But what about the black people? (Portland, Eugene: middle-class, apartments, renting)

[ckhthankgod]

What's interesting is that Portland has Jefferson High, which is 66% Black in a city that is 8-9% and a school district that is about 16-17% Black. To put that into perspective, the blackest high school in my hometown of Syracuse, NY is Corcoran High at 66% and Syracuse is about 30% Black. It is on the NE side of town and is known for being a good Basketball school. Grant which is about 20-25% Black is the next Blackest school and is also on the NE side. What I've noticed when looking up info. on the city is that most of the Black live on the east side of the river. Some that left NE due to gentrification have moved out to Beaverton, Gresham and Hillsboro. You get quite a few in the David Douglas SD, a few in the beaverton district and some in the Centennial schools too. Gresham schools also have a few.

Most of the Blacks came from the South to work in the shipyards after WW2 or descent from those people. Some live in Vancouver, WA too.

Seattle actually is in the 9-10% Black range with most living in the Central district and the southern parts of the city. They actually have had a Black mayor, County Exec.(King County) and head of Seattle public Schools. All were Black males and Tacoma is about 12-13% Black. Then, you have the suburbs in bewteen that are around Ft. Lewis like Lakewood, Kent, federal way, Tukwila, and Renton, among others. Also, a rareity about seattle is that it is a city with more Black men than Black women. I think the military presence has something to do with that.

Anyway, Portland has a noticable Black community with most of the roots being pretty recent. There were only 2,000 Blacks in the city before they started to come in the late 40's. A lot of the early Blacks came with masters from MO and other slave states.

Oregon also had a history of sundown towns and they outlawed things like interracial marriage for a long time. Now, that is common in Portland. Here is a good site to check out some past restrictions on Blacks in Oregon:Timeline of Black History in Oregon

[Nell Plotts]

US Supreme Court declared California's law ban on interracial marriages unconstitutional in 1948. Oregon repealed theirs in 1951. In March 1966, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld their anti-miscegenation law, but in June of 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional. In 1967 the 16 states which still had anti-miscegenation laws on their books were forced to erase them.

The pioneers didn't like Catholics either, Catholic parochial schools were unlawful.

Chinese, many of whom built the railroads, were prohibited from becoming naturalized or bringing wives during the same period that European immigration was encouraged.

[EnricoV]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

The pioneers didn't like Catholics either, Catholic parochial schools were unlawful.

I've always heard that when the Klan was most active in Oregon, their focus was mostly anti-Catholic. The Catholic dislike has interesting origins, though. There was a lot of settlers vs. Hudson Bay Company men sentiment, they being mostly all French-Canaidan Catholics. And then there was the Whitman Massacre that, according to rumors running rampant through the territory, was a plot by the Catholic missionaries to drive the Whitmans out. By supposedly instigating the Indians into the massacre.


But a whole different thing ... just read an interesting fact I thought I'd contribute. The NAACP established a branch in Portland, in 1914, and is the oldest west of the Mississippi.

[karlsch]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

The pioneers didn't like Catholics either, Catholic parochial schools were unlawful.

Are you sure of that? With a few minutes of Goggling I found two Catholic schools that were founded in the mid 19th century and are still operating. The one in Portland is oldest continually operating secondary school in Oregon.
St. Mary's Academy (Portland, Oregon) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St. Mary's School (Medford, Oregon) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[EnricoV]

It was only a couple years.

In 1922 a law was passed requiring that Oregon children all attend public schools. It was overturned in 1925. It said nothing about parochial schools in particular. But then, don't all the best discrimantory laws?

Here's a quote about it, from the Oregonain's website:

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses at Catholic schools and backed an initiative sponsored by the Scottish Rite Masons that outlawed parochial schools. The initiative passed, but the U.S. Supreme Court later declared it unconstitutional.

[Nell Plotts]

A lot of those laws have their roots in economic competition or power struggles. Members of groups like the KKK strike me as losers, bullies.

Tension between Roman Catholics and Protestants go back to the Reformation... again a struggle about power and money.

[EnricoV]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

Tension between Roman Catholics and Protestants go back to the Reformation... again a struggle about power and money.

So true. But how sad and twisted that it's religion that it applies to.

[Nell Plotts]

When we peel back the excuses, power and resources are at the core of almost all conflicts and discrimination IMHO.

In employment, where networking plays a significant role, social relationships impact opportunities. It is not just race here; schools, churches, clubs are all factors.

FYI, I am not a social scientist nor history major, just an interested observer of human behavior.

[Nell Plotts]

From the NY Times: A Changing Neighborhood - The New York Times > U.S. > Slide Show > Slide 1 of 8

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by EnricoV

It was only a couple years.

In 1922 a law was passed requiring that Oregon children all attend public schools. It was overturned in 1925. It said nothing about parochial schools in particular. But then, don't all the best discrimantory laws?

Here's a quote about it, from the Oregonain's website:

I have a friend from Oregon and according to her, the KKK infiltrated the Orgeon government and tried to pass legislation prohibiting nuns from wearing their habits(the traditional clothing of a nun) in parochial schools. As a Catholic and and African-American, Oregon would have been a no-no for me during the 1920's.