October 5, 2022
Minority Business Edition
Page 7
Portland Native is State’s New U.S. Attorney
Natalie Wight is
the first Black
Woman to hold
the office
b y b everly C orbell
Natalie Wight, who was confirmed as
Oregon’s U.S. attorney by the U.S. Sen-
ate earlier this month, is the first person
of Black descent to hold the office, and
she gives credit to growing up in Port-
land for her successes.
As a 1992 graduate of Cleveland
High, where she played soccer, basket-
ball and track and field, Wight said her
high school experience helped give her
the will to succeed.
“The people who raised me up were my
teachers and my coaches, and they always
pushed me to never give up,” she said.
That attitude led to many successes in
her life, including graduating from Notre
Dame law school in 2003 and that same
year joining the Department of Justice
through the Attorney General’s Honors
Program as an attorney for the Federal
Bureau of Prisons. She then served as
an assistant U.S. attorney in California
from 2008 to 2012, when she came back
to Portland to work in Oregon’s U.S. At-
torney’s office.
Natalie Wight
“I couldn’t wait to get back,” she said,
and one of the first things she did was
get in touch with her old high school and
start the Cleveland Mock Trial program,
which she started with her husband, Ca-
sey Nokes, also an attorney. Some school
have mock trials as part of the curricu-
lum, but it’s all volunteer at Cleveland,
where the kids come in after school and
on weekends.
Wightalso spearheaded a mock trial
program at Notre Dame, where the pro-
gram for law students was pretty intense,
she said, but it’s more geared toward
high school kids at Cleveland.
“It’s a little mix of everything, and we
mostly focus on getting them ready for
graduation and college and do a little of
mock trial,” she said. “We teach them
how to evaluate a case, to be analytical
and about both criminal and civil cases.”
The program starts in October and ends
with statewide mock trial competition at
the Multnomah County Courthouse.
“We’ve only gone to state once,” she
said, “but we pride ourselves on being
the runner-up every year.”
In her volunteer work and in her job,
where she often puts in 12 to 14 hour
days, underlying it all is her love of chil-
dren and her concern for their futures,
Wight said.
“My vision is that I want to know how
our cases affect children, both as victims
and as defendants,” she said. “I want to
know how our work can help bring jus-
tice to kids, and at the same time support
them,” and that includes her own sons,
ages 16 and “almost 15.”
In her 18 years with the U.S. Attor-
neys’ Office, most recently Wight served
as the deputy chief of the Organized
and Violent Crime Section, where she
focused on child exploitation, human
trafficking, kidnapping, Indian Coun-
try, robberies, assaults and other violent
crimes. She also served as an assistant
U.S. Attorney in the office’s Civil Divi-
sion, defending the United States in cas-
es involving civil rights, torts, medical
malpractice, employment law and prison
Power Through Community Economics
C ontinued from f ront
way for more businesses of Color
to tell their stories and share their
value propositions with the com-
munities they support. People
gravitate to people with good and
very clear visions for success.”
Mr. Randall emphasized that
community economics is essen-
tial for establishing economic
parity and economic equity in
our state. Two groups he high-
lighted that perform exemplary
versions of community eco-
nomics are the Mexican Amer-
ican and the Asian-American
communities. Randall said that
generally, the Asian Commu-
nity, and more specifically the
Chinese American communi-
ty, have what are called family
clubs. “These clubs are where
the community will pool, lend
and donate money and resourc-
es to each other to make sure
everyone in the community
has what they need.” He ex-
plained that a very similar sys-
tem emerged from the Mexican
American Community, where
“relatives and families will
band together under the concept
of ensuring the community is
taken care of.”
That spirit of community eco-
nomics, of it taking a village to
raise a child, is precisely what
NAMC-Oregon brings to the ta-
ble as a critical convener in our
various diverse communities,
McCoy said. “NAMC believes
it doesn’t just take a village to
raise a child, it takes a village
to raise a community. We have
so many different great organi-
zations doing amazing work, but
we’re siloed. We’re in our own
individual communities. We
do not impact broader swaths
of folks unless we are working
together. That was the driving
force behind the BBAO and our
wider association partnerships.”
“The fact that NAMC, an or-
ganization run by, and focused
on People of Color, and the Port-
land Business Alliance (PBA), a
largely White organization, have
joined forces to put together an
organization that is designed to
bring about economic prosper-
ity for the Black Community is
crucial,” said Randall, and is a
sign that the village that Nate de-
scribed is growing.
Randall continued, “BBAO’s
mission and vision are clear. We
are an organization that is de-
signed to bring about economic
prosperity.” he said. “We just
need to show people what we
[the Black Community] can do.”
The White Community has ac-
cess to the lion’s share of the cap-
ital and opportunity in Oregon.
“Because of our history, we’re
often afraid to put ourselves
out there, to jump into these
predominantly White spaces.”
Lance explained that the BBAO
will fight to “make sure that we
are prepared to take advantage of
these opportunities.” He said the
end game for him isn’t control or
power, “the end game is equity,
prosperity and everyone having
what they need.”
“Growth for BBAO, or any
of our close association part-
ners like LatinoBuilt, NAYA,
or AGC, is growth for NAMC,”
McCoy said. “We are a village.
A community.” He emphasized.
McCoy said, “To that end,
NAMC and our partners are try-
ing to zero in and set new tables
that specifically address gaps
in wealth creation, home own-
ership, and business revenue to
create programs and policies for
the retention and expansion of
businesses of Color.”
The growth of these business-
es of Color, said McCoy, “is a
universal benefit to us all. On the
surface, it allows these smaller
companies to grow, thrive, and
more significantly contribute to
the tax base. But more crucial-
ly, it allows our Communities of
Color to ensure they have what
they need so that no one falls
through the cracks.”
litigation. She has also been a Depart-
ment of Justice attorney recruitment
ambassador since 2011 and the U.S. At-
torney’s Portland Reentry Court Coordi-
nator since 2015.
“The reentry program is for people
who have finished their sentences and
they’re still on probation,” she said,
“and we focus only on the highest risk
and highest need individuals in reinte-
grating back into the community,” she
said. “They very often have serious sub-
stance abuse, and extensive criminal his-
tory and serious trauma.”
Together with a team of many experts,
overseen by the district court and run by
a federal judge, the goal is to help them
learn to succeed in life.
“I represent the prosecutor’s office
and work with individuals from pro-
bation and others, like mental health,
as part of the reentry court team,” she
said. “We do a lot of work with them to
help with families to get the help they
need, especially women in the program,
where a lot are trying to regain parental
rights and get housing. It’s part of my
job, but quite different from my day job
of prosecuting.”
That helps give her life balance, she
said, because not everyone gets a life
sentence and helping them makes for
safer communities.
“It’s wonderful, but challenging,” she
said. “It’s very rewarding and grounding
to see the day-to-day that someone has
to go through.”