“Back in December, after Natriana Shorter, who is African-American, won the crown for Miss Oregon, Albert commented on a KEZI news story that, “I know this is going to sound racist and it’s not my intention. But I can’t help but think it’s awfully strange that a woman of color would represent [the] state of Oregon. The state that has one of the smallest amount of minorities of any race compared to other states. And yes, she is very beautiful.”
Sounds WITCHY to me! The reporters at KEZI recognized this old Fairy Tale of evil jealousy!.
I tried to stop Krysta Albert from taking over our Eugene Celebration because I knew she was a Republican, and, this celebration was a Liberal Event. We used to have Old Hippies, Old Lawn & Grass Gnomes around, who would nix these attempts to vanquish our Peace &Fun Movement. but, they seem to have been snoozing, or, they are all dead. Hey, wait a minute! I’m an old hippie! And I’m strange? Sure, I’m strange.
You’ve got to pick up every stitch,
You’ve got to pick up every stitch,
Beatniks are out to make it rich,
Oh no, must be the season of the witch,
Must be the season of the witch.
Why was I so ineffective? Oh, that’s right, I am being harassed by Alley Valkyrie & Homeless Transients Of Whoville who held ‘Take Over Ken Kesey Square’ events disguised as festive art happenings. This is not what the citizens of Eugene wanted. Kesey productions didn’t want to do the celebration anymore because it was not profitable. Then, here come an Ex-slug Queen, and another Homeless Advocate for the Wiccan Nation, who wanted Kesey Square to be ground zero for their collective spell-casting. Are there any Black Warlocks in Oregon?
The title of my autobiography is ‘Capturing Beauty’. Belle agreed to be my Muse, and is so. In this never ending story, it twas beauty that killed the beast!
“Check your brooms at the door!”
Someone close to Albert should have gotten her to shut her mouth a long time ago. She says this might be taken as “racist” and then proceeds. Even though black people are in the minority in Oregon and Eugene, they are some of the hardest working and most dedicated citizens to the Civic well-being – of all peoples! Five of my neighbors played football for the Oregon Ducks. Kenny Reed has volunteered thousands of hours, as has his wife, Marilyn. Natriana has done volunteer work in several programs aimed at esteeming blacks and young people.
Here are two of my ex-neighbors who just got married. Whenever Terrell left town to play in another city, he would knock on my door and say;
“Watch over Sarah while I’m gone!”
https://www.theknot.com/us/sarah-pointer-and-terrell-turner-jun-2016
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/06/23/terrell-and-sarah/
“Natriana Shorter, 25, is from Eugene, Oregon. She is currently a Business Management and Leadership student with hopes of having her own non-profit organization. After winning the Miss Oregon USA crown in November, she made it her goal to help her community and state in the best way possible. She created a program called “Triumph” that helps young people overcome peer-pressure, low self-esteem and encourages them to triumph above adversity. She is implementing this program in schools across the state by giving motivational talks to classes, youth groups and sports teams. She has dedicated her time to serve with The Eugene Education Foundation and the Get SMART Oregon Organization. In her free time, Natriana likes to hike, make snapchat videos and play sports.”
Above is a photo of me at Festival of Eugene, taken by my childhood friend, Marilyn Reed, the President of Inspirational Sounds that sang at Albert’s event. I took the photo of piano player, Chris Stubbs, and Kathy Vrzak, the Director. She and her husband, Jerry, put on an outstanding African Culture event at the Hult. Marilyn is married to Jazz Artist, Kenny Reed of Stone Cold Jazz. I have been video taping this choir for years. I have felt their soul since 1988. They should take over our celebration.
““Natriana Shorter, 25, is from Eugene, Oregon. She is currently a Business Management and Leadership student with hopes of having her own non-profit organization.”
I think Natriana should talk with Sarah Judd of Willamalane about a long-lasting Eugene Celebration. Yesterday, Willamalane held a Children’s Festival. In just a little while, they will be grownups – who still own a dream!
