Ed Washington is a Metro Councilman and an African American man who lived in Vanport City. Mr. Washington recalls his experiences at Vanport City before and during the 1948 flood. He has been involved in many decision-making processes related to the Columbia Slough. Mr. Washington has recreated and observed environmental changes in the slough since early childhood.
Oral History
Narrator: Ed Washington
Interviewer: George Winston Weatheroy
Date: August 10, 2000
Place: Portland, Oregon
Transcribed by Stacy Danaher
Edited by Donna Sinclair
GWW: My name is George Winston Whetheroy. I’m a Portland State University student, and I’ll be speaking with Metro Councilman Ed Washington regarding the Columbia Slough Oral History project. I’m at the Metro building which is at 600 Northeast Grant, and today’s date is August 10, year 2000, and it’s approximately twelve minutes after eleven.
My first question for you is what was it like moving from Birmingham, Alabama to Vanport?
EW: Well that’s really quite an interesting experience, you know, coming from the South, which was extremely segregated in the ��40s. I moved here in 1944. [The South was] very segregated with regards to the buses, accommodations, schools, churches everything, and to move here where really there were far more whites than there were Blacks. There were not that many Blacks here in Oregon. At that time those numbers were increasing. I think they got up around forty thousand during the Second World War, during the period of the shipyards. [The 1940 census lists 2,565 African Americans in the state of Oregon] So to come here from the South, where for the most part you you were around nothing but Black people, and to move into a place where schools were integrated was quite an experience.
The route that we took left Birmingham and went to Chicago. Everything went to Chicago in those days. Chicago was the central transfer point for all rail transportation. In the ’40s and of course during the Second World War it was a very active station. Because that was the mode of transportation. Travel by train.
But the countryside, you know, traveling from Birmingham to Chicago to Illinois, then from Illinois up into Milwaukee. Then from Milwaukee across, what would now be considered the Burlington Northern route but at that time was probably the Northern Pacific, or it could’ve been the Great Northern. It was one of those two trains that traveled across the Northern tier, from there into Spokane, Washington, and from Spokane down into Portland. So it was very interesting to come through that area. It was very desolate, not a lot of people. Lot of wind mills, just wide open space. I remember that as just a child on the train, even at seven years of age. I had the opportunity to go back over that very same route in 1968 when I took a group of high school students. I was one of the adult advisors that accompanied a group of high school students, from here to Washington DC. We left here, and went up into Spokane and across that Northern Tier. It was amazing how much memory actually came back to me from that trip. I mean it still hasn’t changed that much up there, so it was really quite an experience.
GWW: What was it like as a child living in Vanport?
EW: Vanport as a seven-year-old kid was a very exciting place. We lived in a house in the South. We never lived in an apartment. We never lived in a project. So in a project, where you’re thrown into a large project, with about thirty thousand other people, I mean you know it’s a city. It was a self-contained, prefabricated city. It had stores, shopping centers, ice houses, ��cause we didn’t have refrigerators. Schools nurseries, everything. Everything in Vanport was numbered. Ice houses number one through fifty, schools one, two, and three, Shopping Center One, Two, and Three, Recreation Center One, Two, and Three and Four. So everything was numbered. To be there, and to be involved and around all of those kids for example. Awful lot of kids in Vanport. And to grow up in an area around the slough where you can go down and catch tadpoles, and frogs, and crawdads and the painted turtles that are endangered now, where they were in the Columbia Slough back then. It was really quite an experience, that coupled with all the people that were there.
Service men moving in and out. Not necessarily in and out of the apartments, but the fact that many service men would come home, leave, and come back. So there was just this total hubbub around the war effort. In addition to that, the ship yards were running three shifts. They worked the swing shift, the graveyard, and a day shift. They used to come out and pick the people up in what used to be big cattle trucks, and haul them from Vanport. Literally haul them from Vanport to either the Swan Island ship yard, or the Oregon ship yard, or the Vancouver shipyard. So it was a very exciting place.
