This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
By CJ Garcia and Chris Petersen
Title: Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection, 1993-2020
Predominant Dates: 1993-2019
ID: OH 042
Primary Creator: Oregon Black Pioneers
Extent: 95.1 gigabytes. More info below.
Arrangement: The collection consists of two series: 1. Matriarchs of the Eugene Black Community Interviewing Project, 1993; and 2. Oregon Black Pioneers Interviewing Project, 2018-2020. The contents of Series 1 are arranged alphabetically by family unit. Interviews in Series 2 are arranged chronologically.
Date Acquired: 00/00/2022
Languages of Materials: English [eng]
The Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection consists of two projects, both of which focused on collecting the stories of figures instrumental to the formation and growth of Black communities in Oregon. One project, conducted in 1993, was led by middle school students primarily interested in female elders in Eugene, Oregon. The second project, carried out from 2018-2020, was sponsored by Oregon Black Pioneers and featured community leaders from Portland, Eugene and Salem. All of these interviews have been transcribed and made available online.
Founded in 1993, Oregon Black Pioneers is a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve and amplify the history of African Americans in Oregon.
The Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection is comprised of two distinct projects.
The content in Series 1 was collected by Black History Club students at Jefferson Middle School in Eugene, Oregon. The interviews were conducted with African American women - and, in certain cases, their descendants - who were instrumental to the formation and growth of the Black community in Eugene. The interviews were originally recorded to VHS and were later digitized by one of the creators of the collection. These rendered-digital files were deposited with SCARC by Oregon Black Pioneers.
The content in Series 2 is the product of a project that was sponsored by Oregon Black Pioneers to interview an additional group of individuals who helped build the African American communities in Portland, Eugene and Salem. These interviews, conducted from 2018-2020, were led by interviewer Ruth Kornberg and produced by Gregory Stanley Black, who was responsible for lighting, videography and sound recording. This content was originally shot at 4k, and those files are on deposit with SCARC. Lower-resolution access files were created by SCARC, as were the compiled full interview files that are linked to from this finding aid.
All of the interviews described in this collection have been transcribed and made available online.
Judy Boyer was born in Portland, Oregon in 1949. After graduating high school, Boyer attended a one-year business college to learn business secretarial skills. She then began her career by working at Goodyear Tires for five years, where she was the only Black person in her office. After spending time in this position learning new skills, she went on to work for the employment office for five years, during which time she became involved in union organizing. This led her to work for the local AFL-CIO union office, where she remained for five years until the office closed. It was in this capacity that she met her husband. After losing her job working for AFL-CIO, Boyer moved on to working for nonprofits, primarily in the employment and training field. She also briefly served on the executive staff of Multnomah County Chair Gladys McCoy, who was the first African American to serve in that position. At the age of 55, Boyer decided to go back to school, first attending Portland Community College and then Concordia University, where she completed an undergraduate degree in Business.
Robert Boyer was born in Philadelphia in 1939. A member of the only Black family in a predominantly Italian and Irish neighborhood, Boyer attended Catholic schools until his graduation from high school in 1958. During his high school years, Boyer excelled in track and also trained as a boxer. Boyer had also enjoyed fixing radios as a boy and decided to pursue a career in electronics. This led to his joining the Air Force, where he was eventually stationed at a radar complex in British Columbia. Following his discharge in 1961, Boyer relocated to Portland, Oregon, which became his home. In the years that followed, he worked as a car mechanic and salesman, a railroad foreman and, for the bulk of his career, as a dockworker. During this time, he also studied at Marylhurst College, completing a Business Administration degree in 1977. Boyer’s last job was as manager of the King Neighborhood Facility in northeast Portland. With his wife, Judy, Boyer has also run a property management business for forty years. Shortly after retiring in 1995, Boyer served a one-year term as state Senator, representing constituents in north and northeast Portland. Boyer became politically active in the 1960s and has been involved in numerous civil rights, housing and community-building initiatives.