If the crown and the glass slipper, fit – wear it! On her FB, we see Natriana holding up her Miss Oregon crown to one of our beautiful waterfalls!
Eric Richardson’s daughter Mtima, got married two days ago. You will find a beautiful photograph of her in her wedding dress, that Marilyn altered. Eric is President of the NAACP. We talked about him speaking in our community room about the hurdles being encountered in a neighborhood that is becoming diverse. If this happens, I am going to invite Terrell and Sarah.
https://www.facebook.com/eric.richardson.129
“All’s well, that ends well!”
Ding dong. Ding dong! Long live the Eugene Celebration!
Jon Presco
https://www.facebook.com/natriana.shorter
“The Oregon Bill of Rights had an exclusion clause prohibiting African Americans from being in the state, owning property or making contracts.
While the exclusion clause was no longer being officially enforced, the language remained in Oregon’s constitution until 2002.
“When we talk about the University of Oregon, this place right here [The Mims house] housed football players who couldn’t stay on campus,” Lyllye Parker, a past resident of the house and member of the Congress of Racial Equality, said. “Not because they couldn’t afford it — they were on scholarship — but because they were black.”
Here is Nisha, Marilyn’s daughter, reading a poem while her stepfather accompanies her.
“Ding dong! The witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch!”
http://www.inspirationalsoundsgospelchoir.org/about-inspirational-sounds2.html
Inspirational Sounds is a non-profit, music and performing arts organization whose mission is to promote the heritage of African-American gospel musical traditions, which are rooted in American music. Inspirational Sounds implements its mission by utilizing professional art productions and educational tools to increase awareness and engage diverse community members in the arts. Its programs also aim to teach gospel singing and music to bring about unity among various racial, ethnic, and cross-generational constituents of our community. Organization membership includes singers from Eugene, Springfield, Veneta, and Corvallis. The group is a unique gospel choir because it includes a large percentage of non-African Americans but still retains a traditional Black gospel choir sound. The choir encourages audiences to become involved, joining them in clapping, shouting, singing, and celebrating.
The group is well known throughout the state of Oregon for its energetic renditions of gospel music and is often featured at Martin Luther King Day celebrations in Portland and Eugene.
On Sunday, May 29, Willie Mims (81) unveiled a granite monument in front of his historical childhood home on High Street to a crowd of around 200 people. The monument and the event represent an effort to right the wrongs of Oregon’s past, namely the way that this state alienated African Americans for decades.
The NAACP invited the community to see the unveiling of the Mims House Memorial and enjoy King Estate Wine and Ninkasi Brews, for a donation. Seven speakers reflected upon the monument before the unveiling, talking about what it means and the history of the Mims family.
The monument featured the faces of C.B. and Annie Mims, along with a written history of their legacy.
The Mims house, located at 330 and 336 High Street in Eugene, served as a refuge for countless African Americans who otherwise couldn’t reside in the city because of Eugene’s exclusionary practices in the 1940s.
The Oregon Bill of Rights had an exclusion clause prohibiting African Americans from being in the state, owning property or making contracts.
While the exclusion clause was no longer being officially enforced, the language remained in Oregon’s constitution until 2002.
“When we talk about the University of Oregon, this place right here [The Mims house] housed football players who couldn’t stay on campus,” Lyllye Parker, a past resident of the house and member of the Congress of Racial Equality, said. “Not because they couldn’t afford it — they were on scholarship — but because they were black.”
C.B. and Annie D. Mims purchased the house under the name of their sympathetic employer Joe Earley. Even prominent entertainers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong couldn’t find any other place to stay while in Eugene.
Jeffery Osborns / The Torch“I didn’t swim in the Jefferson swimming pool. I couldn’t sit in the McDonald theater. I couldn’t go into a restaurant and be served,” Parker said at the event.
Even at the unveiling the majority of listeners were white, which speaks to the small amount of African Americans in Oregon. The 2014 US Census has the number as low as 1.8% of the population.