If you had a wagon you could go to the store and haul peoples’ groceries home for them. Or you could go to the ice house, and people would ask you to go and get ice for them, you know, because everybody had iceboxes. So you could make a lot of money as a kid in Vanport. And there was a lot of money being made during the war, and a lot of that was passed on down to us. You didn’t get rich but if you went and got somebody a twenty-five pound block of ice they gave you a quarter. A quarter would go a long way in those days. So it was a very exciting city. It was a very thriving city. In addition you had three or four recreation centers. Every major neighborhood had a recreation center. Every major area had schools and it was a federal school system. So it was just an amazing place to grow up as a kid.
GWW: I’ve read about segregation and discrimination in Vanport City. Who did you play with then?
EW: Well, you know, kids don’t really, there was not supposed to have been any discrimination in Vanport. But really, sort of by design, and I think you have to understand the mentality of people back in those days, most Blacks in Vanport either lived on Meadows or Cottonwood. And then later when they closed down Meadows most of the Blacks that were in Meadows moved up to Broadacres. See those areas just sort of picked the name up by the streets. There was Meadows. Meadows was a street. Broad Acre was a street. Cottonwood was a street. Victory was a street. Force Avenue was a street. And so the neighborhoods sort of got their names from the names of the streets. Meadows, that was just a section of Vanport. It was really never named Meadows but that was a street that ran down in that area. and where Blacks were concentrated. There were very few Blacks up in the Victory area, and in the Force area there were very few Blacks. I can remember one. There was a teacher, she was a visiting teacher, Mrs. Daugherty. She and her family lived up on Victory. But most of the teachers lived up around Victory.
We played with all kids, you know. I played with Black kids, white kids, probably some Chinese. There were no Japanese kids, because all Japanese were in internment camp at that time. But you had kids from German backgrounds, Swedish backgrounds, you know their parents all came to Vanport to work. They were all hurting after the Great Depression. The Great Depression was ten years before, but they still hadn’t got back on their feet.
So you played with all the kids. Kids would call you names. They’d call you Nigger, and you’d knock hell out of them. That’s all there was to that and you know you’d fight if they called you that. And we used to fight with the white kids from over on Victory. And we called each other names, and you know it was never any big issue. It was more a kid issue. But kids would call you those kinds of names, and so would some of the adults. I mean you have to realize that Vanport was a place where people from all over the country were thrown into this huge housing project. Many of those people had never been around Blacks. Many of those people had never been around other whites, other than just like them. You know, they probably had never been around Germans, or people with other descent. So they’d grown up around people from Kansas and people from Oklahoma, places like that. So it was a very interesting place in that regard.
GWW: What was school like? Did you sit in the same classrooms with children of other cultures?
EW: Yeah you did. Everybody went to school together. There was no segregation in school. School was great. School was really fun. Vanport had buildings. It was broken into schools like, school number one, which later was renamed MacArthur school. School number two was later renamed Roosevelt. And school number three was later on renamed Marshall grade school. Those schools went from K through Junior High. We even had Junior High schools in Vanport, Which was really a first in the Portland area. There’s not ever been Junior High schools in Portland. But in Vanport we had Junior High schools. All the buildings were connected, but the kids from kindergarten to third grade were in one building, the primary kids. The intermediate kids, fourth, fifth, and sixth, were in another building. The Junior High school kids, the seventh, eighth, and the ninth grade kids were in another building. Vanport was really quite progressive. The schools were extremely progressive with what they did. So school was great.
You had special classes for art and industrial art, and health and band you know. We had a band, and drum and bugle corps. It was a fantastic school system, I remember. It was fantastic, I learned a lot I should say.
GWW: What was life like after the war?
ED: You know, as a kid you don’t think of it in the same terms as your parents do. But, I think that one thing was very clear after the war. Vanport started closing down. They closed down Meadows End, which was way down by the Burlington Northern railroad tracks. They closed that all down and relocated everybody up into Broadacres. A lot of people came out to work in the shipyard. After the war they went back to Oklahoma, Michigan, Kansas, Texas, or Louisiana, or Georgia. A lot of Blacks went back home. A lot of Blacks stayed. Obviously the jobs were not as great then, you know. There just wasn’t the hubbub, the activity in Vanport, of people, after the war as there was during the war. They closed the ship yard, so they weren’t bringing trucks in to haul people to the shipyards. You saw a slow down in that situation, and people went on setting out to do what they were going to do with their lives.
