Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. In eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: approximately ten thousand residents of Oregon had the task of
Speaker 1: voting for their new state constitution, and they were asked
Speaker 1: three questions. The first, do you vote for the constitution?
Speaker 1: A note that the new constitution stipulated that no black
Speaker 1: person quote not residing in this state at the time
Speaker 1: of the adoption of this constitution shall come reside or
Speaker 1: be within this state, or hold any real estate, or
Speaker 1: make any contracts, or maintain any suit Therein, overwhelmingly, voters
Speaker 1: supported their constitution. Second question, do you vote for slavery
Speaker 1: in Oregon? And the voters of Oregon rejected the institution
Speaker 1: of slavery within their borders. Third question, do you vote
Speaker 1: for free negroes in Oregon? In and the majority voted no.
Speaker 1: This wasn't an act of cognitive dissonance. In the article
Speaker 1: this episode was based on, How Stuff Works. Spoke via
Speaker 1: email with David F. Walker, a writer and at junc
Speaker 1: professor at Portland State University. He explained it was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Early settlers in Oregon didn't want black people here. It
Speaker 1: wasn't so much that they were opposed to slavery as
Speaker 1: they didn't like blacks. How Stuff Works also spoke via
Speaker 1: email with Bolita and Marisha, a professor in the Black
Speaker 1: Studies Department at Portland State University who travels around Oregon
Speaker 1: facilitating programs on Oregan's racial history. She explained Oregon was
Speaker 1: birthed at this intersection of being anti slavery and anti black,
Speaker 1: but in no way was Oregon anti slavery because they
Speaker 1: believed in racial justice. They were anti slavery because they
Speaker 1: considered this to be white man's land and they came
Speaker 1: to build a racist, white utopia. Their goal was to
Speaker 1: keep out or push out all people of color. She continued.
Speaker 1: That is why the first exclusionary law in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: four outlawed slavery and also banned black people from living
Speaker 1: here and including the lash law, said the black people
Speaker 1: would be whipped publicly every six months up to thirty
Speaker 1: nine lashes until they left the state. That is the
Speaker 1: brutal mechanism Oregon set in place to further its conception
Speaker 1: of this state as a white homeland. Oregon exemplifies what
Speaker 1: was going on in the rest of the U S
Speaker 1: at the time. Only, as Emeritia notes, the state was
Speaker 1: bold enough to write it down, so how did it change?
Speaker 1: Various laws eventually made these exclusionary laws illegal from state
Speaker 1: constitutional amendments to the Civil Rights Act, but those didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily fix the problem. A Walker offers more history to
Speaker 1: understand the context of the time. He said it wasn't
Speaker 1: until World War Two, when the Kaiser Shipyards needed people
Speaker 1: working on the assembly line, that blacks were really allowed
Speaker 1: in the state. In the early nineteen hundreds, members of
Speaker 1: the ku Klux Klan were deputized officers of the law
Speaker 1: in Portland. All of this still lingers in the air.
Speaker 1: Emrisha cited a report released by the Portland Housing Bureau
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen. She said the report quote found that
Speaker 1: if you are Black, if you are Latino, if you
Speaker 1: are Indigenous, you cannot afford to live in Portland. So,
Speaker 1: in essence, Portland is still a white homeland. It begs
Speaker 1: the question, if the mechanisms are different but the outcome
Speaker 1: is the same, how much of things really changed but
Speaker 1: things are progressing in direct opposition to the stated goals
Speaker 1: that founded the state of Oregon. Emaritia said, the very
Speaker 1: fact that black communities exist in Oregon at all is
Speaker 1: astounding because they were never meant to. Under the most
Speaker 1: brutal and oppressive conditions, Black people and other people of
Speaker 1: color have resisted, They've organized, they have built, and they
Speaker 1: have struggled to make Oregon a better state for everyone.
Speaker 1: Communities of color do not need saviors to tell us
Speaker 1: how it's done. We need allies. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on the article racial History Oregon was Whites only until
Speaker 1: on how stuff works dot Com, written by Brian Young.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff Works dot Com and is produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.