OWP 2015 – Portland: The City of the Neglected Concrete Rose

This is my final project for Oregon Writing Project’s summer institute. It’s a reflection on the history of gentrification in the city I love. What do you think?

Portland: The City of the Neglected Concrete Rose

“You see, you wouldn’t ask why the rose that grew from the concrete had damaged petals. On the contrary, we would all celebrate its tenacity. We would all love its will to reach the sun. Well, we are the roses. This is the concrete, and these are my damaged petals. Don’t ask me why, thank God nigga, ask me how!”

Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur painted a picture of a rose that grew from concrete as a metaphor for his life experiences. Despite—or perhaps because of—growing up in the inner city of Baltimore, New York, and Los Angeles, Shakur became one of the most iconic artists of his generation. His lowly circumstances gave birth to world-renowned beauty. While this image originated as a reflection on Tupac’s own life, it is an appropriate metaphor for the experience of Portland, Oregon’s African American community.

By some accounts, Portland is the most gentrified city of this century, and while the math might be suspect, it can at least be agreed that Oregon’s largest burgh is among the most gentrified in the nation. However, as Avel Gordly, the first Black woman elected to Oregon’s state senate, points out, “Gentrification isn’t an event, it’s a process. [It is the result of] decisions made by people intentionally that have the result of displacement. And when you look at who’s making the decisions, you have to look at who’s missing from the table.” Portland, Oregon, the City of Roses, whose citizens are highly concerned with sustainability and having the least possible environmental impact, has, both historically and recently, systematically neglected one of its most vulnerable flowers, its rose that grew from the concrete.

By the time I was old enough to have any sense of place, Williams Avenue—once known as “The Stem,” the source of life and vitality for Portland’s vibrant Black community—stood decrepit and abandoned, a cracked street lined with boarded up buildings, broken down cars, and burnt out streetlights. This emaciated shell of a neighborhood represented not some oversight or accident of city planning but the Rose City’s systematic efforts to drive away an unwanted community, an effort that left a once rich bed of culture vanquished, decomposing into fertilizer for a resurgence that, once and for all, disenfranchised an unwanted population.

Despite the thick layer of concrete that is Oregon’s long history of overt racism—racial exclusion laws, widespread and highly powerful KKK activity, and legally enforced segregation—a small community of African Americans eked out a place for themselves in Portland’s urban core.

“The rose that grew from the concrete”

From the very beginning, Oregon’s power structure intended their state to exist as the White haven of the West. Exclusion laws prohibited “free Negro(s) and mullato(s)” from remaining in the state, laws which remained intact until 1926—103 years after the end of slavery. Even more pointedly, Oregon initially refused to ratify the 15th Amendment which gave Black people one of the most essential rights of American citizenship: the right to vote. Given Oregon’s racial hostility, a surprising number Blacks lived in Portland at the beginning of World War II. The boom in business at the Kaiser Shipyards and the importation of any available workers caused that population to blossom from 1,900 to more than 23,000 during the war. This dramatic bloom only served to heightened the racial tension of the city.

Not wanting their city and their property values to diminish in stock, Portland’s real estate players enforced strict lending policies, redlining, and racially biased housing covenants that prevented African Americans from owning homes in the city. One such covenant stated that “No property shall be sold, leased, or subleased to Japanese, Chinese, Negroes, or Orientals[…] provided, however, that this shall not prevent their occupancy as domestic servants while employed by an owner or tenant.” To protect property values elsewhere, Portland pushed Black residents to settle in the Albina neighborhood or Vanport, the temporary housing community between Portland and Vancouver erected for shipyard workers. However, the flood of 1948 wiped out their entire city of Vanport and Black residents settled en masse in the Albina neighborhood, centered on Williams Avenue. The already overcrowded section of the city became further cemented as the hub of Portland’s small but thriving black community. Avel Gordly, an Albina resident, recalls the neighborhood as a “community of families, mothers and fathers who worked, and who worked really hard and who wanted the best for their children.”

While Black Portlanders’ work to established their roots began to bear fruit in the Albina neighborhood, the systemic oppression enacted by city officials lay the groundwork to pave over the modest two square miles of concrete in which those roots took hold.