GWW: What are some of the memories you have of your father working in the shipyard?
EW: I remember the first experience with my dad working the shipyards. It was just hard work. You wore a hard hat, you know, but my dad only worked in the shipyard up through ��44 and then he left and went to work at Multnomah Hotel. I think my dad sensed that it wasn’t going to last forever. So he went to the Hotel and worked as a bellman, and then my dad left and went to California. He and my mom were separated. But you know, it was just a basic family prior to that. I can’t tell you a whole lot about my dad cause the time period was very short. My mom raised us much more than my dad. I can tell you about life with her — it was pretty straightforward. You were expected to make something of yourself. You were expected to behave. You were expected to mind. You didn’t talk back. My mother was not strict. She was just firm in raising six kids by herself.
GWW: What type of work did your mother do?
EW: My mother worked in stores. She didn’t work when my dad and her were together. She was strictly a housewife. Then after she and my dad separated my dad continued providing for us. But after a while my mom went back to work. She ended up working up at OHSU, and she worked in a beauty salon downtown. She also worked for a catering service. So that’s what she did after she decided to go back to work. But prior to that my dad provided for us and for her.
GWW: To the best of your memory can you recall what you and your family were doing on the day of the flood, Vanport Flood?
EW: Sure the day of the Vanport flood had been very warm. That spring had been very hot. We had a real big snow the winter before not in Portland, in the valley, but in the mountains. The rivers were really rising and everybody knew the rivers were rising. And they had to build levees and sandbags and all that kind of stuff. And so that Sunday, the morning of May 30th , Memorial Day, fliers came out that said the river was really rising, but [that] right now the dikes were holding. But if the dikes were not going to hold, or if the water was going to flood over the dikes, they expected [the Columbia River] to crest about Tuesday. Which would have been the first of June. We were getting ready to finish up for that school year. You know, we had our picnics, we were wrapping books and stuff like that [the] Friday prior to the flood. But it said that if the dike broke, or if there was any trouble, sirens would go off and police would come through Vanport to warn people. Well about four o’clock that day my mother, for some reason or another, she sort of kept us all close to the house that day. I can’t tell you why but, about four o’clock my mother and a friend said, “Lets go up everybody to see the river, and talk about how high the water [is].”
So she said, “Why don’t we go up to see the river? Everybody says the water is really high.” So we left around about three thirty. We left our house to go up, me and my mother and three of my brothers. We were walking up what is now the left-hand side of Lake Golf Course. I call it Force Lake River street, on up that street which would have brought you to Marine Drive. The river was right over there.
As we were walking the sirens went off, and we said, “Mother dear, and Mrs. Sylvia, [our friend], the sirens are going off and you know that probably means there’s flooding.”
And my mother said, “You don’t see any water. Vanport’s not going to flood, and if it does flood it will only come up to your ankles, and we’ll sweep it out tomorrow morning and come home.” And so we proceeded on up to see the river.
And all of a sudden a policeman came by on a motorcycle, a county police officer, and said, “Where you folks going?”
My mother said, “We’re going to see the river.”
And he said, “well you better get out of Vanport as fast as you can ��cause the dike has broke and Vanport’s probably gonna flood.” Of course we rushed home.
My mother grabbed a suitcase, a few clothes, her important papers, and we proceeded with my other two brothers. My other two brothers and sister showed up at the house, everybody showed up at the house. Those two showed up right at the same time. We proceeded to walk up toward what is now I-5, and looked back down into Vanport and just watched. It just got flooded, you know. We walked on the dike. We were never in any water, and we were never in any danger.
But, you know, we were probably up on I-5 for a half an hour before I said to my mom, I said, “Mother dear, it looks like a building just moved down there.”
She said, “You don’t see any buildings move.”
“Oh yes mother dear,” I said, “There’s water.” And all of a sudden they saw just a huge, huge wave. A wall of water just wiped it out. It was under water within thirty, forty minutes. Everything, you know, houses swirling off their foundations, radio towers crashing into the water, people scrambling to get out, people up on top of the roofs. It was really something.