Veverly Campbell was born in Portland, Oregon in 1945. Starting in the second grade, Campbell was able to attend a private Catholic school on a scholarship. From there, she went to a predominantly Black high school, from which she graduated in 1964. After high school, she married her first husband, with whom she had three kids. She remarried in 1978 and remained with her second husband until his passing. In 1978, Campbell began working at Techtronix, building electronics equipment. She remained in this position until 1990. In 1992, she decided to go back to school, attending Portland Community College until 1995. She then worked at Lutheran Intercity Ministries as a kindergarten teacher from 1995 until its closing in 1998. In 1998 she again went back to school, attending a Catholic university based out of Salem, Oregon. During this time, she also began working at a Montessori preschool, where she was employed until 2005. After her son was injured, she stopped attending school to focus on his recovery. In 2001, Campbell once again returned to school and completed her Bachelor’s degree in Child and Family Studies at Portland State University. That same year, she became the program director for an afterschool program, where she worked until 2007. From 2008 until 2011, she worked for Friends of the Children. From 2011 until the time of the interview, she worked at Self Enhancement Incorporated, working with underserved children in Portland.
Aletha Chavis was born in Portland, Oregon in 1931. She grew up in Portland alongside her two brothers. In 1949, Chavis enrolled in Vanport Junior College, where she studied for two years. She then moved to Salem, Oregon, where she had found work as a nursing aide caring for disabled children. During this time, she also attended Willamette University for a year. After leaving this job, she returned to Portland, where she finished her education at the Oregon College of Education, training to become a teacher. Chavis began her teaching career in Portland, but around 1956 moved to Oakland, California for a different teaching job. In 1957 she married her husband, who was in the U.S. Navy. After finishing her first school year teaching in Oakland, she moved to San Diego, California to be with her husband, where her first daughter was born. For the next several years she moved around often, as her husband was frequently deployed across the United States. She eventually divorced and moved back to Portland with her now three daughters. Upon moving back to Portland, Chavis bought the house next door to the mother, relying on her support to help raise her children as a single mother. After a brief stint working in a library, Chavis returned to teaching. She then became a member of an advisory committee that worked with teachers and schools throughout Portland to improve educational outcomes for Black students. In 1974, she completed her Master's degree in Administration from the University of Portland, which enabled her to become the Vice Principal of Grant High School, where she worked for nine years. Chavis was then invited by the superintendent of her school district to join the personnel department in the central office, which she did for one year before being promoted to director of the department. After nine years in this role, she retired in 1989. In her retirement, Chavis volunteered for the Oregon Visitor Information Center for 20 years, and also worked as a tour guide for the Portland Tourism Department.
Charmaine Coleman was born in 1936. Originally from Louisiana, her family moved several times throughout her childhood. Coleman attended the University of the Pacific for her undergraduate degree. In 1966 she moved to Eugene, Oregon with her husband, Ed, so he could obtain his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. Several years later, in the 1970s. Coleman herself attended the University of Oregon to obtain her Master’s degree in Special Education. After getting her degree, she began a career in teaching where she dedicated herself to trying to address racism and prejudice through teaching children. Throughout her life, Coleman was involved with the NAACP and heavily involved with both her local church community and the Democratic Party.
Pauline Davidson was born in Atlanta, Georgia but moved to Eugene, Oregon with her aunt Bernice Johnson and Bernice's family. Davidson raised five children in Eugene.
Geraldine Hammond was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1932. After completing her K-12 education in New Orleans, Hammond earned her undergraduate degree from Dillard University. In 1953, she moved to Portland to pursue a graduate degree in psychology from the University of Portland. During this time, she lived with her aunt and uncle. While a graduate student, Hammond met her husband, whom she married in 1960. Upon finishing her graduate studies, Hammond began a distinguished career in education. She started by teaching the second grade at Highland School. From there, she began hosting a public, educational children’s television program called "Ms. Gerry and Friends." Following this, Hammond spent two years at the University of Oregon earning an administrative credential, which allowed her to become Salem’s first African American principal. She later became the Coordinator of Multicultural Education, a role in which she developed a new diverse and inclusive curriculum for her school district. Her achievements were ultimately recognized when the school district she worked for named a newly built school after her, which continues to hold birthday celebrations for her every year.
