Oregon Was Founded As a Racist Utopia - Illegal for Black People to move to Oregon until 1926 -

Story by Gizmodo
Written by Matt Novak

When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a Constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the State until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American West.

Waddles Coffee Shop in Portland, Oregon was a popular restaurant in the 1950s for both locals and travelers alike. The drive-in catered to America’s postwar obsession with car culture, allowing people to get coffee and a slice of pie without even leaving their vehicle. But if you happened to be Black, the owners of Waddles implored you to keep on driving. The restaurant had a sign outside with a very clear message: “White Trade Only — Please.”

It’s the kind of scene from the 1950s that’s so hard for many Americans to imagine happening outside of the Jim Crow South. How could a progressive, northern city like Portland have allowed a restaurant to exclude non-white patrons? This had to be an anomaly, right? In reality it was far too common in Oregon, a State that was explicitly founded as a kind of White Utopia.

America’s history of racial discrimination is most commonly taught as a southern issue. That’s certainly how I learned about it while going to Minnesota public schools in the 1980s and 90s. White people outside of the South seem to learn about the Civil War and Civil Rights Movements from an incredibly safe (and often judgmental) distance.

Racism was generally framed as something that happened in the past and almost always “down there.” We learned about the struggles for racial equality in cities like Birmingham and Selma and Montgomery. But what about the racism of Portland, Oregon, a City that is still overwhelmingly White? The struggles there were just as intense — though they are rarely identified in the history books.

According to Oregon’s founding Constitution, Black People were not permitted to live in the State. And that held true until 1926. The small number of Black People already living in the State in 1859, when it was admitted to the Union, were sometimes allowed to stay, but the next century of segregation and terrorism at the hands of angry racists made it clear that they were not welcome...

...Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle in Oregon

Cannady in a 1922 newspaper article with a rather cryptic note about her possible death, which the OREGON DAILY JOURNAL published above in small print "Mrs. Beatric Cannady, if she lives, will be the first colored woman ever admitted to the bar in the Northwest. Nothing but death could stop that quiet but confident little woman". Beatrice Morrow Cannady in an undated photo (Oregonian Archives)

“The way this history gets framed often shows People of Color as passive victims,” Imarisha tells me. “I think it’s important to frame it that People of Color are actually active change makers. The changes that would’ve moved Oregon forward, especially racially, would not have happened without the determination, fortitude, and sheer stubbornness of People of Color.”

One of those people was Beatrice Morrow Cannady. Born in Texas in 1889, Cannady hopped around the country a bit, attending schools in New Orleans and Houston before moving to the Portland in 1912, and before long she was writing for The Advocate, Oregon’s largest Black Newspaper. By 1914 Cannady was helping to found the Portland Chapter of the NAACP, and the following year was speaking out against D.W. Griffith’s feature length film "The Birth of a Nation" — a movie filled with hateful stereotypes and glorified the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

Cannady’s life was filled with personal and professional struggles that seemed never ending. She and her children were refused entry to the main floor of the Oriental Theatre in 1928. And it wasn’t even illegal. The Oregon Supreme Court had decided in the 1906 case Taylor v. Cohn that Black People could be legally segregated from Whites in public places. That particular ruling wasn’t struck down in Oregon until 1953, and even then limits on segregation in the state were only loosely enforced.

Kimberley Mangun’s 2010 biography of "Cannady, A Force For Change", is both inspiring and depressing. Cannady’s story is one of tiny victories hard fought over an incredibly long period of time. Frankly, that’s the overwhelming thing about all social and political change. Virtually nothing happens overnight.

But if Cannady’s story teaches us anything it’s that if you work your ass off and foster a community where people can be a force for good, you too can eventually (one day, maybe, possibly) see minor improvements in the world.

It was in small victories that Oregonians of color had to take solace in the first few decades of the 20th century. Because once the early 1920s hit, the battle for the future of Oregon would involve a group of terrorist who liked to dress up in bedsheets and burn up things.


The Kowards of the Klavern Arrive

Frederick Louis Gifford, head of the Oregon KKK (1921-24) and a Klan pamphlet (Oregon History Project)

The arrival of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon was swift and terrifying. In 1922 the Klan in Oregon boasted membership of over 14,000 men, with 9,000 of them living in Portland. And they were setting the State aflame. There were frequent cross burnings on the hills outside Portland and around greater Oregon.

The Klan held meetings, openly participated in parades, and held enormous gatherings for initiation ceremonies. One such gathering in 1923 at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem attracted over 1,500 hooded klansmen. They reportedly burned an enormous cross, of course.

As David A. Horowitz explains in his book "Inside the Klavern: The Secret History of a Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s", the entire State was being terrorized. And politicians at every level of government from the State to County to City Officials were involved. In 1923, Oregon Governor, Walter M. Pierce, and Portland Mayor George L. Baker, attended and spoke at a dinner in honor of Grand Dragon Frederick L. Gifford’s birthday.

Both the Governor and Mayor would later claim that they didn’t know the event was sponsored by the Klan. Which, if true, is perhaps less vindication for the politicians and more an indictment of just how far the Klan had seeped into mainstream culture in Oregon. But there’s almost certainly no way that they were ignorant of what they were celebrating.

One reason to be skeptical? High ranking members of the Klan would meet with high ranking politicians in the state on matters of public policy. And we have the photos to prove it.

Members of the Klan meeting with Portland officials in 1921 (North Coast Oregon)

Read more: http://gizmodo.com/oregon-was-founded-as-a-racist-utopia-1539567040