May 22, 2019
The
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INSIDE L O C A L N E W S
Week in Review
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Portland Community College at the Cascade Campus in north Portland honors the late Evelyn “Evie”
Crowell with the opening of the Evelyn Crowell Center for African American Community History.
Crowell Center Opens
PCC installs
monument to
local black history
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Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
“Education is often seen as a
pathway out of poverty,” reads the
opening line on one of the displays
in the new Evelyn Crowell Center
for African American Community
History.
Perhaps no one else embodied
this notion more than the late Eve-
lyn “Evie” Crowell, the namesake
and inspiration behind the new
historical exhibit, which was in-
stalled this week in the library at
Portland Community College’s
Cascade Campus.
The Evelyn Crowell Center
for African American Commu-
nity History is a monument to
both Crowell’s extraordinary life
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M ETRO
C ALENDAR
O PINION
C LASSIFIEDS
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and to the generations of African
Americans who breathed life, cul-
ture, and resiliency into the Albina
Neighborhood of north and north-
east Portland.
An opening ceremony is sched-
uled for 11 a.m. Monday, June 3,
in the PCC Cascade Library.
“Evie was someone who tru-
ly lived what she preached,” said
Karin Edwards, president of the
Cascade Campus. “She believed in
education as the means for people
to live the life they want, and she
put her own time and her own hard-
earned money to work in service of
this ideal and of her community.”
The center is comprised of a se-
ries of panels depicting the many
decades of African American life
in inner north and northeast Port-
land, tracing the history of the
Albina district from the Vanport
flood of 1948 through the Civil
Rights Era to the present day and
beyond. It was curated by James
Harrison, a local historian and for-
mer instructor at the campus.
Evie Crowell was not just a part
of that history, but a leader and
pioneer in her community. After
finishing high school at age 16 in
1959, she went on to be part of the
first four-year graduating class of
Portland State University. Next,
she earned her master’s degree in
library science from the Univer-
sity of Washington, and followed
that by working at the library at
Jefferson High School and soon
becoming the first black librarian
at Linfield College in McMinn-
ville and, later, the first at PSU.
Crowell recorded a number
of other “firsts” in her illustrious
life, including becoming the first
C ontinued on P age 4
Oregon Picks Up Lunch Tabs
Oregon lawmakers have ap-
proved the largest statewide ex-
pansion of the federal free lunch
program, ensuring all students
living up to three times above the
poverty line will have access to
free meals.
It’s the first time a state has of-
fered to completely take on school
meal costs, which can often run
tens of thousands of dollars for
individual school districts. The
move is expected to provide hun-
dreds of thousands of students
with free breakfast and lunch.
The meals expansion is tucked
away in tax package for schools,
a sweeping $1 billion annual in-
vestment explicitly dedicated to
boosting student performance.
The program, which will cost the
Oregon is expanding its school lunch program.
state $40 million a year, will be
paid for through a new half a per-
cent tax on business.
Gov. Kate Brown signed the
school funding tax package, but it’s
likely to be referred to the voters to
decide in 2020, thanks to Oregon’s
robust referendum process.