Hosted Successful “Expanding the Black Preservation Movement in Oregon” Symposium

The final culminating project of Restore Oregon’s Albina Preservation Initiative was achieved in September 2024 when we co-hosted this half-day symposium with Oregon Black Pioneers and Moreland Resource Consulting.

We brought in a national inspirational speaker and historic preservation expert, Brent Leggs, to provide the keynote address and kick off the morning. Brent is the Executive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He highlighted cultural heritage work happening across the nation to illustrate how important historic preservation of Black spaces, places, heritage, and history is to our nation. He then brought it home to Oregon and touched on three projects that have received support from his Fund here: Oregon Black Pioneers, Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center in rural Joseph, and the Billy Webb Elks Lodge in Portland. We were honored to have Denyse McGriff, an Oregon advisor to the National Trust and the Mayor of Oregon City introduce Brent Leggs. After the plenary presentation, three panel discussions followed touching on various aspects of cultural heritage and historic preservation.

There is so much positive work happening in the Black heritage and cultural space throughout the entire State that we could have filled a two-day conference. There was much talk about doing this again and the many ways to further this work and keep expanding the Black preservation movement in Oregon.

Restore Oregon would like to thank our co-hosts, moderators, panelists, funding partners, and all of the symposium participants for making this a huge success. Not only did it bring everyone together to share their work and learn from each other, but it also provided space to think creatively and to find ways to continue this important work going forward. That was the main goal of the project.

This symposium (and the entire Albina Preservation Initiative) was funded by the Mellon Foundation (Just Futures Initiative) for the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice, University of Oregon. Additional grants and sponsorship from the statewide Partners of the Oregon Cultural Trust, City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Architectural Heritage Center and Restore Oregon funded our keynote speaker.