GWW: Did you know anyone who got injured or��
EW: I didn’t know anyone who got killed. All lot of my friends were missing, But all of my friends in my neighborhood, I could account for over a period of time. We lived very close to the I-5. Well it wasn’t I-5 then, so most of us got out unscathed. But it was quite a deal.
GWW: How did the Vanport Flood effect you and your family?
EW: Well it effected us substantially. It totally destroyed our lives. We lost everything, everything we had. We lost pictures, bibles, everything. All of our personal goods. All of our clothes. All of our utensils, everything. And then that meant that you had to rebuild from zero. There was no housing, so we had to live in churches for about a month or so, and then after that we moved down on Swan Island and stayed there.
Swan Island had some barracks that they used to put the single men in, so we lived down there on swan island for that summer of ’48, then fall of ’48. During the winter of ��48 & ��49, we lived out in Guild’s Lake, which is an industrial area. They had trailers out there. Then after that we moved over on North Interstate. We were able to find an apartment. Then after that we moved back to Swan Island because they remodeled. They remodeled those barracks and made houses out of them. Then we stayed out on Swan Island, I think, for maybe about six months to a year. And then we moved from Swan Island to Northeast Cook Street, between MLK, or Union Avenue at that time, and Seventh, right down from Irving Park. That’s where we ended up staying. So it was really a total reorganization of our lives and everything. And it meant that I ended up going to five or six grade schools. I went to Couch and Guild’s Lake, and Holiday and Swan island, and finally settled in at Irvington Grade School, where I finished. So it just sort of reordered everything in my life, and in my family’s life. Though we were fortunate, we didn’t lose any family members, and none were hurt.
GWW: What was life like after the flood?
EW: Well life after the flood was really just a lot of things I just described. Moving around a lot until you could finally find a permanent place. I never really got settled into school again until 1950 when I went to Irvington. You’re on the move for two years and that’s very disrupting. You’re coming to grips with a new neighborhood — Williams Avenue, which was a predominately Black area, that was between Interstate and MLK, and the Steel Bridge and Fremont. So you know you’re in with a concentration of people, mostly Black, that you didn’t have in Vanport. You had a lot of Black people in Vanport, but we didn’t have the concentration. At least it appeared to be scattered, and that was probably because there were so many other people. But most of the others that lived in that area were Black. Not everybody in that area was Black, but it meant that you had to go to a new school. You had to meet new friends, and it meant that you really left the place that you really grew up. A place that you were very comfortable with, a place that you could get around in, and now you had to be concerned about all the other things that come to [when you] live within the city.
Vanport was a city, but it was a different city for us. It had woods and sloughs. It was just a great place for a kid to grow up. And we just hadn’t yet been exposed to a lot of grownups when we left Vanport. So that always creates a whole interesting new twist.
GWW: Did you experience any kind of discrimination after the flood?
EW: Oh sure. I did in terms of jobs and just being in a neighborhood where people would wonder why you were there. Just those day-to-day kinds of things. But not really overt, not in school and surely not from any of my teachers, and definitely not in Irvington, and not at Grant High School. But you know, if you’re a Black person in America there’s always an undercurrent of racism. I mean you know that’s just life. But back then it was very overt. Today it’s probably a little bit more covert.
But I would say for me, I just had to deal with attitudes. I joined Scouts and went to camp Meriwether. Of course there were white kids there who had never been around Black kids. And you know, you have to put up with the “N” word again, you know, someone calling you something like that until you push them down a hill. [I experienced racism] in that regard, those kinds of things, but in terms of having my ability to do what I wanted to do, I did not experience a lot of racism.
GWW: Switching gears just a little bit — what was your first experience of the Columbia Slough?