“Damaged Petals”

The petals of Black Portlanders’ cultural rose wilted not by accident, but rather through concentrated efforts by the city’s power structure aimed at disenfranchising a vulnerable population. Though the Black community rooted itself in the Albina neighborhood, its grasp remained tenuous. Banks continued to refuse housing and home improvement loans within the redlined area; the city, as a part of a long rage plan to revitalize its urban core, neglected to provide services to the residents of Albina; and police and media were employed to construct a narrative of moral and urban decay in the neighborhood. Insiders—absentee landlords, city commissioners and their cronies—bought up property in the area, biding their time until their investments could ripen. When the federal government made “urban renewal” money available to cities across the country, Portland’s systemic injustices against the Albina neighborhood came into full bloom.

By the mid-1950s, when such programs came in vogue, the neglected soil of inner Northeast Portland was ripe for “urban renewal.” Despite the fact that residents had been clamoring for the necessary improvements for years, the city used the results of their own racist policies against the Albina neighborhood. Karen Gibson, professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, outlines the city’s strategy of disinvestment in the Albina neighborhood stating, “[They] designate Albina as the place where African Americans live. [They] allow more vice activities to occur there. [They] don’t provide the same policing services, garbage services, education services, park maintenance services, housing maintenance.” These racially motivated policies created the milieu in which living conditions could be declared substandard, ‘blighted’, and targeted for removal.

Not only did Portland’s governance ensure that the physical presence of the Albina neighborhood was deemed irrelevant to the rest of the city, they also made sure to paint the residence themselves as an undesirable element. Lax policing, coupled with sensationalized media coverage created a stunningly negative image of the Albina neighborhood. Despite perceptions to the contrary, one resident stated that, “We don’t want every woman that walks the streets in Albina to be considered a prostitute. We don’t want every young man that walks the streets to be considered a dope peddler.” While residents desired an orderly neighborhood, Portland Police had a different agenda. Tom Potter, former Mayor and Chief of Police, said of his time as a police officer in the Albina neighborhood, “We were an occupation army. Our job was not to interact or solve problems […]” Rather than provide members of the community with the services that their tax-dollars paid for and that their human dignity deserved, the city’s police force took a “look the other way” approach to their task. This approach did not allow the police to do their jobs, but it accomplished its purpose with the city.

In their application for federal money for “urban renewal,” the Portland Development Commission (PDC) wrote:

“There is little doubt that the greatest concentration of Portland’s urban blight can be found in the Albina area encompassing the Emanuel Hospital. This area contains the highest concentration of low-income families and experiences the highest incidence rate of crime in the City of Portland. Approximately 75% to 80% of Portland’s Negro population live within the area. The area contains a high percentage of substandard housing and a high rate of unemployment. Conditions will not improve without a concerted effort by urban renewal action. The municipal goals as established by the Community Renewal Program for the City of Portland further stress the urgent need to arrest the advanced stages of blight.”

The PDC neglected to acknowledge that these conditions were intentionally created by the city, rather they sought to capitalize on an opportunity to rid Portland of its Black-infested ghetto.

After receiving money through President Johnson’s “Model Cities” program, the PDC plowed ahead with their plan of disenfranchisement. Using the liberally applied ‘blight’ designation and the policy of eminent domain, which allows governments to seize private property in service of “the greater good,” officials stole hundreds of homes in the Albina neighborhood for their urban renewal projects. In the name of progress the PDC plucked from its small patch of concrete the rose so carefully cultivated by Portland’s Black residents. Over one hundred homes and businesses were seized in order to build the I-5 freeway through Portland’s east side. An additional 500-plus more homes—over half of which were occupied by blacks—were bulldozed in order to create space for Memorial Coliseum and an expansion of Emanuel Hospital. The plans for these buildings were years in the making and were all conducted behind closed doors. Many residents had no clue that these plans had been set in motion until it was far too late to fight back.

Through their policies of ghettoizing its Black residents and ignoring their cries for help in cultivating the rose of their community, Portland’s power structure achieved their ultimate purpose. “The Stem” was cut off, doing irrevocable damage to the beauty that had grown despite the difficult history of Black Portlanders’ experience in the Albina neighborhood.

“We would all celebrate its tenacity. We would all love its will to reach the sun.”

Albina resident Thelma Glover articulates her feelings after being removed, “It meant a lot to me, my home did, you know. You can be in a house, but sometimes the place where you are, it just does something for your lifestyle, you know?” And that lifestyle sat totally eviscerated. The Black community was psychologically and financially devastated by the PDCs maneuvering. The rich loam of the Albina community lay covered in freeway, arenas, and new industrial warehouses.

