News
Growing up black in the increasingly white neighborhoods of Northeast Portland
Author Renée Watson grew up in Portland and lived through the gentrification of her Northeast neighborhood. In 1990, more than 30 percent of Portland’s black population lived in North and Northeast Portland. By the time Watson was a senior at Jefferson High School in 1996, change was moving in, and by 2010, that percentage was…
Mitchell S. Jackson remembers Portland’s “Residue Years”
“It’s cold!” says Mitchell S. Jackson. “It’s really cold in Brooklyn.” Indeed. But in his native town of Portland, it was a balmy, sunny February day, the kind of day where somebody, somewhere in town, might be reading a book on a park bench. And it’s not so unlikely that the book would be Jackson’s.…
Black carbon from wildfires contributes to the Cascades’ snowmelt
As snowpack levels hit record lows, and wildfire seasons hit record highs, a geological sciences professor in Washington is studying the connection between forest fires and accelerated snowmelt. In the early 2000s, Susan Kaspari was working on her master’s degree at the University of Maine, and part of that meant studying ice cores carved out…
“The Divide:” A criminal justice system that targets the poor and favors the wealthy
The premise for “The Divide” is that our society has become “disturbingly comfortable” with a perverse system of justice where “rights aren’t absolute but are enjoyed on a kind of sliding scale.” The “rule of law has slowly been replaced by giant idiosyncratic bureaucracies that are designed to criminalize failure, poverty and weakness on the…
Opinion
Open Wapato Jail to homeless on tenants’ own dime
Society wants homeless people to get up, and they would prefer that they do it on their own. Yet, homeless people are spending so much time in line that they have no time to get their high school equivalency diploma (GED) or job training. It’s like you are in a flat bottom boat, with a…
Black history should be celebrated all year long
The number of calls and emails I’ve received this month to write, to speak, to present on Black History Month has been, at times, overwhelming. I struggle to be reasonable and considerate as I answer requests to share my history, to cram all things African American into the confine of one tiny month. How can…
Inmates need Coffee Creek’s Family Preservation Program
The Family Preservation Project is a parenting program at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. The program is a partnership between Portland Community College, the Oregon Department of Corrections, and children and families who are incarcerated. In reality, the program does so much more. The program provides adult and child education opportunities for parents and…
Vendor Profiles
Creating positive change one sale at a time
For Andie Howard, a day vending for Street Roots is a whole lot more than selling papers. It’s a starting place, the first step to creating positive change in the community and in her own life as well. “I’m very proud of Street Roots, and what it represents”, she says with her characteristic enthusiasm. To…
