Urban League of Portland President Nkenge Harmon Johnson, Ashland Councilor Gina DuQuenne and Oregon Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Nataki Garrett discuss living as people of color in Southern Oregon.
Roman Battaglia / JPR News
A panel of Black people in prominent Oregon leadership positions gathered in Ashland Tuesday night to discuss growing concerns about white nationalism in Southern Oregon.
Members of the Urban League of Portland traveled to Southern Oregon University to hear how many people of color feel living and working in the Rogue Valley.
Panelists discussed the death of Aidan Ellison, a 19-year-old Black man who was shot in Ashland in 2020. A white man will face trial in Ellison’s killing. Panelists said Ellison’s killing showed even a progressive town like Ashland isn’t immune to racial violence.
“Being in Oregon is being in a place where people that look like us have been excluded in every aspect of community,” said Vance Beach, the founder of BASE, or Black Alliance & Social Empowerment, one of the organizations featured for their work in the region. “So our work is all around how do we assist in building an inclusive community?”
Urban League President Nkenge Harmon Johnson discussed the economic implications of creating an unsafe community for Black actors coming to work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
“When you have world-class talent asking, ‘Is it safe to come and work there?’ The folks who care about dollars and cents in your town really oughta be worried about that,” Harmon Johnson said. “The best of the best say ‘yeah, no, I don’t want any parts of that place.’ Then what do you get?”
Black people were legally prohibited from living in Oregon through much of the mid-1800s.
Harmon Johnson said Oregonians must recognize how minorities have been put at a disadvantage in the past, and that only then will the state be able to find ways to level the playing field for the future.
While she and the other panelists discussed threatening aspects of Black life in Oregon, she said there’s still lots of opportunity for change.
Despite its size, Harmon Johnson said Oregon’s small population makes it easier to reach out and have conversations about how the state can be made safer for people of color.