EW: My first experience of the Columbia Slough was really growing up in Vanport. That’s where we spent time. We played in the slough. We’d retrieve bicycles out of it, and it’s where we caught tadpoles, and tried to catch turtles, and tried to catch frogs. That was very difficult. It’s very easy to catch eight tadpoles, but it’s very difficult to catch a big bull frog, male or female. You just couldn’t catch them. You couldn’t get close enough to them. My first experience was going down to the slough and pulling up cattails and having cattail fights. Trying to, and trying to fish in the slough with not really appropriate fishing equipment but with a safety pin and a piece of string and a stick. So the slough was a place where kids played. I don’t remember anybody drowning in the slough. I really don’t, you know. It wasn’t that deep. And we thought it was also a little nasty, you know, ��cause there was carp in there and probably bass and this very algae kind of things. We used to call them jellyfish, and some kind of stuff that grew in there. There were bridges across the slough. It was a place you would go and stand and drop rocks into the water, and drop bottles into the water or break bottles into the water. It was just a kid place. We would go to the slough as a portion of science class at Vanport. We would go to the slough and study the life around the slough, catch tadpoles and watch them grow. Stuff like that. So it was not only a place to play, it was a place to learn about nature, and we did.
GWW: You spoke briefly about it being a little bit nasty did you ever see people swimming in the slough back then when you were a child?
EW: Oh yeah people swam in the slough but mostly they would swim in the big channel, the part as you’re crossing the bridge on Denver avenue. You know the big portion, they would swim down there. But there was a little part of the slough that came through Vanport that was not that big. We would go over to the big part of the slough where people would fish for carp.
Also in that area through Interstate and through Kenton, there were two or three slaughter houses along the slough, and usually after they would slaughter they would just wash everything into the slough. If you were out there fishing the water would just be red. Well the carp loved it, it was great food for the carp. I knew people that would swim in there. I would not have swum in there, but I couldn’t swim at that time. But I knew people who did swim in the slough and you know I don’t remember any of them saying they got sick. It was just part of being around that area. People just did things differently then. If there was water, they’d swim.
They’re from the South, you know, they probably swam in water down there that was probably a lot nastier than the slough and a lot more dangerous. Because down there you jump into the water you’re going to be contending with Cottonmouth Water Moccasin or a big snake. Up here your just going to contend with a big old fat nasty carp. And there was some huge carp in the Columbia Slough. I mean, just some huge carp. The carp would be three, three-and-a-half feet long easily and about fifteen inches from belly to top. It was quite a place.
GWW: How has the slough changed since you were a child?
EW: Well I think the slough has always been victimized. I mean, even back then they were putting raw slaughter house stuff in the slough and there were other chemical plants and things that were along the slough that I’m sure degraded it a lot. There were lumber mills along the slough, not big mills, but small lumber mills. Lumber mills create dioxin and dioxin is poisonous you know. There were no paper mills, but even so there were chemicals dumped in the slough. I think that is basically how it has changed.
It’s just we don’t really know or truly understand what the content of the slough is. We don’t understand sediments and we probably didn’t understand the sediments back then. Maybe the same kinds of things were in it back then. At least it sustained a fairly healthy ecosystem back in those days — carp and catfish, frogs and tadpoles and turtles, things like that. So I think it’s changed as we became more urbanized. There’s more degradation to the slough. It was more wild in those days, it was more sort of a — it was just a slough, a natural area. And I think now it’s perhaps been mixed with natural and industrial [pollutants].
GWW: How do you think the slough has impacted the Albina and North Portland community?
EW: I think probably the biggest impact the slough has had is that people who fish in it and have eaten fish probably some of them might have stuff in them. Maybe not in concentrations high enough to kill them, but I think that that’s probably the biggest impact. It’s never flooded the area. I think that the loss of the slough and particularly the loss of the habitat around the slough have impacted North and Northeast a great deal. Just the fact that you just don’t know what’s in there, it just sort of shut down a wonderful place for kids to go and to have fun and fish. Just sort of be a kid. So I think in that regard it has impacted North and Northeast, but I don’t think that it has impacted us in terms of economics or anything. Maybe from a health standpoint. And we probably don’t even know or understand those impacts because if you don’t eat the fish, (and) we don’t draw water from it for watering lawns or anything. So I think the loss of it as a natural place for kids to be able to go and see a healthy ecosystem, I think that’s been the greatest loss. Losing its natural use has been just an unbelievable loss. . . .
