Safe
Crossings
Sasquatch sets
example for kids
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Portland Observer
Online
See Metro, page 9
Beloved Pastor
Remembered
A wake and
funeral for Mary
Overstreet Smith
See Local News, page 3
‘City of Roses’
Volume XLV
Number 36
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • September 7, 2016
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by C ervante p ope /t he p ortland o bserver
Incoming eighth grader Ruebens Francois gets a helping hand on his first day back to school at Ockley Green Middle School in north Portland from adult mentors from
Portland’s Coalition of Black Men, Chairman Ralph Evans (left), and former executive director Bruce Watts.
Youth Mentoring from the Start
C ervante p ope
t he p ortland o bserver
Portland’s Coalition of Black Men has
long sought to change both the perception
young black males give and the quality of
life they have by connecting with them
early on in life through mentoring and
positive influence.
The group was formed 28 years ago
at time when media coverage in Portland
was dominated by negative depictions
of young members of the black commu-
nity and when work was needed to com-
bat a gang problem that was developing
in the city, according to Bruce Watts, the
group’s former executive director and
by
Coalition of Black Men
making a difference for 28 years
current member.
“The Coalition was created to provide
a positive image of African American men
in the city,” Watts says.
Having worked with the Coalition
since it was founded in 1988, Watts sees
the beneficial impact the mentoring pro-
gram has achieved.
“We have made a difference and we
can tell,” Watts says of the many kids of
color who have benefitted. “We try to ex-
pose them to opportunities in life that they
may not realize are there.”
Watts said a recent partnership with
Portland Public Schools, ushered in by
former superintendent Carole Smith, has
made the coalition’s work even more im-
pactful.
Smith wasn’t pleased with the “glaring
discrepancy” Portland schools had in its
discipline of African American male stu-
dents, Watts says. Youth of color were ex-
periencing suspensions and expulsions at
a much higher rate than their white class-
mates, which led to the superintendent
calling for at least a 50 percent decrease
in the number of incidents causing this
disciplinary discrepancy.
Many of the issues known for landing
African American students in helms of
the district’s punitive disciplinary polices
were falling under the guise of “defiant or
disruptive behavior” – a description that
is more subjective than definitive, Watts
C ontinued on p age 5