A8
OREGON
East Oregonian
Thursday, May 5, 2022
Fighting health
inequities to get
$31 million boost
By LYNNE TERRY
Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM — The Oregon
Health Authority will give $31
million to nonprofi ts, churches
and other community organi-
zations to reduce health care
inequities in the state.
The grants aim to help
the hundreds of thousands of
Oregonians who identify as
people of color or those with
disabilities, have no perma-
nent home, belong to a tribe,
are elderly or part of the
LGBTQ community. During
the pandemic, racial and
ethnic minorities and seniors
suff ered the worst outcomes
from COVID, according to
health authority data, accen-
tuating health disparities.
“OHA acknowledges that
racism, settler colonialism and
historic and contemporary
injustices have created poli-
cies and programs that led to
unfair and unjust health ineq-
uities over time,” the agency
said in a release. “In center-
ing community strengths and
wisdom for health, this grant
opportunity supports commu-
nity-based organizations as
partners in Oregon’s public
health system.”
The agency has a goal of
eliminating health inequities
by 2030. The health author-
ity hopes grants will spur
community organizations to
focus on eight key areas where
the state has fallen short,
including adolescent health,
tobacco prevention, overdose
prevention and environmental
public health.
The agency approved
applications from 147 orga-
nizations that span the state.
Adelante Mujeres, for exam-
ple, which advocates for Lati-
nas in Washington County,
will work on bolstering heath
resources in schools and
improving adolescent health.
Other community groups
serve several counties.
Medicine Wheel Recovery
Services, which off ers outpa-
tient treatment for addiction
and mental health issues,
covers Benton, Colum-
bia, Coos, Curry, Douglas,
Harney, Jeff erson, Klamath,
Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion,
Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook,
Umatilla, Wallowa, Wasco,
Washington and Yamhill
counties.
The organizations “have
the power to reach commu-
nities the state may not be
able to reach,” according
to an email from Jonathan
Modie, lead spokesman for the
health authority. Public health
experts with state and county
health departments will work
with them.
“We expect to see commu-
nities thrive, and we expect to
reach our goal,” Modie wrote.
As part of its strategic
plan to end health inequi-
ties, the health authority is
trying to strengthen its rela-
tionships with groups that are
connected to marginalized
communities to let them lead
the process.
The projects will be funded
through June 2023 but the
agency has not yet determined
how much each organization
will get. It will determine the
amounts after working with
recipients on their budgets and
plans, Modie said.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Kelly Cannon-Miller, Deschutes County Historical Society Museum executive director, discusses the Maxville Heritage
Interpretive Timber Culture Traveling Exhibit.
Exhibit in Bend captures history of Black loggers
By JOE SIESS
The Bulletin
BEND — Ever since
Gwen Trice was a young girl
growing up in La Grande,
she wanted to move to nearby
Wallowa County. When-
ever she visited, often as a
teenager, she felt something
powerful was drawing her
there, but she didn’t know
what.
Later in life, she learned
her father, Lafayette “Lucky”
Trice, moved to the area from
the Jim Crow South in 1923
to work in the logging indus-
try. Trice’s father was one of
the fi rst Black people to live
and work in Wallowa County,
in a state that at the time of
his arrival, excluded Black
people in its Constitution.
Trice was fortunate to
stumble upon her family
history, learning of her
father’s past as a logger. The
revelation prompted her to
make Wallowa County her
home.
“It felt like I was a
salmon going up to the orig-
inal stream where I was
spawned,” Trice said. “I
was going up to that origi-
nal stream, and nothing else
mattered. I had to go home.
And that became my overar-
ching energy.”
That energy turned into a
desire to explore and preserve
the history of Oregon’s Black
loggers who came to a logging
town called Maxville. The
Bowman-Hicks Lumber Co.
established the town in 1923
and it lasted until 1933. After
the town closed, some Black
loggers stuck around while
others moved to Portland or to
logging towns in the region.
Today, Trice is the founder
and executive director of the
Maxville Heritage Inter-
pretive Center, a nonprofit
located in Joseph which is
dedicated to telling the inclu-
sive American narrative. Part
of her work involves provid-
ing a traveling exhibit across
the state showcasing the
multicultural timber history
of Oregon, and the Maxville
Timber Culture exhibit is
now open to the public at
the Deschutes Historical
Museum in Bend.
Trice’s journey back to
her family’s roots in Oregon
began when she was a student
at Bellevue College in Wash-
ington where she studied
fi lm, graphic design and vide-
ography.
In 2004, she traveled
to Wallowa County for an
annual cultural event in the
town of Promise, where she
was introduced to the crowd
of around 300 mostly older
individuals as the daughter
of Lafayette “Lucky” Trice.
She would spend the next
three days listening to stories
about her father from those
who knew him.
At the age of 19, “Lucky”
traveled to Oregon with
his father in a box car from
a logging camp in Pine
Bluff, Arkansas, and later
sent for his family. Experi-
enced loggers like “Lucky”
were in demand and the
Missouri-based Bowman
Hicks Lumber Co. recruited
loggers, both Black and
white, in the South and the
Midwest to work out West.
At the time, it was techni-
cally illegal for a Black person
to come to Oregon, a law that
wasn’t struck from the state
Constitution until 1926.
“Essentially, they set up a
southern town. They set up
a segregated town in East-
ern Oregon,” Trice said of
Maxville. “They were from
the South. There was no way
white people were going to
live side by side with Blacks.”
Despite the founding of
Maxville in the image of the
Jim Crow South, the town
was relatively far removed
from mainstream society,
and so relationships between
Blacks and whites did exist,
Trice said.
In the end, while Jim Crow
was alive and well across the
country, Oregon was a good
bet for the skilled Black
loggers who chose to leave
the South to make the state
their new home.
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