Research Guides: Race in the United States reading list: Racism in Oregon

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Topic: Race, racism, and Oregon
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Print and eBooks

A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America

by Elinor Langer
Call Number: E184.A1 L2575 2004

The Enduring Legacy of Portland's Black Panthers: The Roots of Free Healthcare, Free Breakfast, and Neighborhood Control in Oregon

by Joe Biel
Call Number: F884.P89 B53 2022

Breaking Chains

by R. Gregory Nokes
Call Number: KFO2801.6.S55 N65 2013

Piecing Me Together

by Renée Watson
Call Number: PZ7.W32868 Pi 2017

Articles, podcasts, and videos

Research Report: Cultivating Belonging in Clackamas County: A Research Justice Study (2024)
Over the last four years, the Research Justice Institute at the Coalition of Communities of Color engaged with Black, Indigenous, and people of color in Clackamas County to capture their experiences, needs, and desires. The result is a set of calls to action that community and dominant institutions can work towards to achieve belonging.
Respond to Racism in Lake Oswego launches "Life After the Bubble" interview series (2023)
Since 2017, Bruce Poinsette has helped lead a neighborhood effort to interrupt racism in Lake Oswego. Called Respond to Racism, the group holds regular community meetings to engage people in conversations and anti-racism action. Poinsette recently launched a new online interview series talking to people of color who have left the “bubble” of LO.
Article series: Publishing Prejudice (2023)
The Oregonian / OregonLive examined the newspaper’s racist legacy, reviewing what it said and omitted in news coverage and editorials throughout its 162-year history as a daily publication.
Special issue: White Supremacy & Resistance (Oregon Historical Quarterly, 2019)
Articles and essays include "Expectation and Exclusion: An Introduction to Whiteness, White Supremacy, and Resistance in Oregon History" ; "White American Violence on Tribal Peoples on the Oregon Coast" ; "'We were at our journey's end': Settler Sovereignty Formation in Oregon" ; "Liberty Ships and Jim Crow Shipyards: Racial Discrimination in Kaiser's Portland Shipyards, 1940–1945" ; and more.
Bleeding Albina: A History of Community Disinvestment, 1940–2000
Gibson, K. J. (2007). Bleeding Albina: A history of community disinvestment, 1940–2000. Transforming Anthropology, 15(1), 3-25.
Oregon’s Japanese incarceration camps during WWII (Oregon Encyclopedia)
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps in the western interior of the country of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific Coast.
What If Heroes Were Not Welcome Home? (Oregon Historical Society)
This poignant exhibit examines the prejudice that Japanese American veterans from Hood River, Oregon experienced upon their return home from serving our country in World War II.
This is how communities are reconciling with Oregon’s racist past (OPB)
Oregon Experience (2024). A conversation with truth and reconciliation activist Taylor Stewart on healing historical traumas.
The Racist History of Portland, the Whitest City in America (The Atlantic)
By Alana Semuels, (2016). "It’s known as a modern-day hub of progressivism, but its past is one of exclusion."
History is in the Interpretation: Asian Americans in Portland (HuffPost)
By Frank H. Wu, (2017). "A recent visit to Portland, Oregon made me realize clearly the dilemma of the Asian American story -- more accurately in the plural, stories. It is the constant choice between the positive and the negative."

Hush (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
"Hush" is an investigative podcast from OPB, uncovering the buried truth about critical stories in the Pacific Northwest. In the first season, we look at the case of Jesse Lee Johnson, a Black man who lived for 17 years on Oregon’s death row for a crime he says he didn’t commit, and we try to understand why the state tried for so long to kill him.
It Did Happen Here
It Did Happen Here is an independently produced podcast and a collectively written book about anti-fascist struggles that took place in Portland, Oregon following the 1988 murder of Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw by racist skinheads. This is the story of how disparate groups used a diversity of tactics to fight neo-nazi violence and right wing organizing in the Rose City in the 1980s and 90s. Winner of a 2022 Oregon Heritage Excellence Award.
Podcasts, Videos - Respond to Racism LO
Recommended videos, podcasts, books, and tools from Respond to Racism LO (Lake Oswego)