I’ve always been involved in the community in some form or fashion. You know, working with the school system or stuff like that. And when I was in the seventh grade I had a wonderful teacher by the name of Mrs. Hill, Hazel Hill. She was a white woman from out in deep Northeast Portland. From out in Rocky Butte area, and she was just a wonderful teacher. Mrs. Hill just had this wonderful way of making history come alive. She did. I mean, we would study Oregon history and she would talk about �� Young, and Doctor McLoughlin, the Spaldings, the Whitmans, and Joe Meek, you know, (and) Jedidiah Smith. You know the mountain men. She just did it in such a way that you could see them, you could sense them. Then she exposed us all to civics — you know city, county and state governments, and how they worked and the importance of them. And so honestly I would have to say that really it was from that exposure that I decided a long, long time ago that it would really be fun to be an elected official. Of course, you never know how you’re going to do that. I didn’t go out and chart some course, but really through my neighborhood involvement and just being involved in that way.
I ran for legislature a couple of times. I didn’t win, but you never lose. You build up a constituent base and then an opening came up in Metro and I applied. It was an appointment to fill part of a term and I was fortunate enough to be able to do that. Then (I) ran the next year and won, and I ran about four other times, but this year I did not win my race for reelection. But I’ve been here for almost nine years. So that’s how I came about it, but really for one purpose and one purpose only. I think politicians should serve a brief (time). We should only serve the people. That’s really the only reason we’re here. It’s like the kind of work that you do. You’re really a public servant and it’s tough work and no matter how mad people make you we are still public servants. So if I enjoy serving the public I enjoy politics. I don’t like a lot of the sad stuff that goes on in the political arena, but to have the opportunity to work with other councilors and help make a little difference is very satisfying to me. Extremely satisfying. That’s what brought me here. . . .
Everybody who come into the political arena comes here for a specific reason. Some people come here because they’re interested in running for a future office. Other people come here because they just know that if they get in here they can change things. So as a result as having those external desires you get the superfluous — what I call the B.S. . . . In everything that any of us do there’s this superfluous stuff that’s out there that prohibits you from really doing what you want to do. You just have to deal with all the other stuff that’s out there. Sorry I’m not more specific — let me see if I can think of something.
Well, let’s say I put forth a resolution to do something in my district and two or three other councilors say, “Well that’s okay Councilman Washington, but we’re not getting that in our district. As a result, I can’t support that.” You know that kind of stuff.
Or you know, “We can’t do that because the public might not understand.” Well I understand what I’m doing you know. And then the public doesn’t understand a lot of what we do or even in your case, a lot of what you do. We have to deal with that.
Someone says we want safe neighborhoods so you go out and arrest a kid for doing something wrong, and you’ve got the goods on him. And they say, “You can’t do that. He’s too young, this kid. He’s just a kid, why are you putting handcuffs on him?” Or “Why are you being so rough with him?” Well you’re not being rough with him you’re just doing your job. So it’s the same kind of stuff, and you know for me, I tend to be fairly straightforward about it. I’m here to serve. That’s the only reason I came here, nothing else no other reason.
GWW: As a councilman what steps have you taken to try to help rid the slough of pollution?
EW: I think one of the things that we do is through the policies that we initiate — water resource and storage and stream restoration. I have worked with various groups — Audubon Society and lots of these other environmental groups to get plantings, and I’ve talked to people along the slough to plant trees along the slough to create a cool canopy.
My resolution and ordinance got Whitaker Ponds started. Also we’re going to be putting a new bridge across the slough at 47th — that’s my effort. Monies from the North Portland and central enhancement funds have gone to do additional restoration work. Smith and Bybee lake that feeds into the Columbia Slough has been good. I have been supportive of the Peninsula Crossing Trail with the Bureau of Environmental Services with the City of Portland. So, really, through all those efforts you know. It is rather hard to say that I did this and this, but along with others there’s a lot of little things you do. You know like the Green Spaces bond measure when that passed. I have always made sure that we support any of those things that impact the slough. So that’s how we do it.
Mostly what we do is work with other people to get things done. So I’ve worked with a lot of the drainage districts to give them a vote when they need to get something done. So that’s how they do it — by trying to help pass and support real good strong legislation. A lot of people in politics say well I did this, this, this. Well I could probably say that, but I always like to say along with others, I helped do some things. That to me is a lot more satisfying then trying to say I, I, I, because that’s not important to me.
GWW: Can you talk a little bit more about Whitaker Ponds?
