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February 10, 2021
Black Voices Grow Power in Salem
C onTinued from f ronT
health, three on civil rights and
two labor bills.
When Frederick was first elect-
ed to the state House in 2009, he
was the only African American
out of 60 representatives, and the
late Jackie Winters was the only
African American senator. But
today, the Legislature’s Black,
Indigenous and People of Col-
or caucus, or BIPOC, includes a
dozen lawmakers, including Na-
tive Americans, Latinos, African
Americans and Vietnamese. One
of its newest members, Kayse
Jama of southeast Portland, ap-
pointed last month to fill a vacant
seat, is a native of Somalia and
the first Muslim member of the
Senate.
“Now that we have 11 other
members of the Oregon Legis-
lature who are people of color,
we clearly made our views and
desires known to the rest of the
legislature. Twelve members is
more than ever before,” Freder-
ick said.
The Portland lawmaker antici-
pates joining Jama and two other
Black lawmakers, Sens. Janelle
Bynum, representing southeast
Portland and Happy Valley and
Jim Manning of Eugene and Junc-
tion City, on putting bills forward
that deal specifically with racial
issues, some that have been im-
portant issues for a long time.
“Some bills I’ve been working
on for 11 years,” Frederick said.
“Bills on excessive use of force,
bills related to African American
history in school curriculums,
bills that deal with use of force
and discipline issues as well as
training and recruitment.”
Frederick said he’s also work-
ing on “more subtle” bills that
have to do with over-testing in
schools, bringing more teach-
ers and counselors of color into
schools, and reducing class sizes.
Frederick also supports repa-
rations for descendants of slaves
and last month proposed a state
bill to pay people who could
prove a heritage in slavery, a
$123,000 annuity, annually paid
for the life of the applicant. Some
press reports, even national ones,
got the proposal wrong by con-
flating annuity with annual, he
said. Under an annuity, recipi-
ents would receive a portion of
the total each year, not the entire
sum each year. For example, a
$100,000 annuity for a 65-year-
old would pay out about $500 per
month in lifetime income.
“The real key is that we are
going to start talking about rep-
arations,” he said. “Not just in an
academic setting or around the
dinner table, but to look at how
to craft reparations.”
On the national level, Freder-
ick says he supports U.S. Rep.
Barbara Lee’s reparations bill in
Congress. He wants to hear more
on how Congress could approve
reparations and how a financial
system might be created to deal
with that, “That’s where the an-
nuity comes in.”
As a member of the state trans-
portation committee, Frederick is
also keeping a close eye on the
I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement
Project, which has been contro-
versial in the past. The project
seeks to undo some of the harm
to the Black communities that
were obliterated by the construc-
tion of the Interstate freeway in
the 1960s that cut through neigh-
borhoods displacing many Black
residents and local businesses.
The area was also decimated by
the construction of the Oregon
Convention Center and the ex-
pansion of Legacy Emmanuel
Hospital.
“The proposal is just to change
exit ramps, but not increasing
lanes,” Frederick said. “The Al-
bina Vision group calls for the
freeway to be covered so we can
put housing on top.” Those dis-
cussions are ongoing, he said,
and goes back to a bill approved
by voters in 2017 to increase
taxes on gasoline and gasoline
engines with the condition that
congestion problems in the Rose
Quarter section be addressed.
Frederick said he feels a little
cynical about some of the recent
interest in the project.
“Some folks decided because
they discovered environmental
impacts on the African American
community, to use that as lever-
age to stop the project from tak-
ing place,” he said. “Those folks
could have stepped forward 10
years ago and did not. Now they
are stepping forward as though
they are saving the Black com-
munity, but in most cases they
are not Black folks, but a group
of white folks saying, ‘I really
care about you.’ It’s a cynical ap-
proach that I reject and I am in-
sulted by. In some cases they are
truly sincere; others I’m not sure
about.”
Another example of detach-
ment from Black concerns was
when a group was pushing the
use of electric scooters to the
Legislature.
“The guy giving the pitch
looked straight at me, and said
how this would help the low-in-
come community,” Frederick
said. “I said I didn’t think that
was true. They think they are
trying to help, but they’re being
patronizing.”
In other transportation issues,
Frederick said he would like to
see a high-speed rail between
Portland and Vancouver and be-
yond.
“If we had a high-speed rail a
lot of people would be using that
instead of driving along I-5,” he
said. “We could also do Portland
to Eugene, and I would like to
see it go all the way to the Cal-
ifornia border.”
TriMet Honors Rosa Parks
C onTinued from P age 2
and led to a U. S. Supreme Court
decision that bus segregation
was unconstitutional. Just over a
year after Parks’ act of defiance,
city officials were ordered to de-
segregate Montgomery’s buses
and Rosa Parks sealed her place
in U.S. history.
TriMet Board of Directors
member Keith Edwards, who is a
lifelong advocate for civil rights,
an electrician and union leader,
and member of Portland’s Afri-
can American community, pro-
posed the special no fares day of
recognition for Parks.
In January, the TriMet Board
passed a resolution which de-
clared her birthday as a day to
acknowledge her role in the civ-
il rights movement. It changed
TriMet code to allow for fares
to not be collected on Feb. 4 this
year and years to come.
“When people wonder why
fares are not being collected on
this day, we’ll be able to tell
them that Rosa Parks is being
honored,” said Director Ed-
wards. “This is her birthday,
and she’s the mother of the civil
rights movement. She moved the
country by use of a bus in a great
social effort to bring about equi-
ty and equality.”
In unison with the civil rights
movement, Rosa Parks’ cou-
rageous demonstration greatly
Keith Edwards
contributed to the passing of
the Civil Rights Act, a landmark
federal law adopted in 1964. The
law bans discrimination on the
basis of race, skin color or na-
tional origin.
TriMet has been a longtime
advocate for respecting civil
rights and promoting the val-
ue of the diverse community it
serves. Leaders of the agency
point to its adoption of policies
to ensure that equity guides de-
cisions around fares and service,
evaluating all proposed changes
to avoid unnecessary negative
impacts on people of color and
low-income populations.