The University of Oregon Historic Preservation program has received a 3-year research grant of approximately $400,000 to explore the history of Portland’s African American community as part of a major grant to the University from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The funds will support a digital mapping project that uses existing historical archives and residents’ oral histories to promote the history of the historically Black community of Albina. The project will be part UO’s Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice, a multidisciplinary collaboration between scholars in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Design. Funds for the historic preservation work are part of a $4.52 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a new initiative envisioning a transformative research platform for racial and climate justice. Program Director James Buckley has been working with members of the Albina community and local preservation advocates to develop innovative ways to tell the story of Portland’s African Americans from wartime boom to urban renewal bust to the rapid gentrification of the neighborhood in the 21st century.

For more information contact Jim Buckley, Director, Historic Preservation Program, University of Oregon, Portland.