Tubman School
Could Move for I-5
Black-led Vision for
Russell-Williams
School district and
governor eye solution
Team settles on
affordable housing plan
See Local News, page 3
See story, page 2
PO QR code
Volume XLVV • Number 14
‘City
of
Roses’
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • August 4, 2021
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Community effort confronts gun violence
Group formed
to renew ties to
local youth
b y b everly C orbell
t he P ortland o bserver
Law enforcement hasn’t solved the
problem of gun violence, but Joe McFer-
rin believes a community can.
McFerrin is spearheading a new coor-
dinated community effort called The Vil-
lage to bring gun violence way down, just
like a coalition of local nonprofits did in
the late ‘80s and ‘90s.
McFerrin was deeply involved in co-
ordinating efforts back then, when many
nonprofits sprung up to serve the African
American community as well as the com-
munity at large, to reduce gun violence.
But many of those social service agen-
cies weren’t structured for the long haul,
and when gun violence decreased, they
closed up shop, because they weren’t
built to last.
“This is what I lived through,” McFer-
rin said. “I was working with all these
community partners, but they disap-
peared when the guns and bullets slowed
down.”
They didn’t have the ability to “piv-
ot to provide services that were greatly
P hoto by M ark W ashington /t he P ortland o bserver
Joe McFerrin II (center), the adminsitrator for two long time educational programs serving the Black community, is getting help from
at least 11 Portland Black leaders who have pledged to help bring down gun violence, including Lisa Saunders of FaithBridge (left),
former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith and Jamal Dar of The African Youth and Community Organization (AYCO).
needed,” he said. “Just because the bul-
lets stop doesn’t mean services should
stop.”
Organizations that made a difference
decades ago included the Albina Youth
Opportunity School, the Youth Employ-
ment Institute, House of Umoja, Port-
land Youth Redirections and Minority
Youth Concerns Action, he said. The
House of Umoja even provided housing
C ontinued on P age 5
Biles Wins Bronze on Beam
Gynnast recovers to excel in Olympics final
Simone Biles of the United States performs on the balance beam during the artistic
gymnastics women’s apparatus final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, in
Tokyo, Japan. (AP photo)
(AP) — Simone Biles isn’t going
home with a fistful of gold medals.
A mental block — one brought on by
exhaustion or stress or something the
American gymnastics star still can’t
quite grasp — that forced her to pull
out of four earlier Olympic finals saw
to that.
Yet standing on the podium Tuesday,
a bronze medal hanging around her neck
and tears in her eyes, the 24-year-old
Biles may have claimed something far
more valuable: a piece of herself back.
From the “twisties” that have haunted
her for a week. From the endless spec-
ulation about her state of mind. From
the hype machine — one, admittedly,
she fed into at times — that set expecta-
tions so high coming to Tokyo nothing
short of the impossible would have been
enough.
It all became too much. A week ago,
her internal wires got crossed when she
hopped on uneven bars during practice.
Suddenly, she couldn’t spin. She could
barely move. She still doesn’t quite
know why. And if she’s being honest,
the wires still aren’t reconnected. She’s
not sure when they will be.
“It was something that was so out of
my control,” Biles said. “But the out-
C ontinued on P age 12