Selections from OPB's Oregon Experience | PNW History

Searching for York
The Lewis & Clark Expedition was a pivotal moment in American history. But the story of York, a man enslaved to William Clark and comrade on this journey, has been obscured by omission and stereotype.
Broken Treaties
For thousands of years, more than 60 Native American tribes lived in Oregon's diverse environmental regions. At least 18 languages were spoken across hundreds of villages. This civilizational fabric became unraveled in just a few short decades upon contact with white settlers in the 19th century. In this "Oregon Experience" documentary, Native Oregonians reflect on what has been lost since and what's next for their tribes.
Massacre at Hells Canyon
Chinese immigrants were instrumental in building the West, but they faced unprecedented legalized discrimination and violence. In 1887, a gang of Wallowa County men killed as many a 34 Chinese gold miners along the Snake River. For over a century the murders were covered up, and no one was held accountable. Today, the massacre at Hells Canyon is finally acknowledged.
Oregon's Klan in the 1920s: The rise of hate
The 1920s era KKK gained millions of members with an agenda of white supremacy, anti-immigration, and nationalistic patriotism. For a time, tens of thousands of Oregonians joined or supported the notorious hate group, and Klan parades were held in communities all over the state. Ultimately, the Klan generated fear and hatred as a money-making scheme. The 1920s era KKK didn't last long, but it left a disturbing legacy that still affects the state today.
Oregon's Japanese Americans
By the 1920s, Oregon had well-established Japanese American communities in Portland and Hood River. Immigrant pioneers managed businesses, thriving farms and orchards with their American-born children. Pearl Harbor changed everything.
The flooding of Vanport
During the early 1940s, Vanport, Oregon was the second largest city in the state. But on a Sunday afternoon in May 1948, it disappeared completely—destroyed by a catastrophic flood. This is the story of Vanport: what it was like to live there, how it suddenly ended, and how it changed the face of Portland, OR.
Oregon’s Black Pioneers
Long before Oregon became a state, Black people were in the Far West. Some were brought to the region as slaves, but many others arrived as freemen looking for a new life. They opened boarding houses and stores, worked farms and mined for gold. But as more white settlers arrived over the Oregon Trail, the newcomers passed discriminatory laws to keep African Americans out. “Oregon Experience” examines the largely unknown history of Oregon’s Black pioneers.
The Living Legacy of Colegio César Chávez
Anthony Veliz, a fifth-generation Oregonian, shares his family's connection to Colegio César Chávez—the first accredited Chicano college in the U.S.—and how it inspired his mission of educational reform. Former Oregon Rep. Teresa Alonso León, along with Colegio co-founders Sonny Montes and José Romero, add their voices to the chorus of community leaders fighting against Chicano erasure.
Road to Sunrise: How communities are reconciling with Oregon’s racist past
Join Taylor Stewart on a powerful truth and reconciliation road trip across Oregon. The young activist and nonprofit founder is on a mission to raise awareness about the institutional and violent racism dotting Oregon’s past, as well as to build communities centered around healing historic wounds.

Additional resources

Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon? A Hidden History
Why aren’t there more Black people in Oregon? That’s the provocative question Walidah Imarisha poses – and then proceeds to answer. Start with the state’s original constitution, which banned blacks from living here. The law was repealed in the 1920s, but the language remained in the constitution until voters finally excised it in 2002. Oregon’s continued difficulty with welcoming communities of color stems from this history and has become ingrained in the state’s economic and social structures, says Imarisha, who teaches Black Studies at PSU.

DVD - Local Color by Jon Tuttle; John Lindsay; Oregon Public Broadcasting; Oregon Historical Society
Call Number: DVD E185.93.O7 L633 2008
Publication Date: 1991

Race in the United States reading list

Borrow these books

Print and eBooks

The Place We Make: Breaking the Legacy of Legalized Hate

Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

Massacred for Gold: the Chinese in Hells Canyon

It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist People's History

A Force for Change : Beatrice Morrow Cannady & the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912-1936

Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America

Eden Within Eden

The Portland Black Panthers

A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America

Sonny Montes and Mexican American Activism in Oregon

Uncertain Encounters: Indians and Whites at Peace and War in Southern Oregon, 1820s-1860s

Survival Math

Inside the Klavern

Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives

Pan-Tribal Activism in the Pacific Northwest

A Song below Water

Oregon and the Collapse of Illahee: U.S. Empire and the Transformation of an Indigenous World, 1792-1859