NEWS & PRESS
Juneteenth is a Reminder of Oregon’s Long Denial of Black Political Freedom
The history of Juneteenth is often told as something that happened elsewhere — in the South, in a different era. But Oregon has its own record of exclusion to confront, including its founding as a “white utopia” after the Civil War. Oregon entered the Union in 1859 with Black exclusion laws written directly into its Constitution, prohibiting Black people from living, owning property, and entering into contracts in Oregon…