Members of the Urban League of Portland came to Southern Oregon University to hear how people of color feel living and working in the Rogue Valley.
Panelists discussed the ongoing trauma of Aidan Ellison鈥檚 death, a 19-year-old Black teenager who was shot in Ashland in 2020 by a white man. They said that murder showed even a progressive town like Ashland isn鈥檛 immune to racial violence.
鈥淏eing in Oregon is being in a place where people that look like us have been excluded in every aspects of community," said Vance Beach, the founder of B.A.S.E., or Black Alliance & Social Empowerment, one of the local organizations featured for their work in the region. "So our work is all around how do we assist in building an inclusive community?鈥�
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, 鈥業s it safe to come and work there?鈥� 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 鈥榶eah, no, I don鈥檛 want any parts of that place.鈥� Then what do you get?鈥�
Black people were living in Oregon through much of the mid-1800鈥檚.
Harmon Johnson said we must recognize how minorities have been put at a disadvantage in the past, and that only then will we 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鈥檚 still lots of opportunity for change.
Despite its size, Harmon Johnson said Oregon鈥檚 small population makes it easier to reach out and have conversations about how the state can be made safer for people of color.
