On August 24, 1949, work crews and bulldozers cleared out a neighborhood just outside of Eugene known as Ferry Street Village. The Lane County Board of Commissioners had voted to demolish the neighborhood just a month before, and some residents who hadn’t gotten the news ran from their homes with as much as they could carry. The neighborhood was one of the only places near Eugene where Black people could settle. The Black Cultural Initiative is working with other groups to raise money for a monument to the neighborhood and the families that lived there. Talicia Brown-Crowell, the founder of BCI, joins us to talk about why it is important to preserve the history of this neighborhood.
This story was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Geoff Norcross: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Geoff Norcross, in for Dave Miller. In 1949, Black people were not allowed to live in the city of Eugene, so they built a community just outside the city limits. It was called Ferry Street Village. In July of that year, the Lane County Commission voted to demolish the neighborhood, and on August 24, 1949, the bulldozers came. Not everybody had heard the news beforehand, so on that day they gathered whatever they could, quickly, and ran. Now, the Black Cultural Initiative is working with other groups to raise money for a monument to the neighborhood and the families who lived there.
Talicia Brown is the executive director of the Black Cultural Initiative in Eugene, and she joins us now. Talicia Brown, welcome to Think Out Loud.
Talicia Brown-Crowell: Thank you so much for having me.
Norcross: What can you tell me about the people who lived at Ferry Street Village?
Brown-Crowell: I can say that they are still here. They still live here in Eugene, Oregon, and across Lane County and throughout the region. They’re a really beautiful, resilient people. So much perseverance in their DNA, that they lived here, locally, that they stayed, and that they continued to remain here and thrive is a testament to the amazing perseverance of the human spirit.
I’ve had the opportunity in the last little bit to work with these pioneer families. There’s five of them: the Nettles, the Mims, the Reynolds, the Johnsons and the Washingtons. And through this project, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many of the members of those families, and to work together on this project to erect a monument that is a testament to the matriarchs and the patriarchs who were the founding Black families of this area.
Norcross: Why were they there? What was it that brought them to this part of the country?
Brown-Crowell: It was largely the railroads. During World War II, there was such a need for materials to be shipped across the country. So just like in Portland with the Vanport community, folks came for the railroads. They also came for the timber industry. Some of them found employment through the railroad, some of them came for the timber industry, and then found that because they were Black, they did not have the opportunity for employment. So they came largely to be able to make their way with their families and to provide for their families.
Norcross: They could not live within the city limits of Eugene at the time. What was it, though, about this patch – this Ferry Street Village just across the river – that was workable as a community?
Brown-Crowell: You know, it’s important to share the name that they say for themselves. They really speak about their home, their neighborhood, their community as “across the bridge.”
Norcross: Across the bridge?
Brown-Crowell: Yes. Essentially, Eugene was a sundown town during that time period, and they could work in Eugene – largely working for white people. But come sundown, they needed to be someplace else. So where they found that community, where they found that connection, was across the bridge, across the Ferry Street Bridge. And they lived alongside the Willamette River. At the time, the Willamette was really different than what it is today. There was no dam, so the Willamette would oftentimes flood.
These folks, their families lived in really unhealthy and unsanitary living conditions. They had homes that they built, they even had a church that they built, community connections. They were raising each other’s families together and forming connection. What I hear is that the children were not wanting for anything. They had all of their basic needs met, they were really well-cared for and tended to. They were able to go into each other’s homes, they were able to eat the food from the refrigerators of their matriarchs, and be welcomed in. They gathered together in their original cultural hub, the church – the Black church, the Ferry Street Chapel. So they really created community, and Lane County decided on the resolution that forced them to move from what they created as their home.
Norcross: We’ll get to that in a minute. But just to hear you describe it, it sounds like the kinds of Black neighborhoods that you hear about all over America, like Albina in Portland, or Black Wall Street in Tulsa, where Black people created a thriving community in the places where they were forced to live.
Brown-Crowell: Absolutely. This is a shared history for Black people through history and throughout our country. Even my people who, on my dad’s side, we are from Arkansas. We had a township in Okolona, Arkansas, which was called Dobyville. And we were one of the many, many, many, many Black Wall Streets throughout the country. We formed thriving communities, wonderful neighborhoods, businesses, restaurants, banks, money exchanges, all sorts of things, and essentially that was taken from us. That was stolen from us by white people in the neighborhood who wanted to take our land and to take our property.
Norcross: Well, that brings us to July of 1949, when the Lane County Commission voted to demolish this community that had been built. What is your understanding of the rationale – if you can call it that – for why they wanted to do that?
Brown-Crowell: The rationale that was stated publicly was that they wanted to rebuild the Ferry Street Bridge. What we know as well is that the residents of the “across the bridge” community were given essentially… some of them were given six days’ notice, and some of them were given no notice. And what we also know is that the range, the place that that bulldozing was meant to happen, was actually in a much bigger range and location than what the county had originally decided upon. So for those people who were outside of that range, those are the people who fled with just what they could grab really quickly.
