JUNE 21, 2023
Portland and Seattle Volume XLVI No. 20
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
25
CENTS
News ................................ 3,6,8 A & E ........................................5
Opinion ...................................2 RFK, Jr. .............................6
Calendars ...............................4 Bids/Classifieds .....................7
PHOTO BY ANDREW SELSKY/AP
JUNETEENTH
The legislative session
ends on Sunday.
By Saundra Sorenson
Of The Skanner News
T
he recently passed Measure 113
bans lawmakers with 10 or more
unexcused absences from imme-
diately running for re-election,
but did little to dissuade Republicans
from staging their fourth walkout in
five years. At six weeks, the walkout
broke state records and added to the
anxiety that by effectively quashing
new environmental legislation, Re-
publicans could prevent the state from
receiving hundreds of millions of dol-
lars in funding to battle climate change
made available through the recently
passed federal Inflation Reduction Act.
The six-week standoff came to an end
last Thursday, with 10 Republican state
senators likely to be the first to be cen-
sured under the new measure. With
the legislative session scheduled to end
on Sunday, two bills in particular have
undergone significant compromise: a
gun control measure that was passed
See LEGISTLATURE on page 3
Black Filmmakers Say
Melanin-Challenged
Cannes Film Festival Can
Do Better
page 5
Paul Knauls, affectionately known as The Mayor of Northeast Portland, receives a lifetime achievement award on June 18, at the Juneteenth Oregon 2023
event. The two-day celebration of “Freedom Day” featured a parade, live music, local vendors, food and kid’s activities. On Saturday, the crowd enjoyed
musical performances by Cupid, BridgeCity Soul, Kirk Green, Greater Kind, and the Jason Neville Funky Soul Band. On Sunday festival goers danced in
spotty rainshowers to BridgeCity Jazz, Tyrone Hendrix & Jubu Smith, Alonzo Chadwick, Saeeda Wright and Arietta Ward.
BIPOC Farm Collective Starts Strong with
Two Major National Awards
The Strawberry Lane Collective in Milwaukie
will offer no-cost land access for BIPOC
growers.
By Saundra Sorenson
Of The Skanner News
A
small farm project in
Milwaukie that will
provide no-cost land
for BIPOC growers
has received two national
awards in its first year of
operation.
The Strawberry Lane
Collective launched in Jan-
uary with the aim of mak-
ing the farm a land trust
for BIPOC growers and
beekeepers. The Practice
Grant will help launch the
collective’s Rotate, Graze,
Grow project to place a
pair of blackbelly sheep
around the farm to help
remove aggressive and in-
vasive plant species, more
quickly readying the land
for growers. The collective
was also recognized with
the Garden Conservancy
Award this year.
“It’s always been im-
portant to (farm owner
Monica Melger) to make
sure that BIPOC growers
have access to that land,
as a kind of reparations
project,” collective mem-
ber Dorian Campbell, who
runs the project with Den-
nise Mofidi, Jasmine Bar-
ber and Dawn Cohoe, told
The Skanner. “So while
folks who live out there
are white, they’re allowing
BIPOC folks to farm or gar-
den or grow mushrooms or
work with bees out there,
free of charge, knowing
that land access is a big
problem for BIPOC folks,
and for Black folks in this
area…it can be really diffi-
cult and really expensive.”
The Practice Foundation
provides “direct funding
to grantees for projects
that expand the ways hu-
mans design and care for
the land,” according to co-
founder Emily Hicks.
In their application for
the grant, the collective
PHOTO VIA INSTAGRAM/PRACTICE LANDSCAPE @PRACTICELANDSCAPE
With
Republicans
Back from
Walkout,
Legislators
Race to
Keep Key
Legislation
Afloat
PHOTO BY ANTONIO HARRIS
Oregon State Capitol Building
noted only
1.5% of U.S.
farmers
are Black,
and point-
ed out that
due to Or-
egon’s his-
tory of vi- Dorian Campbell of Otter Paw Herbs tends to the garden
olent and at Strawberry Lane Collective.
exclusion-
ary racist laws, only 0.1% the collective. This inter-
of farmers throughout the view has been edited for
length and clarity.
state are Black.
The Strawberry Lane What will the Practice
Collective is part of a bur- Grant allow you to do?
geoning movement to help
Campbell: The Prac-
BIPOC Oregonians access tice Grant was a major
the state’s rich agricultural game-changer for all of
resources.
us. We’re all really new-
“Everything is no cost,” er, smaller projects, but
Campbell said. “Everyone we won. It’s allowed us to
out there has access to any have money – at least for
part of the land that they’re me, to do things right, as a
interested in, water use, new business owner, to not
bathroom, kitchen use on have to take shortcuts or
the property – all for free.” compromise on the quality.
The Skanner sat down
It’s allowing us the mon-
with Campbell and Mofidi ey to build the infrastruc-
to discuss their vision for
See FARM on page 3