Thursday, February 4, 2021 • The buLLeTIN
COVER STORY
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September 1849, Maryland — Harriet
Tubman escapes from slavery making use of
the Underground Railroad until she reaches
Philadelphia. She would later conduct 13
missions to rescue approximately 70 en-
slaved people until the outbreak of the Civil
War when she served as a spy for the Union.
Upon her death, she was awarded full mili-
tary honors.
March 6, 1857, Washington D.C. — Dred
Scott v. Sanford is ruled by the Supreme
Court that slaves were not citizens of the
United States and therefore have no protec-
tion from the government or the courts. The
decision further stated that Congress had no
authority to ban slavery from a federal terri-
tory. It was later overturned by the 13th and
14th amendments and was called the worst
decision ever made by the Supreme Court
by legal scholars.
Feb. 3, 1870, Washington D.C. — Fif-
teenth Amendment is ratified. The Constitu-
tional Amendment outlaws voting discrimi-
nation based on race. The new law overrides
the clause in the Oregon State Constitution
banning Black suffrage, but it wouldn’t be
until 1927 that the language is removed from
the state constitution. The 15th Amendment
is not ratified in Oregon until 1959.
Sept. 22, 1862, Washington D.C. — Pres-
ident Abraham Lincoln issues the Eman-
cipation Proclamation declaring all slaves
freed on Jan. 1 of 1863 if the rebellious states
did not rejoin the union. The Confederacy
did not respond and the proclamation took
effect.
May 22, 1863, Washington D.C. — Gen-
eral Order 143 is issued by the War Depart-
ment to create the United States Colored
Troops, which, by war’s end 179,000 Black
men served in the Army and 19,000 served
in the Navy.
Dec. 6, 1865, Washington D.C. — The
13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slav-
ery in the United States.
July 9, 1868, Washington D.C. — The
14th Amendment is ratified extending
rights given in the Bill of Rights to former
slaves.
Feb. 3, 1870, Washington D.C. — The
15th Amendment it ratified granting Black
men the right to vote.
1871, Tennessee — First of the “Jim
Crow” laws is passed with other southern
states passing similar segregationist laws
over the next 15 years.
1881, Warm Springs — Black Canadian,
John Brown, settles in a canyon just south
of present-day Warm Springs along the De-
schutes River with his wife making him the
first Black settler in Central Oregon. He
grew fruits and vegetables on his homestead
and sold them in Prineville where he even-
tually relocated in the 1890s. The canyon
still bears his name
Sept. 18, 1902, Coos Bay — Alonzo
Tucker is lynched after allegedly assaulting
a white woman. It is the only officially re-
In this March 7, 1965
AP file photo, state
troopers use clubs
against participants
of a civil rights voting
march in Selma, Ala. At
foreground right, John
Lewis, chairman of the
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee, is beaten
by a state trooper.
The day, which
became known as
“Bloody Sunday,”
is widely credited
for galvanizing the
nation’s leaders and
ultimately yielded
passage of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
corded lynching in the state though many
historians believe many more went uninves-
tigated between 1877 and 1950.
Feb. 12, 1909 — The National Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Colored Peo-
ple is founded, with the Portland chapter
founded with the help of Beatrice Morrow
Cannady, an activist and editor and owner
of The Advocate, Portland’s only Black
newspaper.
1921, Oregon — The Ku Klux Klan is es-
tablished in Oregon. At the time, members
included the Portland police chief, Mult-
nomah County sheriff and the mayor of
Portland.
1923, Bend — The Ku Klux Klan burns a
cross at the top of Pilot Butte.
1934, Gearheart — William Badger,
a Gearheart businessman who ran Barg-
er’s Chicken Dinner Inn alongside his wife
Emma, becomes the first Black elected official
in Oregon when he runs for City Council.
May 17, 1954, Washington D.C. — Brown
v. Board of Education rules that school seg-
regation is unconstitutional.
Dec. 1, 1955 Montgomery, Alabama —
Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up
her seat on a bus for a white passenger.
1956, Portland — 450 homes in the Al-
bina neighborhood, of which four out of five
people are Black, are destroyed to move to
make way for the construction of the Me-
morial Coliseum. Officials also approved
the construction of Interstates 5 and 99 that
ran through the South Albina, destroying
over 1100 homes.
Feb. 1, 1960, Greensboro, North Caro-
lina — Four freshmen from North Caro-
lina Agricultural and Technical College sit
at the Woolworth’s lunch counter reserved
for white patrons only. The act reignited
the civil rights movement in the 1960s and
several more protest-based acts that would
follow.
July 2, 1964, Washington D.C. — Pres-
ident Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, the most sweeping civil
rights legislation since reconstruction, into
law.
Feb. 21, 1965, New York City, New York —
Malcolm X is assassinated
March 7, 1965, Selma, Alabama — More
than 600 activists led by the Student Non-
violent Coordinating Committee begin
to march toward Montgomery and are
met with violence on the Edmund Pettus
Bridge where the sheriff had deputized ev-
ery able-bodied white man who joined in
blocking the protesters way. The nonviolent
marchers were beaten with billy clubs with
between 17 and 50 people injured. That
Tuesday, the protest resumed with more
marchers joining including Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
Aug. 6, 1965, Washington, D.C. — The
Voting Rights Act of 1965 is enacted outlaw-
ing discriminatory voting practices
April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee —
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassi-
nated
July 30, 1967, Portland — When “Soul
on Ice” author Eldridge Cleaver failed to
show at an event scheduled at Irving Park
in the Albina district, rumors spread that he
was being detained by the police. Four or five
teenagers of the 100 Black people who had
gathered, began throwing bottles and attack-
ing a Parks Department employee. The po-
lice shut down 30 city blocks and sent in 200
officers. Clashes followed over the next three
days resulting in about 100 arrests.
November 1988, Portland — Ethiopian
exchange student Mulugeta Seraw is brutally
murdered in Portland in a random attack by
neo-Nazis. The murder prompts Oregon to
pass its first hate crime bill.
May 20, 1989, Portland — Union Avenue
is renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boule-
vard. There is enough opposition in the state
to put the name change on the ballot, but it
is overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court
who rules it an administrative change not
one subject to a vote.
1996, Oregon — Avel Louise Gordly be-
comes the first Black woman elected to the
Oregon State Senate.
Nov. 5, 2008 — Barack Obama is elected
the first Black President of the United States
Summer, 2020 — Demonstrators gather
around the world to protest the death of
George Floyd
e e
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Redmond Oregon 97756
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Sharon Preston