On Jan. 26, family members, friends and members of the public celebrated the photo exhibit and release of “Memory and Place in Black Portland,” a book of photos with essays, personal narratives and poetry by incarcerated students earning college credits in Black Studies from Portland State University, or PSU. Large copies of pages from the book were displayed throughout Imagine Black’s Center for Black Radical Imagination in the Old Town neighborhood of Portland. Volunteers and formerly incarcerated individuals from PSU’s Project Rebound read pieces aloud, representing the voices of writers at Oregon State Penitentiary, or OSP.
Students met with instructors on Saturdays at OSP in Salem over 10 weeks for the Photovoice Project as part of a history seminar. The Photovoice Project is based on the photovoice method of using photography to explore and share community concerns. PSU’s Black Studies Department and the Higher Education in Prisons program have collaborated to provide classes for prisoners at OSP. The Uhuru Sasa Cultural Club at OSP took part in facilitating the project. Their mission is to develop members into leaders who will be of service when they return to their communities. “Memory and Place in Black Portland,” published by PonyXpress, is the product of this collaboration.
What the project is all about
Subjects for “Memory and Place in Black Portland” include places the writers identify with, like parks, stores and houses with themes of home, gentrification and incarceration. Students from Project Rebound at PSU, a re-entry program that supports students returning to the community after incarceration, took photos at the direction of the students at OSP and were compensated for their work.
In a poem accompanied by a photo of a residential street by Lisa Guirsch, Medero Moon wrote:
“Home is the smell of my grandma cookin’ something from scratch
Or the loud smell of Bleach from her scrubbing her floors…”
Through the project, students learned about Black placemaking, which refers to the community-oriented force shaping the social fabric for the development of spaces vital to African-American culture.
In “Penny Candy…Gone Street Market (lll),” Stressla Lynn Johnson, in his late 60s, starts the poem with:
“Crossing the wooden threshold you are greeted with
the warm welcoming smiles on Mr. and Mrs. Maxie”
The author ends the poem with:
“…I imagine a lot of things
are gone from the corner store, especially the
people that loved the Black community.”
The photo shows a store with metal bars over the door.
Despite changes in their community, many of these students claim the places that gave them a sense of belonging. They do this through writing, guided by Walidah Imarisha, Ryan Petteway and Lisa Bates, who worked with them at the penitentiary.
Imarisha is an associate professor in the Black Studies department and director of the Center for Black Studies at PSU. She is also an author, earning the 2017 Oregon Book Award for “Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption.” Imarisha spoke at the book launch, praising the students she taught at OSP and commenting on Black placemaking’s role in the Photovoice project.
“The students learned about the history of Black placemaking, how the spaces that Black folks create are transformative for everybody,” Imarisha said. “Our students are writers and they are also experts. Each of our students are scholars and because of their efforts with this book, this book means that the Black Portland that’s discussed in it will always exist. Whatever forces of gentrification and so much more change eradicate the physical landscape, these students have saved and preserved these parts of Portland for all of us and for future generations.”
Imarisha weighed in on the power of photography and writing to uphold the voices of incarcerated people. Photovoice is a method using photography to document and share experiences. The Photovoice Project is the title of their work which resulted in the book.
“Through this project, we are seeing our incarcerated students reclaim their narratives with incredible strength,” Imarisha said. “Photography and writing offer them the opportunity to reflect on their past while also imagining futures they deserve. The Photovoice Project is not just about education; it’s about healing, building connections, and providing a platform for voices that have long been marginalized.”
Petteway is a poet and professor at OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. He worked with students at OSP on poetry and photos and has been involved with photovoice projects for about 15 years in community settings in Baltimore, Detroit and other places. Petteway helped to coach the Project Rebound photographers, implementing feedback from students at OSP. He worked with the students on activity-based mapping, which involved placing stickers on a poster-size map of the Portland area and marking the places they chose to write about.
“To have these photos taken, it may look different now, but their story is still the same even if the place has changed,” Petteway said.
Petteway believes in allowing people to tell their stories and represent their communities in their own ways so we don’t lose track of their humanity. He enjoyed reading a love poem by someone who chose to tell that story about their neighborhood.
“The project is powerful because it allows us to see these communities in ways we otherwise would never see them,” Petteway said. “Oftentimes, we are looking for a certain story from the dominant narrative, always the negative one. The project brought forward other stories. To engage their memories and take those stories and words outside is powerful.”
Lisa Bates, a professor in Black Studies at Portland State University, took on leadership and teaching with Imarisha. Bates has earned the 2019 UAA-SAGE Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award and the 2016 Dale Prize for scholarship advancing community self-determination and racial justice. Bates has a background in urban planning and is focused on placemaking and geography. She led conversations with students about neighborhood history, policy and place.