Richard Hunter was born in Portland, Oregon in 1953. The son of a pastor, Hunter grew up as one of ten siblings, and often had to share tight quarters. Hunter grew up in a largely Black neighborhood and attended mostly Black schools, where he learned to play the trumpet and developed a love of music. After a brief and unsuccessful stint in college, Hunter turned to drugs. At the age of 21, he had a religious experience that turned him away from drug use and led him to pursue his calling and become a pastor. While he did once try to pastor full-time, due to financial needs he spent most of his life pastoring part-time while also working. During his early years, Hunter worked a variety of jobs related to vocational training in civil engineering that he received in high school, but his primary employer at the time was the Highway Division. Around this time, he married his first wife, with whom he had three kids. After a period of working in transportation and the service industry, Hunter decided he wanted to pursue a career more related to his pastoring and began work as a case manager for community assistance programs. Around 1990, he began to work with his neighborhood association to build affordable housing in the area. Hunter later ended up working in employment services for a time, before returning to work for the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles. Hunter retired in 2016, at the age of 62. He continued to pastor for a few more years, but at the time of the interview was planning to stop pastoring to focus on writing a book.
Bertha Mae Johnson was born in 1922. She moved from Atlanta, Georgia to Eugene, Oregon with her husband, who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. The mother of ten children, Johnson and her family were among the early members of the African American community in Eugene.
Annie Mims (1902-1995) was born in Marshall, Texas and moved to the Pacific Northwest in the 1940s so that her husband, C.B., could find work in the timber industry. The Mims family moved to Eugene in 1947. Willie Mims (b. 1936) is the son of Annie and C.B. Mims.
Joy Pruitt was born in 1938. Pruitt was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, with her two sisters. After graduating high school, Pruitt attended Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, to get her undergraduate degree. With the support of the Urban League of Portland, with whom she was involved as a member, she went on to have a career as a teacher. A year after securing her first teaching job, Pruitt married and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where her husband was stationed as a serviceman in the military. After a few years in Las Vegas, where her first son was born, she and her husband moved back to Portland, where they had two more children and bought a home in 1958. Pruitt also considers two other young women who she took into her home and raised to be her children. Pruitt led an active social life of gardening, entertaining, playing tennis, and playing music. At the time of the interview, she was 89, and still led an active social life.
Mattie Reynolds (1918-2010) was born in Bossier Parish, Louisiana and moved to Eugene, Oregon from Shreveport, Louisiana so that her husband could pursue work with the railroad. The mother of twelve children, Reynolds was a founding member of St. Mark Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and was also the first African American to seek elective office in Eugene, running for a seat on the City Council in 1966. During the 1960s she participated in sit-ins and other protests to advance the cause of civil rights in Eugene. Ed Reynolds is the youngest of Mattie's children.
Bill Rutherford was born in Portland, Oregon in 1937, the oldest of four. He was the first Black person born at the Wilcox Memorial Hospital. Rutherford was raised in Portland and lived there until 1954, when he went to Eugene, Oregon, to attend the University of Oregon. After a brief stint there, he joined the Air Force, which allowed him the opportunity to travel across the United States, as he was educated in cartography. It was also during the time that he met his wife, Martha, with whom he had two children. After leaving the Air Force, Rutherford returned to Portland where he worked as a milkman. In August 1965, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he again found work as a milkman before landing a job in cartography. After returning to Portland in 1971, where he raised his two children, he continued to work in technical illustration.