“County Commissioners decided the blacks could live ‘across the bridge’ in the floodplains among the piles of scrap wood that was burned for electricity,” Lisa Ponder, who built the granite monument, said.
This kind of practice was known as “redlining.” It was a way of keeping African Americans out of Eugene while still allowing them to do low-level work in the city. Oregon, usually thought of as a fairly progressive state, has a long history of attempting to push African Americans and other racial minorities out. White Oregonians in the 1840s opposed slavery but, also opposed living alongside people of color.
“The best job offered to black men outside of railroad labor was busboy, shoeshine or a janitor boy,” Willie C. Mims, son of C.B. and Annie D. Mims, said.
C.B. Mims worked as busboy and janitor to get enough income for their home and shared every bit of it that he could with others in need.
“My mom taught me to share, be willing to share. She always said if someone was hungry and all you have is a piece of bread, break off a piece,” Willie Mims said.
Jeffery Osborns / The TorchHabib Iddrisu
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Dance
Degrees:
PhD, Performance Studies, Northwestern University
MA, African History, Bowling Green State University
BA, Africana Studies, Bowling Green State University
Honors:
Presidential Fellow, 2008-10, State University of New York: College at Brockport
Robert S. and Gertrude B. Breen Memorial Award (outstanding graduate student), 2006, School of Communication, Northwestern University
Hans E. Panofsky Award, 2006, African Studies Program, Northwestern University
Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts Grant, 2005, Northwestern University
Outstanding International Student Award, 2004, Graduate Student Senate, Bowling Green State University
Gwendolyn Carter Fellowship, 2004, African Studies Program, Northwestern University
President, African Peoples Association, 2003, Bowling Green State University.
Academic Excellence and Service Award, 2002, College of Arts and Sciences, Bowling Green State University
Best Dancer Award, 1993, Entertainment/Art Critics & Reviewers Association of Ghana
Habib Iddrisu is a traditionally trained dancer, musician, and historian from Northern Ghana, born into the Bizing family of court historians and musicians of the Dagbamba/Dagomba people.
Dr. Iddrisu has toured the world extensively with traditional singing and dance groups, and has diverse experience as a performer, teacher, choreographer, and scholar throughout the U.S. In Ghana, Iddrisu was honored with the Ghana’s Best Dancer award, given by the Entertainment/Art Critics & Reviewers Association in 1993. Iddrisu also led several prestigious traditional music and dance groups, including the Youth Home Cultural Group, which Iddrisu founded when he was just fourteen years old. He was the creative director and choreographer for the Norvisi Dance Group and lead drummer and choreographer of Abibigromma, the resident performance group for the University of Ghana. Iddrisu was sought after to choreograph such events as the welcoming ceremonies for President Bill Clinton’s visit to Ghana in 1998.Since arriving in the U.S., Iddrisu earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in African History and Africana Studies from Bowling Green State University, and his PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. While studying, he taught and led performance groups at these universities. One group was selected by the National American College Dance Festival to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in Iddrisu’s version of South African gumboot dance. Iddrisu served as a Presidential Fellow at SUNY Brockport in African Studies and Dance from 2008–2010. He also taught courses at Lake Erie College, Cleveland State University, Pacific University, Reed College, Portland State University, SUNY Brockport, before coming to the University of Oregon. As a scholar, Dr. Iddrisu’s research interests include West African Music and Dance Practice and Performance, Cultural Studies, Post-Colonial Independence History, Political Economy, Oral History, African Diaspora Studies, and the New Internationalism. He explores new viewpoints on tradition, globalization, and popular culture, looking at the difference in discourse and rhetoric coming from indigenous peoples to the international performance and scholarly community. Dr. Iddrisu is currently researching how indigenous performance practices change and adapt to new situations as these practices travel from village settings to national and international settings.