Norcross: When did you first hear about this incident?
Brown-Crowell: You know, I have lived in Oregon since 1992, and I’ve lived in the Eugene-Springfield area since 2000. I didn’t know about this history until 2016. And part of the work of the Black Cultural Initiative is really starting to help to create storytelling and placemaking for Black people in our local community. So this project is really unearthing and really telling the story of these people, these families, who have been here since the 1940s.
Norcross: Talicia, you said that you have spoken with some members of the founding families of this neighborhood who are still around. What kind of things did you hear from them?
Brown-Crowell: I really heard, again, that they were really cared for, that they were tended to. I mean, as a child growing up in San Jose, I remember having a really amazing childhood and playing around in the apricot orchards, in the backfield and things like that. And that’s really what they were speaking to, that regardless of the poor sanitary and poor living conditions that they lived in … because they were playing amongst the timber lots, and there were woodrats, and the river was flooding. So aside from that, they really just enjoyed their lives. They were children, living their best lives.
Norcross: And what does the neighborhood look like now?
Brown-Crowell: It’s now what we call Alton Baker Park. It’s this nice pristine park in Eugene. We refer to it as the equivalent of Eugene’s Central Park. You would never know that there were families who had lived here, who had lived at Alton Baker Park. And I also understand that Native American peoples had also been, in a sense, corralled to that area, that land, that region, when they were also forcefully removed and then also exterminated through settler practices.
Norcross: Right. You and your organization are working with the city and some others to build a memorial, right there in what is now Alton Baker Park. What do you think it would mean to have the history of this neighborhood be more well-known to Black folks in Lane County, and to everyone?
Brown-Crowell: It’s pretty significant. I mean, at the Black Cultural Initiative, we have been really excited to share in this space and to share in our partnership with both the city of Eugene and also Lane County. And we have a number of other partnerships that we’re working on throughout Lane County. As we share this story and this history, more and more organizations and individuals are coming on board, because we are recognizing how little has been shared about this community and its impact on our area.
I would say that in our local area, 95% of people don’t know that Black people lived in this area in the ‘40s, in the ’30s, in the 1900s. Black people, African American people, have lived in this region for a very, very long time. This is really just telling that story. And also, this monument, this statue, is not just for the pioneer families. It’s really important to them that their history, their lineage and their contribution to Lane County be addressed.
It’s not just for the Black community, for us to know that there are people who look like us, who lived at Alton Baker Park. Representation matters, and the fact that there are no monuments for people who lived “across the bridge,” or who lived in Lane County, is very significant. But it’s really for all of us, it’s for an entire community, everyone in it. It’s important for the visitors who come to Alton Baker Park and use that space on a yearly basis to know the history of that space.
Norcross: You called it a statue; we’ve called it a memorial. Can you give me a better sense of what it will look like when it’s finally put up?
Brown-Crowell: We have been working with the founding families and really getting an understanding of what they would wish to see, what kind of representation they would wish to see for a memorial. And when my organization, Black Cultural Initiative, started off this project, working with a few of the elders who are still alive, and also the city of Eugene and Lane County, what we understood is that the city and the county had been talking with many of these elders about just creating a plaque at Alton Baker Park.
When my organization came into the conversation, we said this history is so important to all of us, a plaque does not do this justice … freedom monuments. And so this monument is actually slated to be 8-feet tall, bronze, much like many of the monuments that we see around town that honor many of the settlers of this area. So giving them that just due.
It will also be in a central area, so that we don’t take a history that hasn’t been told and then put it in the back forty. We want to make sure it’s front and center, that people really have the opportunity to interact with this monument, to be with it, to learn the history, to see the plaques that indicate each of the families, and their family stories in front of the bronze monument. And that will give people the opportunity to learn even more and dive even more deeply into this history.
Norcross: You said it was bronze, you said it was going to be 8-feet tall. So obviously, it’s going to be noticeable. What will it actually depict?
Brown-Crowell: It will depict a family, our surviving elders. We’re actually at the 75th anniversary, now, of the destruction of their home. So, our elders are 78, they’re 79 years old, they’re 93 years old. So they’re really getting up there, and we’re really grateful and thankful that we’re able to do this work while they’re still with us. We would love to see a statue or monument erected during their lifetimes. But it’s an important piece of work, yes.
Norcross: Have you already picked the artist?
Brown-Crowell: We are in a process, a public art process. And our artist, Percy Appau, has been contracted with our nonprofit, the Black Cultural Initiative.
Norcross: Obviously, I would love to talk to Percy about this, but what is your understanding of how Percy understands, and has absorbed this history and this neighborhood?
Brown-Crowell: We really look forward to the opportunity. The Black Cultural Initiative, our nonprofit, has worked with Percy for a number of years on a number of different projects. And one of the things that we know about Percy is that he’s really warm, he’s engaging, he’s a really lovely human being. And it’s really important to him that he sits down with the families, that he really listens to their stories, that they sit and they have tea and they share meals together, so that he really does the absolute best that he can do to depict their story and to infuse their energy into this monument.