Jerry Thompson (b. 1946) was one of three children adopted by Pearlie Mae Washington - his aunt - when the children's mother passed away in 1953. He was raised in Eugene, Oregon.
Kay Toran was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1943. When she was three, her family moved to Portland, Oregon where she was raised along with her three siblings. Throughout grade school and high school she was active in student government, which culminated in her being elected as president of the State Girls’ League during her junior year. After graduating, Toran attended the University of Portland, where she majored in sociology with minors in psychology and philosophy. During her time in college, she met and married her husband. After graduating, she moved to Germany with her husband for one year before coming back to Portland to settle and raise a family. After spending some time as a stay-at-home mom, she accepted a position as a caseworker in public welfare but soon left to become the Director of Special Services for the Girl Scouts. Toran later decided to return to school and attended Portland State University, where she completed her Master’s in Social Work with a concentration in Public Administration. She then became a Branch Manager for the Public Welfare Office, and quickly rose through the ranks to become the Deputy Director of Field Operations. Having noticed her work, the governor of Oregon recruited her to be the Director of Affirmative Action for the state of Oregon. After doing this job for over seven years, Toran moved on to a position in the purchasing division of the state government for three years. She was then recruited into a position working for Children’s Services, where she quickly rose through the ranks to become the director of the department. After six years working in this capacity, she was recruited to be the CEO and President of Volunteers of America Oregon, where she had been working for twenty years at the time of the interview.
Pearlie Mae Washington was born in Marshall, Texas in 1906 and moved with her husband from Roseboro, Arkansas to Eugene, Oregon so that he could pursue work with the railroad. One of the first Black residents of Eugene, she had two children and adopted three more. She passed away in 1993.
More Extent Information: 22 video files
Statement on Access: Collection is open for research.
Acquisition Note: Collection materials were donated to SCARC by the Oregon Black Pioneers, as represented by executive director Zachary Stocks.
Related Materials: This collection is a component of the Oregon Multicultural Archives. Other SCARC oral history collections that incorporate documentation of the African American experience in Oregon include the African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection (OH 029), the Oregon Multicultural Archives Oral History Collection (OH 018), the Oregon State University Sesquicentennial Oral History Collection (OH 026), and the Voices of Oregon State University Oral History Collection (OH 009).
Preferred Citation: Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection (OH 042), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
Processing Information:
We acknowledge that materials in SCARC collections and the language that describes them may be harmful. We are actively working to address our descriptive practices; for more information please see our SCARC Anti-Racist Actions Statement online.
Please be aware that some of the contents in the Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection may be disturbing or activating. In several instances, interviewees relay stories that recount a culture of racism and the use of racist, derogatory language toward African Americans, including the N word. Connected to this are stories of trauma, both personal and community-wide.
[Date of acknowledgement: March 2023]
Oregon Black Pioneers
African Americans--Oregon
African Americans--Oregon--Portland.
Eugene (Or.)
Oregon Multicultural Archives
Urban League of Portland (Portland, Or.)
Born digital.
Oral histories (literary genre)
Video recordings (physical artifacts)
These interviews were conducted by members of the Black History Club at Jefferson Middle School, Eugene, Oregon: Trayvon Cooks, Michael Klindt, Corey Mainor, Cochise Moore, Marcus Nettles and Cory Mainor. The project was facilitated by Bahati Ansari, Robert Bolden, Misa Joo and Roosevelt White.
Transcribed video of each of the interviews described in series 1 is available online. Topics include racism in Eugene; changes observed over time; the importance of the St. Mark church to the African American community in Eugene; community gatherings; food, clothes, music and heroes; and advice to young people.
Willie Mims is a son of Annie Mims. The full contents of this file consist of the interview with Willie Mims as well as a series of Jefferson Middle School role playing exercises, including a mock trial. That full file is available here.
Transcribed video of the Willie Mims oral history interview is also available online.