GMC PRODUCTIONS/ MINISTRIES
Inspirational Sounds is a non-profit, music and performing arts organization whose mission is to promote the heritage of African-American gospel musical traditions, which are rooted in American music. Inspirational Sounds implements its mission by utilizing professional art productions and educational tools to increase awareness and engage diverse community members in the arts. Its programs also aim to teach gospel singing and music to bring about unity among various racial, ethnic, and cross-generational constituents of our community. Organization membership includes singers from Eugene, Springfield, Veneta, and Corvallis. The group is a unique gospel choir because it includes a large percentage of non-African Americans but still retains a traditional Black gospel choir sound. The choir encourages audiences to become involved, joining them in clapping, shouting, singing, and celebrating.
The group is well known throughout the state of Oregon for its energetic renditions of gospel music and is often featured at Martin Luther King Day celebrations in Portland and Eugene.
Inspirational Sounds was founded by John Gainer in 1983, and continued to serve the community throughout the decades.
Pastor Billy Fields
· Pastor at:
St. Mark CME Church
1167 Sam Reynolds St, Eugene, Oregon 97402
Christian Methodist Episcopal
A ministry that is walking with divine purpose and on purpose for the Lord.
PE Teacher
Favorite Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”Type your paragraph here.
Our Special Guest Soloist, Ms. Zepherine Hearring, Honorary Member since 2014.
Martha Moultry
Martha was born in Pensacola, Florida during the days of Jim Crow Segregation Laws. She attended segregated schools in Florida where bussing took her past the nearby White school to an all Black school. The building was new, built to placate Blacks after the ruling of Brown v Board in 1954. Pensacola schools were “integrated” in 1964 when ten Black students, who had to pass a number of strenuous academic and background tests were admitted to the all White Pensacola High School.
Her mother moved the family to Los Angeles in 1964, looking for an opportunity for her children to aspire to something other than many of the menial jobs available to Blacks in the south. They quickly purchased a home and moved to Compton, California where Martha attended and graduated from Centennial High School. Compton was in transition from a predominately White city to a predominantly Black city due to White Flight: Whites sold their property cheaply to escape Blacks who were moving in. The properties were then sold to Blacks at market value or higher.
UCLA was her chosen school after high school and Martha completed her Bachelor’s and Masters in Education degrees there. She was immediately hired to teach at the prestigious University Elementary School, the laboratory school of UCLA. She married and remained at the school for three years then, longing to travel, spent 2 years teaching at the International School of Tanganyika in Tanzania where her son, Eric Lackie was born, a year in Santa Ana, California and 7 years at the Jakarta International School in Indonesia before returning to the states in 1985. Martha taught at Edgewood Elementary School in Eugene for 15 years before accepting a position as principal at Charlemagne at Fox Hollow French Immersion School, also in the Eugene School District.
Martha grew up singing in the church and was a member of Inspirational Sounds for 16 years, and the Portland-based NW Community Gospel Choir for 6 years that performs as part of the Oregon Symphony’s Gospel Christmas Show. She has sung in a number of church choirs and continues to sing as a soloist occasionally. Martha retired after 38 years in education in 2010 and currently spends time travelling, bicycling, walking, gardening, working on community projects and enjoying life. She is an active member of the First Congregational Church in Eugene.
F.I.Y.A
Minister Tamara Monique Walker (aka) the recording spiritual artist F.I.Y.A Meaning Faith Is Your Answer; Is a woman saved by grace from mental setbacks, and the many different challenges soul trauma brings.
Tamara is Now a: Licensed Minister, a mentor, a life coach, a motivational speaker, a singer songwriter, a playwright, an actress, a director and producer with several plays under her belt: a black history musical
No Man Can Hinder Me
The Miracle of Giving,
Where’s the Lamb,
With God All Things Are Possible and
The Empty Tomb
She is also a current member and actress of GNCM productions which is a ministry theatre team and has also written song for some of their productions.
