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Posted on 06/08/2025 5:45:19 PM PDT by simpson96
The city of Portland will pay $8.5 million in settlement funds to 26 descendants of Black Portlanders driven from homes and businesses for development projects from the late 1950s through the ’70s.
The group of descendants filed a federal lawsuit in late 2022 arguing that the city of Portland, Emanuel Legacy Medical Center and Prosper Portland conspired to destroy a previously thriving Black neighborhood. The civil rights suit filed in U.S. District Court described how the three organizations destroyed the homes and businesses of the descendants.
On Thursday, Portland City Council unanimously signed on to a settlement between the parties. The original financial settlement proposed to the council was $2 million. After testimony from a dozen community members, including descendants, all 12 councilors voted to increase the amount another $6.5 million.
Council president Elana Pirtle-Guiney said the actions taken last century left a gaping hole in the community.
“It was taken not by accident,” Pirtle-Guiney said. “It happened through public policy. The urban renewal and eminent domain and rezoning and decisions made by [the] government, including by our predecessors on this city council — and it displaced Black Portlanders and disrupted generational progress.”
She acknowledges that the process has been painful for the families involved.
“I want to be clear that this settlement, it’s not a full restoration, because it never can be,” Pirtle-Guiney said. “But nonetheless, it is important.”
As part of the settlement, the lawsuit will be dismissed, and the descendants will get financial and land retribution, in addition to other terms.
North Portland’s Central Albina neighborhood was a bustling hub for the city’s Black-owned businesses in the 1940s. In the 1950s, the city began to displace hundreds of residents in the majority Black neighborhood to make way for Interstate 5.
Later that decade, the city, Portland Development Commission (now called Prosper Portland) and Emanuel Legacy Medical Center garnered federal urban renewal grants to expand the hospital and “remove blight” from the area, resulting in the displacement of more than 150 residents.
The hospital expansion was never fully realized. Instead, until 2025, plots of land at North Williams Avenue and Russell Street that had been single family homes in the 1940s have sat empty or have been used for parking.
Royal Harris is one of the survivors. His family owned a single family home near Legacy Emanuel hospital, where Harris was born.
“We are talking about significant numbers that changed the direct trajectory of communities and families,” Harris, a 56-year-old plaintiff in the suit, told city councilors. “What we are here for is redress, the acknowledgement of harm that includes a reversal from that practice and includes the true and proper compensation for that victimization.”
In an unusual move, city councilors voted to increase the settlement amount after hearing testimony at Thursday’s meeting. When councilor Loretta Smith read the motion to increase the amount, an emotional outburst of snaps, cheers, and gasps rippled through the room.
The city will pay $7.5 million to the descendants, and Prosper Portland will add another $1 million. It amounts to around $327,000 for each of the 26 descendants listed on the lawsuit. Legal settlements from cities are often paid from a pool of money separate from the general fund.
The settlement states that the city of Portland acknowledges it engaged in “systemic discrimination and displacement that harmed Black communities.” The actions of the city and hospital denied Black Portlanders homeownership that contributes to generational wealth while contributing to segregation. The zoning codes and lending practices used by the city perpetuated harmful stereotypes, the settlement reads.
In addition to the financial settlement, the agreement requires the city to turn over ownership of two parcels of land in North Portland to the descendants at no cost. Three plots have been identified for consideration.
The settlement has a clause directing the city to declare a Descendants Day starting this year, and will run for at least five years. Additionally, the city will provide letters of support for a grant-funded film documenting the displacement of the Albina neighborhood families.
It also includes a uniquely Portland aspect: should the Keller Auditorium continue on a path to renovation, at least two of the descendants will be included in the renovation and design committees.
The historic performing arts center was renamed to Keller Auditorium in 2000. The change came after Richard Keller gave a $1.5 million donation in honor of his father, Ira Keller. In 1958 Ira Keller became the first chairman of what is now known as Prosper Portland.
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2025 Portland City Council.
The city council of Portland is downright crazy.
It’s ok, blacks gonna make it right for whitey in 200 years.
The “displacement” has been true for all types of neighborhoods since the 1950s. The Detroit blues places on Hastings Street in the so called black bottom area recorded a few of the artists in historic places that, along with hundreds of homes, had to be bulldozed for the new construction of the freeways. One was John Lee Hooker.
And really recently (just before 2000 or so) Little Caesar’s Pizza owner quietly bought up land and forced people out of poor areas to build his new Comerica Park for the Tigers and the stores and restaurants and Detroit Red Wings hockey area-—almost all of the people displaced were poor and black. Places with collapsing ceilings and peeling lead paint made way for “District Detroit.”
That’s Portland for you. It’s the outhouse of Oregon.
Every penny will be spent in a month.
Fine. It’s not our money. If I was a Portland resident It’d be different so who cares?
The only slaves in Portland were the Chinese.
The USA Political Left never walks away from any kind of Cash Back fantasy.
Many, many more white families than black have been displaced for freeway construction in the Portland area over the years. Where’s their multi-million-dollar settlement?
What about the Native Americans???
It is a shame politicians feel they must pay money in order to earn support.
How about compensating the Japanese there were displaced during WWII.
There are more “Black Lives Matter” signs in Oregon than there are actual black residents.
How about the Japanese compensating Americans living there who were interned or disappeared during WWII.
We treated the Japanese here a whole lot better than the Japanese treated us over there.
Then Portland is even more stupid than I thought. Gullible white libtards being played.
Wonder what percentage winds up back in city council members pockets?
That does not seem possible.
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