MARCH 29, 2017
Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX No. 26
25
CENTS
News ................................ 3,8,9 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Concerns About Trump ...9
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
VIDEO STILL FROM WHITTEN’S FB LIVESTREAM
PASSING THE TORCH
Cameron Whitten, executive director of Know Your
City, addresses the “Salem Stands for Love” rally at
Salem Capitol, on March 25.
Black Man
Assaulted at
March
P
ortland activist Cameron Whit-
ten was met with racist remarks,
physical aggression and death
threats during the pro-Trump ral-
ly, “Oregon Make America Great Again
March” in Salem on Saturday. Onsite
police did little to mitigate the hostile
incident.
Whitten, the 25-year-old executive
director of the nonprofit Know Your
City — which provides educational and
arts programs to youth and adults in
Portland — attended the rally on March
25 because, he explained in a Facebook
post about the encounter, “I personally
PHOTO: AAMAQ NEWS AGENCY VIA AP
See ASSAULT on page 3
This image from March 2017 shows a veiled child in
a park in Raqqa, Syria. As U.S.-backed forces bear
down on the de facto capital of the Islamic State
group, all men have been ordered to wear the
jihadis’ “Afghan” garb, so attackers will be unable to
distinguish militants from civilians.
World News
Briefs
Brexit, Militants using
civilians in Syria page 8
Rose Festival Court is
Historically Diverse
page 6
Kirby McCurtis (left) takes over as interim administrator at the North Portland Neighborhood Library, as Patricia Welch (right) says goodbye after almost
20 years as the branch’s manager.
North Portland Library Says Goodbye
On Saturday, Patricia Welch will pass the baton to Kirby McCurtis
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
P
atricia Welch first fell
in love with reading
during story time at
her public library in
Baltimore.
She read everything –
books, magazines, even the
old newspapers her grand-
mother would lay out on
the floor after waxing it.
“I just enjoyed reading,”
said Welch, who cites
“Long Division” by Kiese
Laymon and “This Side
of Home” by Portland na-
tive Renée Watson as her
current favorite books. “It
made me happy, especial-
ly when I figured out that
I could learn things that
adults didn’t even know
about.”
Her junior high librarian
also made an impression.
She seemed to know every-
thing, remembers Welch,
and she always dressed so
elegantly, which the young
girl looked up to. Yet Welch
never considered becom-
ing a librarian until a ca-
reer questionnaire in Sev-
enteen magazine planted
the seed.
She went on to earn a
master’s in library scienc-
es from the University of
Michigan’s School of In-
formation, and for twenty
years has been the admin-
istrator at the North Port-
land branch of the Mult-
nomah County Library.
It’s a position that
brought her from Detroit
to the Rose City — and the
broader Pacific Northwest
— for the first time in Octo-
ber of 1996.
Welch recalled her ini-
tial reaction to the North
branch, when she discov-
ered its Black Resource
Center, a collection of
over 7,000 items including
scholarly and popular Af-
rican American literature,
children’s books, films, pe-
riodicals, and music.
“I just kept thinking, I
want this job,” Welch re-
called. “This was the job
I was supposed to have.
This was the place I was
supposed to be. I wanted to
work with African Ameri-
can literature materials in
a diverse neighborhood. I
wanted to work someplace
where I thought I could
make a difference, and this
job has been all of those
things.”
Welch wanted the job so
bad, she gleefully told The
See WELCH on page 3
Former OHSU Employee Resigns
EEOC numbers say incidents involving nooses in
workplaces have risen in recent years
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
A
former medical assistant at
Oregon Health & Sciences
University resigned her po-
sition at the end of February,
three months after she discovered
a coworker had posted a sign with a
noose in a working area — prompt-
ing her union to file a grievance on
her behalf and also prompting her to
take medical leave.
Maria Frazier told The Skanner she
no longer feels safe at the institution,
as after several meetings with uni-
versity officials and media coverage
by the Portland Tribune and KBOO,
she was offered free counseling but
not assured the physician’s assistant
who placed the noose and sign would
be disciplined.
“They minimized violating my civil
See OHSU on page 3
PHOTO BY M.O. STEVENS VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The Skanner News Staff
PHOTO BY MELANIE SEVCENKO
Portland activist
Cameron Whitten says
police failed to help
A medical assistant left her job at Oregon Health
& Sciences University after a coworker taped a
noose to a doorway in her working area last
November.