Going back to what the monument will depict – sorry, I skipped topics there – it will be a family. Our elders told us they wanted a family to represent the five families. It’ll be a general representation. So no family in particular, but it’ll have a mother, a father. The mother is holding a little baby, and then two children who are playing, not a care in the world. This was based on what our elders who are still with us, our elders who actually lived “across the bridge,” what they wish to see.
Norcross: I’d like to take a step back here. Can you tell me more about the work that your organization, the Black Cultural Initiative, does, and how this memorial fits into your overall mission?
Brown-Crowell: The work of the Black Cultural Initiative is really to create a healthy and connected local Black community. And we do that through a number of different projects. We do work with health and wellness, with arts and culture, with financial literacy, with small business incubation. We work with the community and also family. Our center – the Peoples’ Collective, that we just opened up in Eugene – is Lane County’s first Black community center, first center to be devoted specifically to growing, helping, supporting and outreach into the Black community.
We also host a Black business incubator. We support small Black-owned businesses in getting started and getting incubated. And we are also in partnership with Lane Small Business Development Center to have a number of people hired on for our Black business coaches and mentors, advisors.
Norcross: And this memorial, how does it fit into that work?
Brown-Crowell: It’s an essential component. Every year since 2020, we have hosted a large cultural event at Alton Baker Park. When we started hosting the event, we didn’t know about the historical significance of Black people at that park. So we started in 2020, 2021, we had the Black Cultural Festival 2022, 2023, and now this year, we are supporting another couple of events.
Art and culture has been solidly a part of our organization. In fact, we’ve hosted “Museum Without Walls.” We have done work with the Springfield History Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, and Oregon Black Pioneers who are based in Salem – many different art institutions, history and placemaking organizations throughout the area, as well as the state. So the monument falls right in. That history, that placemaking, that sense of restorative justice as well is really important and at the heart of righting a wrong that has been.
Norcross: I’m glad you introduced that idea, because we have, for the last four years now, been having big, important conversations about memorials, about who is depicted and how their story is told. And I’m wondering how this memorial might fit into that big conversation that we’re having, especially in a place like Lane County, which – let’s not forget – was named after a man who had Confederate sympathies, especially when it came to slavery.
Brown-Crowell: Absolutely, yes. Lane County is… Lane was a racist, and Skinner as well. This area, and the state, really, has its roots in just about the most prejudicial rules, laws and implementation across the country. Oregon had exclusion laws that said that Black people could not live here.
So when we look at the numbers of, and representation of Black people here, we know that the reason why Black people don’t live here today is largely because of those rules and those exclusion laws. In fact, right now, Lane County, or I should say Eugene, has a 2.3% population. So that history is still very pervasive today. In the 1920s, the 1930s, Lane County, Eugene had the largest membership of card-carrying members of the Klan. Four out of five white men were members of the Klan and that was in the 1920’s.
So I applaud these families and the fact that they came here, that they stayed, that they took root, and that they decided that what was most important was to build and to create something that was good in a place that was so hostile to them. I mean, even at our highest place, Skinner Butte Park, there was, at the top of that Butte, a cross that was burned every Friday evening. And, in hearing that, it just blows my mind that that occurred. It blows my mind that that was the history for years and decades. And it blows my mind that these families, they came and they stayed, and they made the best of where they were at. And that their families are growing and thriving here – despite the hostility.
Norcross: Last question: When will we actually get to see this memorial to these families in this neighborhood? When’s the big unveiling?
Brown-Crowell: The big unveiling is not for a year from now. Spoiler alert. I think so many people are so excited about this project. They see a little picture, and they think, “Oh, my God, it’s happening today.”
Well, no, it’s not happening today. It’s actually a very large project to do, working with our partners, working with the city who owns the land, working with Lane County, who had the resolution to forcefully remove them, doing the fundraising and all the different pieces. Working with the families, which is just such a beautiful thing in and of itself, and seeing the families come together, when they hadn’t for a while. Seeing all of that come together, or having all that come together, all these different pieces take time.
Even the artist, he’s been out of the country for a month. He just got married in his homeland in Ghana. He’s just getting back now. So all of those pieces are coming together. Now that he’s back, he’ll be able to host the families, and be able to sit, have tea, share meals and really get their story and put their energy into the monument before he starts to sculpt. And he’s actually going to clay sculpt each of the figures that we see, and then from there, it’ll go to a foundry and the bronze will be put on it and then the shipment to the park. Then it’ll be permanently put in.
So there’s many different pieces. August of next year would be absolutely the earliest. If all goes well, we’re really looking at maybe a year-and-a-half out.
Norcross: I very much look forward to seeing what Percy comes up with a year from now, or even longer. But in the meantime, Talicia Brown, it was great to talk to you about this. Thank you so much for your time.
Brown-Crowell: Thank you for having me.
Norcross: Talicia Brown is the executive director of the Black Cultural Initiative in Eugene.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.