The Environmental Center

39th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Address: Dr. Angela Davis
2021-01-18 | Deschutes Brewery Public House, 1044 NW Bond St, Bend, OR, 97701, United States
Dr. Angela Davis — American political activist, philosopher, academic, and author — will speak from her decades of experience in social justice movements. Davis’ work as an educator and activist emphasizes the importance of building community action for economic, racial, and gender justice. Questions for Dr. Davis must be submitted in advance upon registration or online.

A History of Discrimination in Oregon
2021-01-18
Did you know…

Oregon’s Constitution prevented African Americans & Chinese Americans from owning any real estate and denied African Americans the right to live here?
Until the 1950s most Oregon hotels, restaurants, theaters, and amusement parks refused to serve African Americans?
Many cities and towns had “Sundown Laws” which threatened African Americans and Asians to be out of town after sunset?

Explore the ghosts from our history for insights on fair housing challenges today.

Health, Hate, Housing, and History: Lessons at the Intersection of Our Two Pandemics
2021-01-18
This training connects the history of racial exclusion, discrimination, hate, and harassment towards specific communities that have resulted in the disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color from our two different current pandemics, highlighting the connections between racial exclusion and segregation with the COVID-19 pandemic and police violence.

Jelani Cobb -- The Half-Life of Freedom: Race & Justice in America Today
2021-02-02
In this virtual program, acclaimed historian and journalist Jelani Cobb will break down the complex dynamics of race and racism in America — relating the country’s history of inequality to today’s issues. Cobb will tell us why he believes the levers of justice are in our hands, and how we can move them in the direction we see fit.
About Jelani Cobb
A long-time staff writer at The New Yorker, Cobb wrote a series of articles about race, injustice, and the police; for which he received the Sidney Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis Journalism. He also teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic.
FREE and OPEN to the public, but registration is REQUIRED.(one registration per viewing device please)

Blacks on the Frontier
2021-02-23
Oregon’s early history of white supremacy laid the groundwork for the state’s lack of racial diversity today. While Black communities emerged in spite of this discrimination in Portland and the Willamette Valley, no such communities existed in Oregon’s rural counties. As a result, early Blacks in rural Oregon represented the most marginalized members of an already vulnerable racial minority. This talk will highlight the unique experiences of some of the few Blacks who, in the absence of larger communities of support, settled on Oregon’s frontier, and the lessons that can be learned from their example.

This event is co-hosted by the Portland Audubon, the Rural Alliance for Diversity, and Harney County Library.

Reckoning with Race and Racism in America with Michael Eric Dyson
2021-11-03
Viewers will explore with Michael Eric Dyson the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation’s approach to issues of race, and hear his thoughts on reasons to hope for a better future as we reckon with our past. A distinguished professor of African American studies, ethics and society at Vanderbilt University, Dyson is the author or editor of more than 20 books on subjects from Malcolm X to Tupac Shakur. He is a New York Times contributing opinion writer, and a contributing editor of The New Republic and of ESPN’s The Undefeated website. The presentation will be hosted by Erika McCalpine, executive director for strategic diversity at OSU-Cascades.
FREE, BUT REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
