Ku Klux Klan part of Port-
land, and the first black lawyer
here,” says Hanks. “I also try to
include a tribute to the Native
Americans who were taken to Or-
egon reservations from here.”
Hanks has also written a book
that’s steeped in years of his own
African American ancestry re-
search.
Akee Tree: A Descendant’s
Quest for His Slave Ancestors
on the Eskridge Plantation is his
account of two families, his own
during slavery and that of the fam-
ily that held his ancestors in bond-
age.
Hanks has also helped celebri-
ties discover their pasts. He was a
contributor to the 2006 PBS spe-
cial “African American Lives –
Oprah’s Roots,” which examined
the genealogy of Oprah Winfrey.
Hanks hopes to continue to
write and research local black
history while enriching Portland
with his walking tours. He invites
the community and visitors alike
to take some time out of their day
and walk through the past with
him.
Hanks currently offers two his-
torical tours that focus on Portland
pioneers of color, all of which take
place on Saturdays.
The downtown tour begins at
9:30 a.m. and lasts approximately
two hours, focusing on Portland
from 1850 through 1899, begin-
ning at Southwest First Street and
Ankeny next to the Portland Sat-
urday Market.
His Pearl District tour, which
lasts one hour, begins at 12:30
p.m. at Northwest Broadway and
Everett Street, and focuses on
Portland black history from 1865
through 1920.
Tickets are available for two
upcoming sessions on Aug. 22
and Sept. 12. Admission is $10
for adults, $2 for children under
17 and free for children under 10.
Tickets can purchased on location
or reserved by emailing portland-
pioneersofcolortours@yahoo.
com. For more information, you
can follow Portland Pioneers of
Color Walking Tours on Face-
book.
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