“Our incarcerated students are often silenced by systems that seek to erase their humanity, yet through this project, they have found a powerful means of self-expression,” Bates said. “This collaboration is about giving them the tools to reshape their future and their community and to show the world that their voice matters.”
The collaboration
Several organizations that share the goal of providing education to currently and formerly incarcerated individuals created this project.
In 2019, PSU’s Higher Education in Prisons program started at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. The program helps women work on their education while incarcerated and supports students’ enrollment and continued education on the PSU campus upon release.
PSU’s Black Studies department aims to continue this work. Students can work on a 16-credit certificate in Black Studies while spending time in OSP. Uhuru Sasa helped to facilitate the Photovoice Project inside the prison. Uhuru Sasa partnered with PSU and provided support in self-organizing, ensuring students had materials and peer mentorship. Members formed their own study groups.
Kenny Hamilton, Uhuru Sasa former president — currently earning a degree in Black Studies on campus at PSU — commented on the organization’s educational component.
“We help our members become assets to their community by teaching them financial literacy, mentorship, fatherhood, economics and political awareness,” Hamilton said.
Imagine Black, a group dedicated to building leadership and political participation in the Black community, is one of the book launch co-sponsors.
The group helped with funding throughout the project and their connection with PSU’s School of Urban Studies & Planning Black Studies Department goes back to 2020 and an effort to Reimagine Oregon, policing and the criminal justice system.
“There’s a collective sense of community safety and care inside neighborhood spaces,” Bates said.
PSU has worked with Imagine Black through their Reimagine Public Safety campaign.
“Students at OSP in two years have accomplished so much and earned enough credit to get a Black Studies minor,” Imarisha said. “They have been doing incredible work, writing academic essays, plays, poetry, creative nonfiction, even science fiction. They are the kind of students as a professor you dream of teaching.”
The participant perspective
In a video interview, Dwayne McClinton, Uhuru Sasa president, Wallace Simpson, the cultural club’s secretary, and another member, Theron Hall, discussed the impact of the project. All three are currently incarcerated at OSP and are all members of Uhuru Sasa.
“The most meaningful part of the project is just being able to tell my story and connect it to where I’m from in my own words and my own perspective without someone else sharing the narrative on my behalf,” Simpson said.
Simpson shared his experiences in Portland’s Albina district, where he comes from and feels connected.
“I think historical Black communities are shaped by people that live there and the way we go about our business,” Simpson said. “That has a direct impact and reflection on our community safety, and the way in which we interact with each other is at the core of it.”
This fits with Black placemaking and Black communities creating spaces of belonging despite societal oppression.
“Because of representation of African American people and what we’ve done since we got here,” Simpson said. “We inhabit these specific areas that become valuable. I can attest to how we’ve done it in the Albina district.”
Simpson said he learned about himself and his love for the community.
“We are extremely strong and resilient, and we don’t break weak,” Simpson said. “We break barriers. We transcend a lot of the environmental mishaps and barriers intended to befall us. We overcame those things in a resilient manner, and we continue to do so … Where we are doesn’t define us. In a disadvantaged position, we still try to take the necessary steps to transcend our obstacles and adversity.”
These thoughts are echoed by Hall, speaking about Black placemaking.
“No matter where we go, at the end of the day, no matter how ugly the place is, we’re going to bring a beautiful spirit to it,” Hall said. “We’re going to bring some energy, and that energy is going to go from generation to generation no matter where we go.”
McClinton reflected on the project and community.
“If there is something we want to change, then we can write that change into existence,” McClinton said.
Higher education and incarceration
The instructors met the challenges of teaching inside the state penitentiary and found that they also learned from their students. Funding for tuition and instructor fees came from Higher Education in Prisons and the Black Studies Department at PSU, according to Imarisha.
“I have found teaching in this setting to be challenging,” Bates said. “You’re going into a space that is not designed for learning and the free exchange of ideas or creativity in any way, so you’re trying to build a space inside a space that’s oppressive and controlling of every dimension of their life. Every time I am there, I am learning as much as I am bringing, both about the content and the insights people have, but also teaching itself and learning and the ways people work together and share ideas.”
Bates saw a big difference in the students’ confidence from the beginning to the end. Students gained a sense of self-efficacy as learners and confidence in their expertise in writing and presenting about their experiences. They were eager to share their stories in a way that could help others.
Education in prison is the number one reducer of recidivism, according to Imarisha. Students entering the workforce with a criminal record and a bachelor’s or master’s degree can have a better chance of employment than those with a criminal record and a high school diploma.
“The more education, the less likely to go back to prison,” Imarisha said. “To me, higher education in prison is about educating the people themselves, but also about giving them the tools needed for when they come back to be able to deal with a society that is going to discriminate against them.”
“Memory and Place in Black Portland” can be purchased online through PonyXpress.
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This article appears in February 26, 2025.