Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2022)
DECEMBER 21, 2022 Portland and Seattle Volume XLVI No. 8 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW 25 CENTS News ................................... 3,6 A & E ........................................5 Opinion ...................................2 Black Mermaids ..............5 Calendars ...............................4 Bids/Classifieds .....................7 KAREN DUCEY/THE SEATTLE TIMES VIA AP HISTORY RECORDED A worker from Washington Department of Transportation clears a drain on Northgate Way during a heavy snow at the morning commute in Seattle, on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022. Freezing Rain and Snow Snarl Travel in Pacific NW Snowfall has impacted holiday air travel The Associated Press PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Heavy snow, freezing rain and sleet have disrupted travel across the Pacific Northwest, causing widespread flight cancella- tions and delays and creating danger- ous driving conditions in the region stretching from Vancouver, Canada, down through Washington state and Oregon. In Oregon, one person died in an ac- cident on Interstate 84 in the Colum- bia River Gorge near Rooster Rock State Park on Tuesday morning when a semi-truck collided with their SUV, the Multnomah County Sheriff ’s Of- fice said. Police are conducting a crash investigation and noted that the thin layer of ice on the major highway that weaves its way through the Gorge may have been a contributing factor. About 47 miles (75.6 kilometers) of eastbound I-84 between Hood River and Troutdale closed earlier in the day due to crashes caused by ice, the Oregon Department of Transporta- tion said. After all eastbound lanes reopened, transportation officials said drivers should still use caution. The agency warned that long de- lays caused by heavy snow were also “plaguing” U.S. 26 over Mount Hood. In Washington, heavy snow in parts of the Cascades closed two of the main roadways across the state on Tuesday. Multiple spinouts shut down traffic in both directions at Snoqualmie Pass, a mountain pass on Interstate 90 about Seattle Griot Project interviewer Charlie James speaks with Eddie Rye Jr., who provided a wealth of newspaper archives and historic documents about the Central Area neighborhood in Seattle Seattle Griot Project Provides Blueprint for Preserving Black Identity in Whitewashed Neighborhoods Volunteers from the neighborhood formerly known as Central Area use digital technology and film to create living library of Black history. By Saundra Sorenson Of The Skanner News F ormer residents of a Central Area, a formerly Black Seattle neighborhood now known as the Central District, are working to document their hometown’s rich Black heritage – and want to provide a blueprint to other cities for pre- serving hyper-local Black history. The Seattle Griot Project is named for a West African phrase for a com- munity historian, the “repository of oral tradition” through storytelling, poetry and music. In practice, it will be a highly visual platform for re- cording and indexing local oral his- tories from everyday people. See FREEZING on page 3 Bill Affects Local and Black-owned Newspapers page 6 Clyde Merriwether The group has conducted 49 inter- views so far, with a goal of at least 200 sit-down, filmed conversations with elders. “The oldest person so far we’ve interviewed has been 98, Josephine Stokes,” longtime multimedia educa- tor Roger Evans, who launched the project, told The Skanner. “Her hus- band was judge Carl Stokes, so we did an exhaustive interview with her. She’s also allowed us in her home several times. She has a sign-in book that everyone who came into their home signed, and one of the names we found in the book was Thurgood Marshall back in 1952.” ‘Very Little to Be Recognized’ The project began in the early aughts as Evans’ effort to record in- terviews with “people of color that were successful in our community,” Evans said, with the vision of creat- ing a series of DVDs that would be made available in public libraries. The project fizzled due to lack of funds, but Evans held onto the mate- rial. “I noticed a couple years ago that my granddaughter was extremely savvy on her cellphone. I spent a lot of time with her, and I recognized that even though she could sit and read a book that was not what com- pelled her…My business went into super-stasis during the pandemic, and I wanted to create something that would capture an essence” of the neighborhood he remembered. “There was very little to be rec- ognized,” Evans said. “So in early 2021, we took this challenge on again to start digitizing and preserving the oral histories of the elders. We wanted to bridge the gap so we had this information online, so that our people in our community, wherever they were, would have access to the data that their grandparents or they, if they were elders, remembered and had available to them.” Volunteer Clyde Merriwether spoke to the universal nature of his neighborhood’s gentrification. “It’s happened everywhere,” Mer- riwether said. “Motivation: Seattle is gridlocked. It can’t go north, it can’t go south, it certainly can’t go out into the ocean. The next real proper- ty was the dumping ground, where they put the Black folks. All of a sud- den that became prime property – all these Microsoft (employees), they’re all moving into the neighborhood as they get into town. Where can they go? “So in essence, you have these people who bought their houses for $8,000, $17,000 back in the early days. Somebody comes and offers you $400,000 for your property, you think you got over. You walk out the door, all of a sudden (your property is worth) $1.3 million and you can’t come back.” See GRIOT on page 3
