Portlanders, especially white Portlanders- this is REQUIRED READING for those protesting in Portland. If you want to see it in person, go to N Edison and N John St in the St John's Dist. A thread.

1800s The Cowlitz people live nearby when the first Black visitor arrives in 1802. His name is York. He’s on the Lewis and Clark expedition and he’s enslaved – William Clark has owned his since birth.

These roads 1st appear as a map in 1865—while Oregon has an annual tax on every nonwhite resident. Those who can’t pay are forced to work for the state.

1910.
On March 21, a mob of 100 white men, including St. John’s mayor and the police chief, riot against (East) Indian immigrants who live here -- ransacking homes, pulling people from beds, publicly beating them and attacking Indian workers at the St. John’s Lumber Co.

Just down this hill.
The immigrants form a resistance group. Many return to India later to fight for independence.

1923
This neighborhood is 100% white. Over 9,000 Portlanders belong to the KKK. The state bans Japanese and Chinese immigrants from owning property.

1942
The govt. puts over 4,000 Portlanders of Japanese descent into cattle pens 5 miles from this street. Then they are forced onto trains and into prison camps inland.
2 shipyards open and hire workers nationwide, including over 4,000 Black people.

White residents here and citywide refuse them as neighbors. Instead, the govt. quickly builds the town of Vanport to house them. Next to the cattle pens.

1948
The city govt. wants to tear down Vanport but can’t find residents new homes. So they let them stay and let the structures decay. Most White people leave. Black residents have nowhere to go.

Memorial Day, the Columbia River levees burst, destroying Oregon’s largest Black community in hours. 6,700+ Black ppl lose their homes. 2 yrs later, this part of St. John still has no Black residents.
Rather than rebuild, the city turns the land into Delta Park and a golf course

1956
80% of Black Portlanders live in the Albina district, 7 miles from this spot. PDX Mayor and St. John’s native Terry Schrunk approves a plan to destroy 100s of homes there to build I-5 and HWY 99.

Then PDX votes to knock down 450 more Albina homes to make room for the Memorial Coliseum.
Cathedral Park desegregates in 1960. The area has 2 Black residents and 2,692 While people.

1970
St. John’s native Terry Schrunk with City Council declare that Jumptown, Albina’s booming Black business district, is “blighted”. They order it torn down so they can expand Legacy Emmanuel Hospital. Residents have 90 days to move.

Bulldozers destroy 300 homes, stores, cafes, Jazz clubs, banks, churches, and the Black Panthers’ free health clinic. Then the budget “runs out”. The area remains vacant for decades.

1980
In April, Black leaders stage a one-day school boycott to spur reforms. For years, the all-white PPS school board has desegregated schools by closing Black ones. There has been no middle school in Albina for a decade.

A bussing program scatters thousands of Black children into majority White schools across the city. Black teachers are barred from teaching in Black neighborhoods. Racial harassment and violence are common.

1985
On April 20, 31-year-old father of 5, Lloyd Stevenson stops a robbery at a 7/11, 7 miles from this spot. Police arrive, tackle Stevenson, and slowly choke him to death.

On the day of his funeral, 2 PPD officers print 100 T-shirts with a smoking gun and the words “Don’t Choke ‘Em. Smoke ‘Em”. They are fired, then rehired with back pay.

1988
People of color move in and PDX banks slow down on lending here. In Albina, loans are even harder to find and interest rates are up to 10x higher. In 1988, PDX banks make only 9 mortgage loans in the district from Irvington the Woodland.

Skinhead gangs are on the rise, with over300 Neo-Nazis in PDX. On November 13, 3 skinheads murder Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw outside his Laurelhurst home, 10 miles from here.

1990
By 1990, the area is one of the most integrated places in PDX. Over 1,200 Black Portlanders live here along with many Latino and Asian residents. Almost 1/3 of St. John’s residents are nonwhite. Soon Roosevelt High School becomes majority-minority.

The area diversifies partly because of pollution. St. John’s is home to the city’s landfill until 1991. Against residents' wishes, govt. officials have sacrificed the Columbia River Slough to industrial waste. The city builds subsidized housing next to the sewage treatment plant.

1994
Voters in this country & state pass the “One Strike and You’re Out” law creating mandatory minimums & requiring 15-year old kids to be tried as adults. The state now jails young people more often than the entire country. Oregon convicts Black kids at a 17x rate than whites.

2001
After 142 years, voters amend the state constitution to remove its original ban on Black residents.