One of the most devastating symbols of this era is the destruction of the iconic Hill Block Building. The cupola-topped building stood full of black owned businesses: a store, restaurants, barber shops, and offices. At the time, if you wanted to run into somebody important in the Black community, you headed to the Hill Block. After PDC won its grant to “revitalize” the Albina neighborhood, the Hill Block Building was evacuated and demolished. Ironically, the proposed expansion of Emanuel Hospital that was to replace the building never happened; federal money ran out long before the project was complete. Today the decapitated cupola remains in Dawson Park, a monument to the destructive capabilities of the White power structure.

Not only did the government take the soul from the Black community, they also removed any shred of equity. At one of the few board meetings to hear from residents, Mrs. Leo Warren told the PDC that, “When the larger community tells a smaller part of the community that it’s necessary to move them from their homes[…] the total community has an obligation to see that those being displaced can be moved with dignity and without suffering financial loss.” The PDC fell woefully short in both categories. Residents were told that their homes were a ‘blight,’ an unlivable eyesore and given 90 days to evacuate. Neither were they afford the dignity of satisfactory financial restitution. When the PDC came to strip residents of their homes, the few homeowners were offered buyouts of a meager $14,000 for their homes while renters—of which most of the population was comprised—were offered $4,000 for their relocation troubles.

Despite the evisceration of its sense of place, Portland’s Black community continued its rich tradition of self-advocacy. Even after PDC and Emanuel Hospital tore the soul out of the Albina neighborhood, Portland’s Black community continued the fight for a better quality of life through any means necessary: civil rights activism, equitable education, and other government services guaranteed to all citizens. Organizations like the Black United Front, Albina Ministerial Alliance, NAACP, and the Black Panther Party vocally advocated for the interests of minority populations in Portland. The Black Panthers served breakfast to hundreds of underserved black children before school each day. The Black United Front fought against racist school board policies regarding middle schools and busing students of color.

Mainstream Portland had been trained to think of the Black community as an undesirable element of town, criminal, listless, under-employed and under-educated, a microcommunity that did not contribute to the overall well-being of their city. The Black Panthers, BUF, and organizations like them fought in the face of such conventional wisdom. However, after years of marginalization and disempowerment the Black community was left almost completely vanquished after the destruction of the heart of Albina. For much of the rest of the century things continued to spiral towards rock bottom for Black residents of Portland.

“Well, we are the roses. This is the concrete, and these are my damaged petals. Don’t ask me why. Thank God, nigga. Ask me how!“

Even in the face of a decaying quality of life, residents like Thelma Glover chose to cling to hope that one day things would be better. Ms. Glover, in an interview for the OPB documentary “Lift Ev’ry Voice”, said, “I’m not angry. You can’t live angry for a long time and be healthy. But you think about it for a long time.” Black Portanders were left thinking about the monumental injustice that divested them of the Albina neighborhood.

However, over the past ten years, Portland has reinvested in its inner eastside neighborhoods. Numerous housing and multi-use projects have totally revitalized the core of the Albina neighborhood. No longer is Williams Avenue a decrepit shell of its former glory; it is a “new” hip place to be. But this change has not benefitted everyone. Charles Ford, an Albina resident since 1951, reports that “They came in with the idea, ‘We’re here and we’re in charge.’…In the past, Blacks and Whites worked very strongly together. We were one. This thing that happened in the last ten years has been most disappointing, most uncomfortable. It’s like the revitalization of racism.” Rather than empowering the Albina residents living and hoping for a better neighborhood, revitalization efforts have pried even the last vestiges of ownership from a long abandoned community.

During an oral history of the Albina neighborhood, Mr. Ed Washington, another longtime resident, gave his view of the current state of his home: “When I drive down Williams, I can’t help but cry.” Mr. Washington’s sentiment is one that is shared by many natives of Portland’s Albina neighborhood, even those of us who were not alive to experience it as the cultural hub of Black Portland. What once stood as a small but thriving black community in the heart of the city became a dilapidated shell of a place, waiting for revival. But when that revival finally came, those who who were waiting were denied an opportunity to taste the fruit of their patience.

In a city known for its beautiful rose gardens, one of the richest blooms Portland ever knew has been uprooted and left with no place to replant. This hidden history of the “hip new” parts of town is one that needs to be brought to the attention of patrons and gentrifiers. There was a human cost to the “renewal” of the Albina neighborhood, yet none of those who paid the cost have been recompensed. The City of Roses has one less flower in its garden and should find a place to prominently display this unique beauty flower.