Tamara currently writes seasonal and holiday plays for her local church, she is one of the youth Sunday school teachers there and she is currently leading and directing the Praise N Action team.
Tamara is the founder and director of the “I’m All I Can Be!” community Girls club project, mentoring young girls ages 10-14.
Tamara is a certified CHW (community health worker) through the Multnomah county capacitation center. She is also a certified PSW (personal service worker) through the Multnomah Home Care Workers aging and disability. Out of all her successes, Minister Tamara is still working on winning the hearts of her children…Never forgetting that when we make the wrong choices…we hurt more than just ourselves…You may be forgiven & healed…But your loved ones may not!!!
Stone Cold Jazz
Kenny Reed – drums, vocals,
Benjamin Crandall – sax,
Jack Niederman – bass,
Sam Adams – piano/keyboard
You’ll notice we’re not a rock and roll band, blues band, Scandinavian hip-hop band, heavy metal band… just Stone Cold Jazz. We ARE for hire. We do wedding’s, divorces, bar/bat mitzvahs, first communions, human sacrifices, birthdays, wakes, and, as always, the Tuvaluan new year…
Neil Janssen Jazz Guitarist
Neil Janssen began playing in Detroit, MI at the age of 9 years, influenced by guitar greats such as Howard Roberts and Wes Montgomery. Janssen developed a bebop style honing his skills in Jazz and R&B bands. As lead guitarist in the guitar duo Solo Flight, Janssen and a partner, Jim Lichens, played restaurants venues in and around Eugene all through the 1990’s. Now, as guitarist for Kenny Reed and Stone Cold Jazz, he has been the guitarist for the Sunday Jazz Jam and the Jazz Station. hosted by Kenny Reed.
Many of those on social media said they were aware of past racist remarks or pointed to her support of presidential candidate Donald Trump as an example of racist tendencies. Back in December, after Natriana Shorter, who is African-American, won the crown for Miss Oregon, Albert commented on a KEZI news story that, “I know this is going to sound racist and it’s not my intention. But I can’t help but think it’s awfully strange that a woman of color would represent [the] state of Oregon. The state that has one of the smallest amount of minorities of any race compared to other states. And yes, she is very beautiful.”
The Eugene Celebration died a few years ago for a number of reasons. The city and then Downtown Events Management Inc. lost interest in overseeing and funding it during the recession (stuffy conservatives in town have never liked the quirky event and its outrageous parade). Kesey Enterprises took it over on contract but apparently found it to be daunting and not very profitable to run. Construction and development downtown complicated the event’s footprint.
Krysta Albert and friends started up the Festival of Eugene as a free, two-day alternative, but after a hectic two years, Albert tells us she is “uncertain if I wish to host the event again.” She says 10,000 people attended the festival last year but “this year no one seems to be coming forward to help make this weekend event happen.” She asks, “Does the community want it?” The problem, we suspect, is that the people of Eugene want their grand Eugene Celebration back, even if they have to pay to get in. But the city doesn’t want to pick up the costs not covered by ticket sales, even though our economy is better and downtown is reviving. Losing the celebration, and even the smaller festival, detracts from our sense of community. Albert can be contacted at 505-4031 or festivalofeugene@gmail.com.
Through donations and co-sponsorships, the festival has raised $17,950, according to its website. With two family-friendly beer gardens, two food courts, a kid zone, three performer stages and 173 vendors, the festival features all local talent, including bands El Flowious, Cowboy Cadillac and Soul Vibrator, as well as food vendors The Divine Cupcake, WildCraft Cider Works and Lani Moku Grill.
On the poetry stage, local performance poet C. Steven Blue says he’ll bring together a diverse group of local wordsmiths, including published literary poets, performance and slam poets as well as youth poets. Blue says the poetry stage has a shade tent this year, and he encourages festival-goers to “come see a wonderful diversity of spoken-word readers and performers, with some spontaneous improvisation.”
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/20150820/news-briefs/festival-eugene-celebrates-its-second-year
Rosamond Press 