[OR_Archaeology] AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY EXHIBIT TO BE 'UNVEILED' OCT. 22

[Susan White]

AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY EXHIBIT TO BE 'UNVEILED' OCT. 22

Central City Concern will host an “unveiling” celebration for a
newly installed permanent exterior exhibit on two sides of the Golden
West Building, former center of Portland's African-American social and
business life in the first decades of the 20th century. The celebration
will be free and open to the public, from 5 p.m.-6:30 p.m. at Carleton
Hart Architects, 322 NW 8th Ave., Portland.

The exhibit tells a social and ethnic story of the African-American
community in Portland in the early 1900s and the successes and
challenges of its residents. “In that early generation of the Black
community here, you could find the very powerful strains of what you
might call pursuit of the American dream,” said Darrell Millner,
professor in the Black Studies Department at Portland State University
and a consultant on the exhibit.

Central City Concern owns the Golden West Building at 707 NW Everett
(and Broadway) which is one of the earliest architectural landmarks of
African-American history in Portland. The exhibit consists of six visual
panels on the exterior of the building and a visitor activated sound
component.
Curator Jacqueline Peterson-Loomis of Washington State
University-Vancouver and the Old Town
History Project worked with an advisory committee composed of community
members and historians to create the display.

Central City Concern’s mission is to provide pathways to
self-sufficiency through active intervention in poverty and
homelessness. It operates more than 1,400 units of affordable housing
and provides health, recovery and employment services to more than
13,000 individuals in the Portland metro area every year. The history
display was made possible in part by grants from the City of Portland
Vision Into Action program, and from Oregon Humanities.