Working, churchgoing people in a community with a keen sense of history and purpose. Being that portland was not a very welcoming place for africanamericans in the 1940s and 50s. Community and family and books really shaped her imagination, her sense of the past and her sense of her future and she has achieved many things on behalf of others, she has been an advocate always for education, and she is probably best known as the first africanamerican woman elected the Oregon State Senate . 1996. Avel gordly was my state representative, my state senator, in northeast portland. So i knew her name and her face and her work as a citizen of portland in the 90s, and early 2000s, and in 2007, i was lobbying the state legislature on behalf of education, on behalf of higher education, and we were visiting around in salem and talking to legislators, and our last stop of our delegation was with senator gordly. She was to great champion of the cause of education and was we enjoyed tower conversation and wrapping up i said, its an honor to meet you. You dont probably know me but i work at ps and the librarians there and historians and the librarians told me you gifted your personal papers, your personal archives to the university and the staff is a little overwhelmed right now but i wanted to thank you personally and also say if you need some help with that collection, i think i can give you a hand. And she said, yes, i would love some help with that. A few weeks later i got a called in my office, and she is like, id like to meet with you. I was like, sure. I thought we were good, i learned so much. It was fabulous, everybody is in good shape. And she looked at me and said, come on in and sit down. Im ready to tell my story. Will you help me. And i was overwhelmed. It was extremely honored but i said i sure will try. Just seemed to me that the time has come to pause and reflect, and to do that in a way that what was important to me at that time was doing that reflection intentionally, and in a way that would document something of my story, my familys story. And i was also feeling a sense of urgency about doing that. Because there had been a number of losses in my life, family members who passed on, Close Friends who had passed on, and as people leave us, we lose their voices, we lose their stories. One of the things we like to laugh about a little but also reflect on was here we were, these two people, a hallway apart at a university, where both book lovers and history lovers and writers and speaker, and yet our mothers came from different countries, spoke different languages, practiced different religions, and yet here we were neighbors, colleagues, and we could share a language of scholarly language, literary language, political language, we had, we could connect in a way that it had been challenging for our moms to connect so that was kind of a theme between us. Our time was really about carefully honoring her heritage and her family and he stories that shaped who she was. My parents, they were part of the great black migration. They came to portland to oregon, in on my mothers side, he family came. The 1920s from alabama and texas. On my fathers side his camly came his family came out in 1937. My mom and dad met in portland and married. They were both young. My mom was all of 17, and dad would have been around 20, and they built a life together. They had 45 years together before my mom passed away in the 80s. So i remember home as being just that, a home, with a mother and a father, a sister, an older brother, and where there were expectations, you know, of my parents had expectations, especially my mom, that we would get an education and that expectation resulted in mom making sure that my sister and i attended an allgirls high school, girls polytechnic high school, known for its strong Academic Program but also college and vocational tracts, so to speak,; on our black there were black people who owned their homes, and who work very hard at more than one job, to maintain their homes. Young people, your own age, during the civil rights period, that civil rights era, the 60s, we watched a lot of television or those anytime there was something on television about marchs, demonstrations, we were watching. We were right there with my mom and my dad, if he was in town. We were very aware that there was this movement going on and it was that the movement was national, and that we were part of that. I think it also i think that experience also opened up an understanding in my mind about what it means and what it was going to mean to be black, and female. And to be vulnerable. Those things got planted during that time. Dr. King Martin Luther king, jr. Had come to portland in the early 60s. There was a huge, huge gathering for him at vancouver avenue baptist church. Was not present for that but my grandmother on my mothers side, Alberta Louise randolph. I carry her middle name. Grandma randolph was present and in fact she got she came away with dr. Kings book, stride toward freedom signed by him, and i now have that book in my collection. But that was a huge moment and event in the Portland Black Community that connected portlands black community to the movement. What stands out to me for avels early activism is when she had the first job in the Oregon Division of corrections, and after sort of leaving home, leaving community, leaving campus, now out in the state apparatus, the state structure, and having to use your voice, both on behalf of parolees and people in the system and on her own behalf, because of the treatment that you were given in that job, i dont know if thats the spark spark but to me thats a crucial moment of transition because a lot of what happened help support and affirm what you were seeking in education and imagining good future for yourself, was now severely threatened by this institutional racism in corrections, and theres a moment in the interviews where you said, wasnt dish had to write these letters. Wasnt sure if anybody was going to do anything about them. But i had to write these you had to write the letters because you could not eet these intense layers of racism at every corner, every turn go undocumented and uncontested. So, to me thats just a Pivotal Moment in using your voice and engaging beyond the supported kind of activism you grew up with and an unknown territory, kind of you were more on your own. I was one of the few africanamericans and africanamerican females to run for office in the state of oregon. There was one woman, Margaret Carter who had successly run for a seat in the house, and so i had her success and n gaining a in gaining a seat as an example of what was possible. What did surface in that campaign was racism that did come up, some sexism, absolutely. That, too. Our issues my issues, were education, reform, public safety, and there was another one Environmental Justice would become one of the issues that i championed as well. Im very proud of the work in Mental Health, around Mental Health, working to achieve Mental Health parity in the state of oregon. Using my voice to champion the issue of Mental Health disparity, using the voice and my lived experience with depression to help talk about those issues and hi sons experience with Mental Illness also to talk about those issues. I retired from the legislature stepped out out of that role in january of 2009, after having served 17 years in the oregon state legislature. Last of my lift here, not last in the defining sense, has to do with the changes in the legislature and the example and space that was created in the senate, the house, and in the halls of power in salem for black people, but maybe especially for black women, that its now not normal yet but its acceptable, theres more room, theres more tools and resources and affirmation of the importance of their voice, a black womans voices and some ways that really symbolized by the beautiful portraits of the signing of civil rights legislation in 1953 that hangs in the Capitol Building which is hidden in a corridor for many years but that avel brought forward during her time in office to again highlight, to create a space, a sign of memory, of civil rights accomplishment, which then is much more accessible and visible to anyone who comes comes into e capitol and to see that image and be remind of the particular oregon civil rights story; i think is very, very important legacy. Our visit to ported exoregon, continues now with author james hite, who provides a history of the office of the Vice President and the people who have held the post. Mr. Chairman, delegates, friends and my fellow americans, thank you
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