White out

Portland has a reputation for being a socially progressive city, yet this reputation goes hand-in-hand with a marked history of institutionalized racism. Certain neighborhoods still remain highly racially segregated, and the Albina district in North and Northeast Portland is a shining example of these residual tensions.

On Wednesday, Feb. 29, the Everybody Reads program continues with a panel lead by professor of urban planning Karen Gibson. Gibson, accompanied by three guest speakers, will present “Albina District: Retrospect and Prospect” in the Millar Library.

Gibson published an in-depth essay in 2007 titled “Bleeding Albina: A History of Community Disinvestment 1940–2000,” which focused on the depletion of resources to Portland’s black community and the ways in which gentrification affected—and continues to affect—racial politics.

As Gibson’s essay reveals, over the course of 60 years, the Albina neighborhood faced run-down housing, crippling drug problems and gang activity that was ignored by city officials. Today, the area has gradually transformed into a district that caters mostly to white clientele, effectively replacing blacks in the area with a larger white population.

Two of Gibson’s guests are longtime residents of the Albina district, which includes the neighborhoods of Eliot, King and Piedmont.

The last guest speaker will bring a different perspective for the panel: “They are an executive director of a housing organization that was created to preserve houses that were part of a large fraudulent housing scheme perpetrated on this neighborhood, which was denied access to capital for decades,” Gibson said.

The panel will invite attendees to ask questions and become involved in the discussion. As with all of the installments of this year’s Everybody Reads series, this event is meant to foster community involvement while encouraging critical analysis of important topics.