News
Juneteenth
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entertainment will include music from the Kirk Green band;
the Calvin Walker band; Nefasaria and The Future; spoken
words events and more.
“There’s a lot of buzz this year and we think it’s going to
be bigger than ever,” Rush said. “We’re hoping this is going
to be a huge success and that it will be great for Portland.”
Portland’s Juneteenth celebration has gone through some
ups and downs since Ms. Clara Peoples first announced it in
1945, over a loudspeaker in the Kaiser shipyards. Ora Lee
Green, a teacher organized the first citywide celebration at
Holladay Park in 1972. The event soon added a parade and
moved north to Jefferson High School. For a while the cel-
ebration lost support because of its connections with Yam
Yam’s restaurant, whose owner was convicted of dealing
cocaine in 2009. Now, a new committee has formed, under
Rush’s leadership. Current committee members are: Ms.
Clara Peoples, Ms. Ora Lee Green, Doris Rush, Tim Hall,
Karen Smith, Calvin Kyles, Sandra Hasty-Blacknall, Kirk
Green, and Jerry Foster. A former bank employee turned
project manager, Rush says the new committee is hard-
working, and full of fresh energy.
“We now have a really committed and skilled group of
people,” she said. “We’ve worked really hard to make this
community feel comfortable with this event. We pride our-
selves on our transparency, and we want Portland’s
Juneteenth to grow into a three-day event as it is in other
parts of the country.”
The Juneteenth Portland Committee’s vision would add a
dinner with educational scholarships for students on Friday,
before the Saturday Freedom Parade and celebration, and
also a ‘Gospel Explosion’ on Sunday.
Ministers
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police our way out of the
it…everyone has got to be
involved. We have been
lacking the community
piece so it’s very inspira-
tional for me to be here and
see all of you.
“Right now we have sum-
mer to get through… it’s
going to take a lot of work
to get out there and make
sure these kids have some-
thing else to do, something
to hope for.”
Captain Kevin Modica
told the community to claim
the public space. “Take up
the space,” he said,
“Occupy what is yours. Be a
voice of reason.”
Derriel Ingram, a graduat-
ing senior from Benson
High School, said peer pres-
sure is hard to resist when
adult support is lacking.
And he pointed out that stu-
dents gravitate to gangs in
middle school when they
are just 11, 12 and 13 years
old.
“I’ve seen my friends go
to prison and their lives are
pretty much over because
when you get a felony on
your record you can’t get a
job,” he said. “If you don’t
have someone on your side
telling you ‘Don’t do it!’
then you don’t see the point
of not doing it.”
Derriel, who is the son of
Rob Ingram, the director of
Portland’s Office of Youth
Violence
Prevention,
explained how devastating
it is to be viewed as a threat,
simply because you are a
young Black man.
“I walk down the street
and people cross the street,”
he said. “It makes you feel
like something is very
wrong, you feel lost,” he
said. “It makes you feel like
Page 10 The Portland and Seattle Skanner June 15, 2011
you are not part of society.”
John
Canda,
for
Connected, spoke about the
power of being a positive,
visible presence in the com-
munity. Being that friendly
caring person for minority
youth is a ministry of place
and ministry of presence, he
said. But he warned against
working for others to the
point that you neglect your
own family. He plans to
bring his high school-aged
son with him once a week,
he said, when the group
gathers to offer that visible
street presence..
Chabre Vickers, director
of community relations and
diversity for Big Brothers
Big Sisters, Columbia
Northwest, talked about the
impact of mentors. And the
urgent need for volunteers
to step into that role. “We
have about 2000 children on
our waiting list who want a
mentor,” she said. “They’re
waiting right now and all we
need is you.”
Some mentors work with
gang-affected youth through
the nonprofit’s Second
Chance program. Mentors
are crucial when youth are
released from detention, she
said, and can make the dif-
ference between falling
right back into old patterns
or leaving the juvenile jus-
tice system for good.
Bishop Steven Holt spoke
about the strength of tradi-
tional Black culture and the
transformative power of
prayer. “Prayer is the great
equalizer,” he said. “It can
change the atmosphere, grip
hearts, arrest your attention
and turn somebody around.
“Prayer is incredibly pow-
erful.”