One hundred years ago, the historian, educator and author Carter G. Woodson started an educational campaign that would eventually become what we know today as Black History Month. Born to formerly enslaved sharecroppers, Woodson was primarily self-taught, motivated to study common school subjects between time spent working on the family farm, and later, in coal mines of Appalachia as a teen. He was able to attend high school at the age of 20, graduating in two years, and later became a teacher and school principal. He overcame many obstacles and persevered to become only the second Black American to graduate from Harvard University.
Woodson was passionate about history, but as he spent more time in scholarly circles, he noticed there were very few chronicles of Black history in books, in libraries or in print at all. After joining the American Historical Association, but then being barred from its conference, he felt it was his mission to document and share stories of African American life, culture and contributions. He started with a scholarly journal, which turned into a historical movement.
As we reflect on the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, it’s important to understand the greater historical context of the country at that time, and of our region and our state. The modern demographic make-up of our cities and states has a lot to do with immigration, access to transportation and jobs, as well as state and federal laws. It was also greatly affected by terror campaigns and lynchings of thousands of African American citizens particularly in the South. These were quite often led by the Ku Klux Klan, whose membership was in the millions during its “second wave” in the 1920s. It was during this time that many Confederate statues and monuments were erected as a visual display of power and the “Lost Cause” ideology. By 1926, the Great Migration was in full swing, with about 1.6 million African Americans relocating from Southern states to cities in the North and West. Although life had improved significantly after emancipation, many Black families in the South made their living as sharecroppers, which was essentially indentured servitude. As word of industrial jobs in the North reached the rural South, many Black Americans sought the opportunity to make a better life and have a respite from violence and persecution.
In many Northern cities, this demographic shift brought with it an extraordinary social, literary and cultural awakening that gave us the Harlem Renaissance in New York and the Jazz Age in Chicago, a city now known as “the place where jazz grew up.” Municipal laws known as “redlining” meant that Black Americans could only settle in very specific areas of these cities, but in general, there was more upward mobility and integration happening there. Railroad jobs also brought Black Americans to Western cities such as Los Angeles, Oakland and Seattle, but significantly fewer, to Portland. What made Oregon different?
In 1844, European settlers convened the Oregon Provisional Government and established laws in the territory in anticipation of statehood, one of which declared that free Black Americans who tried to settle in Oregon would be publicly whipped — 39 lashes every six months — until they left Oregon. The law was eventually added to the state constitution by the time Oregon was granted statehood, the only state incorporated with an “exclusionary clause” in its constitution. While the passage of the 13th and 14th amendments in 1868 overruled Oregon law, the state did not officially repeal its constitutional exclusionary amendment until 1926. By then, Oregon’s reputation for being unwelcoming and dangerous for Black people (especially after dark in some towns) had forever changed the demographics and culture of the state, a reputation which quietly persists today.
So how do we change that? How do we help make our state and, more specifically, our community, a safe and welcoming place to visit and to live? We study the history. We acknowledge it. We learn from it. And most importantly, we talk about it. We work toward reconciliation one courageous conversation at a time.
On Feb. 27, the RCC Diversity Programming Board will host a Zoom presentation from Grants Pass Remembrance. Join us to learn about our community’s history as a Sundown Town, and the path to becoming a Sunrise Community. Learn about the three “Rs” of reconciliation, and be inspired by these courageous community leaders. Below you’ll find event details as well as additional resources where you can learn more.
We hope to see you!
Courageous Conversations – Becoming a Sunrise Community
- Friday, Feb. 27
- 12 p.m.
- Join Zoom Meeting
Resources:
- Oregon Experience (OPB film, 16 mins): Oregon Remembrance Project
- Oregon Remembrance Project: Sunrise Communities
- Grants Pass Remembrance: Oral History Collection
- Timeline: Black in Oregon, 1840-2007 (State of Oregon Archives)
- The Great Migration and the Power of a Single Decision by Isabel Wilkerson (TED Talk, 17 mins)
For more information, please contact Lucia Bartscher (Chair, Diversity Programming Board) by email or on Teams.