Page 4
May 16, 2018
2018 SCHOLARSHIP
APPLICATION
PACKETS
Are available to:
High School Grads, College Students
And Adults Cont. Educ.
PACKETS CAN BE
REQUESTED ON-LINE @
Patriciaanntrice@gmail.com
Or by phone ~ 503 283-6312
For more information contact
Elizabeth F. Richard or Patricia A. Trice
at 503 284-0535
THE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS
JUNE 3RD MIDNIGHT
The Della Mae Johnson
Scholarship Foundation
2216 NE Killingsworth
Portland, OR 97211
(503) 284-0535
Providing Insurance and Financial Services
Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710
Ernest J. Hill, Jr. Agent
4946 N. Vancouver Avenue,
Portland, OR 97217
503 286 1103
Fax 503 286 1146
ernie.hill.h5mb@statefarm.com
24 Hour Good Neighbor Service R
State Farm R
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Fun, Healthy Social
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Denise Johnson 503-819-4576
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Co-Founders and Instructers
Legacy Fabricator Killed
C ontinueD from p age 3
edge on to lots of people,” Julia
Colson, the co-owner of the au-
to-shop who sometimes trimmed
Gora’s rose bushes, added.
The Colsons noted they’d
sometimes seen his door ajar, too.
A makeshift memorial appar-
ently put together by neighbors
and friends with flowers, messag-
es of love like “we miss you,” a
candle, and a slice of apple pie
were left on his doorstop Tuesday
morning.
The property had three open
complaint cases with the city of
Portland Neighborhood Inspec-
tions Program, two related to the
upkeep of his yard and one com-
plaint of illegal residency of the
owner.
Two complaints, both from
Dec. 11, had not yet resulted in
citations—a nuisance complaint
of debris and hazardous material
in Gora’s yard, and a complaint
of exterior storage of some of his
possessions, including vehicles.
A third complaint of illegal-
ly residing in the garage, which
was marked for commercial use,
did result in a citation on Jan. 31,
Housing Inspection Supervisor
Megan Greenauer told the Port-
land Observer.
Gora told a housing inspector
he had been living on his property
for the past 45 years, Greenauer
added, but was actively working
with the city to correct the com-
plaints.
“He was moving towards sell-
ing the property. We were work-
ing with him to make the occupa-
tion of the space more safe in the
meantime,” she said.
Gora even held an estate sale just
two weeks ago, in the last weekend
of April, where he sold some of
his vehicles and other property in
an apparent attempt to get clear his
property, the Colsons said.
Police have said the circum-
stances of Gora’s death make
them suspect homicide, and the
cause of death was confirmed to
be homicide-related, but It re-
mains confidential as to how ex-
actly police suspect the killing
was implemented.
“In order to preserve the integ-
rity of this ongoing investigation,
the Police Bureau is not releasing
the specific cause of death,” Ser-
geant Chris Burley, the bureau’s
Public Information Officer, told
the Portland Observer via email
Monday.
Portland Police Detective Divi-
sion’s Homicide Detail and crimi-
nalists with the Forensic Evidence
Division were dispatched to in-
vestigate the killing, officials said.
Anyone with information about
the death should contact Detective
Todd Gradwahl at 503-823-09991,
Todd.Gradwahl@portlandoregon.
gov or Detective Brad Clifton at
503-823-0696,
Brad.Clifton@
portlandoregon.gov.
‘Left Hook’ to Displacement
C ontinueD from f ront
nity who once lived in or remem-
bered Vanport to curate and record
their stories.
As Lo Forti was collecting
these oral histories, she had got-
ten word that Webb was working
on a play about Vanport, Cot-
tonwood in the Flood, through a
mutual friend. They got in touch
with each other and have been
running Vanport Mosaic together,
ever since.
The community of Vanport was
home to many groups including
African-Americans, whites, Jap-
anese-Americans returning from
internment during World War II,
and Native Americans. It was one
of the first integrated communi-
ties of its time in the state.
By 1947 the town that once
boasted 40,000 dwindled to half
that, but 4,000 residents of col-
or stayed. That changed when
the 1948 flood wiped out the
community, even as the Port-
land Housing Authority was vy-
ing to dismantle it. The former
residents were forced to move
somewhere else, which for many
blacks would end up being the
Albina District.
Due to a discriminatory lend-
ing practice that limited African
American presence elsewhere
in the city, known as redlining,
many Portland blacks who sought
rentals or buying a house were
also sequestered to the Albina
district.
Urban renewal efforts by the
city, such as the construction of
the Memorial Coliseum and the
Interstate 5 freeway cut through
north Portland neighborhoods in
the 1960s, and the 1970s expan-
sion of Emanuel Hospital, created
economic blight in the area and
displaced hundreds. The hospital
expansion permanently altered
some of the district’s signature
features and, in some areas, razed
sections of neighborhood without
developing anything on it.
Left Hook compresses the
timeline of these events from a
dozen years or more into a few
months. It focuses on the return
of African-American soldiers
from Vietnam trying to find
their place amid a transformed
neighborhood; the Black Panther
Movement; and a boxing club
once integral to the community
struggling to find a home.
The Left Hook Boxing Club
is based on an amalgamation of
many of the actual gyms in Port-
land at the time; in particular the
Knott Street gym that still exists
today from its current home out
of the Matt Dishman Community
Center in northeast Portland.