Juneteenth Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States, federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the End of slavery in the United States, ending of slavery in the United States. The holiday's n ...

, a celebration of emancipation from slavery, was introduced to Oregon in 1945 by

Kaiser Shipyard The Kaiser Shipyards were seven major shipbuilding yards located on the United States west coast during World War II. Kaiser ranked 20th among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The shipyards were owned by the Kais ...

worker Clara Peoples, was recognized by the city of Portland in 1972, statewide in 2013, and federally in 2021.

Timeline

Peoples helped make Juneteenth recognized by the City of Portland in 1972. Mayor

Sam Adams Samuel Adams (, 1722 – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolu ...

and

Amanda Fritz Amanda Fritz (born April 1958) is a British-American politician and retired psychiatric nurse from the U.S. state of Oregon. Before being elected to Portland's City Council in 2008, Fritz was a neighborhood activist and seven-year member of the ...

declared Peoples the "Mother of Juneteenth" in 2011. Juneteenth became an observed holiday for the City of Portland and

Multnomah County Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 815,428. Multnomah County is part of the Portland metropolitan area. The state's smallest and most populous county, it ...

employees in 2020, as part of a resolution to address

structural racism A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

. Peoples and first Black Oregonian Senator

Avel Gordly Avel Louise Gordly (born February 13, 1947) is an activist, community organizer, and former politician in the U.S. state of Oregon. In 1996, she became the first African-American woman to be elected to the Oregon State Senate, serving from 1997 t ...

led an effort to make Juneteenth a statewide holiday in 2001. The resolution passed. Multnomah County first recognized Juneteenth in 2018, sponsored by County Commissioner Loretta Smith. That event celebrated and heard from Senator Gordly.

Clara Peoples

Clara Peoples (

Née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Clara Mae Walker) was born in

Muskogee, Oklahoma Muskogee () is the 13th-largest city in Oklahoma and is the county seat of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, Muskogee County. Home to Bacone College, it lies approximately southeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tulsa. The population of the city was 36,878 as of ...

on 8 September 1926. She moved to

Vanport, Oregon Vanport, sometimes referred to as Vanport City or Kaiserville, was a city of wartime public housing in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States, between the contemporary Portland city boundary and the Columbia River. It was destroyed in the 1948 ...

in 1945, working for

Kaiser Shipyards The Kaiser Shipyards were seven major shipbuilding yards located on the West Coast of the United States, United States west coast during World War II. Kaiser ranked 20th among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The ...

during the World War 2 shipbuilding efforts, where she started a Juneteenth event in 1945. Her family was flooded and displaced in the 1948 Vanport floods. Moving to 1406 NE Ainsworth with her husband Haley Peoples Sr. in the redlined area of Northeast Portland, she then organized efforts to feed people, which turned into the Community Care Association in 1969. By the following year the association was operating out of 2022 NE Alberta Street, rent-free from the anonymous building owner. The Alberta Street location was previously the Red and White store, seen in a 1931 photo, and was later the Don Pancho Taqueria and Market from 2000 to 2016. Later, Peoples and Arlene Grice became the first two Black elevator operators at Joseph Shemanski's Eastern Department Store. She was also the first Black person on the State Board of Agriculture. She was also a hall monitor at Adams High School. In 2011 and 2013, Oregon politician Lew Frederick introduced bills to recognize Peoples. It was enrolled and signed by the governor on May 1, 2013. Peoples died on October 5, 2015, at age 89. The annual parade was named the "Clara Peoples Freedom Trail Parade" beginning in 2016. By 2020, Peoples' granddaughter, Jenelle Jack, was the director of Juneteenth Oregon.

References

{{Juneteenth African-American history of Oregon Juneteenth