The Oregon Remembrance Project partners with Oregon cities that have stopped hiding their history of hostility toward Black and other nonwhite populations and embraced a process of transforming from a "sundown" town to a "sunrise" city.
When Oregon joined the Union in 1859, it did so as a "slave free" state. But only because Oregon did not want slaveholders to bring Black people into a state established as a "white Utopia." While numerous cities pockmarked the American landscape from coast to coast identified as "sundown towns" by Black Americans fleeing the hostility of the south through the Great Migration north and west, Oregon was regarded as a sundown state.
Today, the Oregon Remembrance Project, through its "Sunrise Project" is doing the work of helping cities remember the inherited conditions from the past (which continue to have influence on present-day conditions and community attitudes) and engage in an educational process of transforming the former "sundown" moniker into a "sunrise" brand that welcomes and embraces a more diverse and multicultural population. The Ashland Sunrise Project is part of the growing network.
Joining the Exchange are two guests:
Taylor Stewart is the founder and Executive Director of the Oregon Remembrance Project.
Jeff LaLande, Ph.D., is a retired archaeologist and historian for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest after 30 years and former adjunct professor at Southern Oregon University, where he taught for 20 years.
RESOURCES:
Interactive map of sundown towns in every state
Book: "Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism" by James Loewen