The full contents of this file consist of Mattie Reynolds interview 2, part 1, as well as two segments of an interview with an unidentified African American woman, and multiple segments of Jefferson Middle School children interviewing one another on subjects related to racism. That full file is available here.
Transcribed video of Mattie Reynolds interview 2 part 1 is also available online.
Ed Reynolds is the son of Mattie Reynolds. The full contents of this file consist of the Ed Reynolds interview as well as another short series of interviews with Jefferson Middle School students related to a mentorship program. That full file is available here.
Transcribed video of the Ed Reynolds interview is also available online.
Geraldine Hammond reflects on her experiences as a black woman in higher education. She compares her experiences at a historically black college, a racially segregated university, and an integrated university. Considering the race relations at her graduate school institution, Hammond remarks that it always varied depending on the people she interacted with and what day it was, but recalls having a mostly positive experience, despite being one of only a few African-American students on campus. Hammond fondly remembers her time living with her aunt and uncle in Portland, with whom she was very close, as well as meeting, marrying, and buying a house with her husband. Hammond recalls having few negative experiences with her neighbors, despite being Black and moving into a mostly white neighborhood.
Hammond then goes on to discuss her teaching career, starting with her experience being the youngest staff member in her first professional teaching position. She credits positive relationships and mentorship from other staff members as having helped her begin her career in education. Hammond then recounts her public educational television program, "Ms. Gerry and Friends." In this program, she would go on walks around the community and teach children and their parents how to appreciate their communities and the world around them. As part of this program, she also frequently made school visits. After this television program ended, Hammond earned her Master’s degree in Administration from the University of Oregon, where she also worked to build a more inclusive history of the school's education program. Hammond then goes on to recount her experience as the first African-American principal in Salem and discusses her experience with tokenism as well as the difficulties schools faced at the time surrounding school integration policies. She then goes on to discuss her experience developing an inclusive curriculum for the school district, including how the curriculum was conceived and developed, as well as specifics of the curriculum and how it was taught. She also fondly recalls how a school came to be named after her, and the celebrations put on by the students and staff for her birthday. Hammond goes on to discuss her social life, hobbies, and family. She finishes the interview by reflecting on her participation in the Civil Rights Movement, race relations in Oregon, and her work with the NAACP.
Veverly Campbell begins the interview by discussing her parents' backgrounds and how they immigrated to Portland. She then goes on to talk about her early childhood, including the neighborhood she grew up in, her early school memories, her church experience, and her relationships with her grandparents. Campbell then recalls her experience as a survivor of sexual assault and discusses the impact that has had on her and her life. She then moves on to talk about her first marriage to an abusive husband, the impact it had on her, and how drugs exacerbated her husband’s violent tendencies. She then recounts how she met and married her second husband, and how her second husband had such a positive impact on her life. Campbell then reflects on her experiences with drug abuse, how she was turned away from that life, and how the trauma she experienced in her life had led her to that point. She then talks about how religion, her best friend who is also a therapist, and her second husband helped her turn her life around. She then considers police brutality in her neighborhood growing up, and the way that race and generational trauma intersect. She also talks about the impact of gang violence on Black communities, and how her own sons got caught up in gangs. Campbell then recounts her career and education, especially focusing on her jobs at Techtronix and Lutheran Interfaith Ministries, as well as her time at Portland Community College. She then takes a brief detour to discuss how her son almost died as a result of gang violence, and how that impacted her and her family. Campbell then talks about her time at Portland State University, including how she got her undergraduate degree and her memories of her time there. She then goes into detail about her career, especially focusing on her jobs at Techtronix, at a Montessori school, and working for Self Enhancement Incorporated. During this time, Campbell also shares her opinions and perspective on the Civil Rights Movement. Campbell then talks about her personal life, including her health issues, how she spends her recreational time, and her faith. Campbell ends the interview by talking about family traditions, holidays, her social life, and the importance of her family and their impact on her.
Note: This interview contains stories of drug abuse and violence, including domestic violence and police brutality.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.