EW: Whitaker Ponds is a couple of ponds that are situated between 47th avenue and probably 51st, and between Columbia Boulevard and the airport along what is called Cornfoot road. Back there. And there were these two ponds and they really have a very interesting history. If you look at some of the old maps from back in the ��20s you’ll see those two ponds back there. As a matter fact at one of the larger ponds back in the ��20s there was a little fish hatchery there. That was back when that was all farm land.
I was up there one day and I was at the little baseball field and I saw these ponds and I thought gosh these are two nice ponds. We don’t have many ponds in the city of Portland. We really don’t. We have Smith and Bybee Lakes, we have Whitaker ponds and there might be a little body of water somewhere out there by Eastman. We don’t have a lot of ponds. So I thought, this is a wonderful park in conjunction with a baseball diamond. We should do something. We should make a nature preserve here. And so as a result of my getting that started here, others have taken over — the city of Portland and Multnomah county — and now they’re developing that pond.
Those ponds were used for nature and science when Whitaker school [not Whitaker Middle School, the old Whitaker School] was over there. They’ve always played a role in nature conservation and I thought they were worth saving. There are others who are running with that now. But you know my job is to set the stage and get the votes and say, “Here Multnomah county, here the city of Portland, here drainage district, here this group — do something with this.” The most important thing for us to do is to recognize that there is some potential out there to further enhance natural kinds of things in that area.
GWW: Can you discuss the effects of industries on the banks of the slough, and in the communities surrounding the slough?
EW: I can’t be very specific because I’d have to refer to a big map which I don’t have –a big article that I think Joe Fitzgibbon did in the Oregonian. We know that various chemicals, lumbers, little small businesses along the slough probably devastated it. I don’t think they really understood the impact of those various things on the water. It was just water so people just dumped stuff in the water. I think that in that regard in many respects they destroyed the slough, probably not even realizing they were destroying it. And by destroying the slough then you destroy access of people from this area to get to the slough because what would have brought them down there is now dead or dying. The fish disappear, the water levels drop, and as a result of the flood and how they controlled the water you get more algae in there. You get less oxygen. As we have industrialized that whole Columbia Slough area it makes it tougher for the slough to survive. Some people, I think filled it in, some business just filled it in when they bought property. I think that there’s enough left, that you can still have some impact and still have some enjoyment of nature. It’s not going to be like it was seventy, eighty years ago. No way. There is just too dang many houses, too much industrial development along there. So I think that’s really how it has impacted it. By destroying the oxygen ability of it, which kept fish in it. What you really [need to] do is give people opportunity to go there and really understand it.
GWW: Do you feel that there has been any fear of irreparable damage and pollution done to the slough?
EW: Oh sure there are parts of it that probably will never ever, ever, ever, ever be that great. And I think that as they work on the sediment that there are probably some pretty devastating things down there. Like for instance, when the Port of Portland was discharging de-icing stuff, you know, it’s stuff like that. You can’t have that, and they are taking steps to correct that. You can’t do that to a little slough — that stuff is too devastating. De-icing [fluid] is glycol. Glycol is poisonous. It’s anti-freeze. You can’t do that. You can’t pour that down a natural waterway or a river and expect anything to survive. Because if the fish ingest it and then we ingest the fish, you know, it’s just a continuous impact.
GWW: What do you see as a vision for the slough in the future?
EW: Well I’d (like) to see the part of the slough that’s left saved and restored as much to it’s natural state as we could. Make it viable for fish and wildlife. Keep chemicals out of it and stop people who are along it, and I doubt there’s people dumping stuff in it now. Do we need to pull some of it? Do we need to clean? Do we need to take the sediment out of it? I think we need to make sure that it can flush itself, you know [that it] has an adequate supply of water. There is limited wildlife, the owls, the raccoons the coyotes those kind of things in the area, the red-tailed hawks. Make sure we keep them there. It’s not going to go back to the way it was in the early 1900’s, but let’s make sure we keep what we have. That is what I think the future of the slough should be. A place where people can actually go and canoe on it, you know float down it. I think that’s the kind of slough we should have.
EW: Are there any plans or funds allocated to try to achieve that?
GWW: There’s been small amounts of money that’s been made available to do some minor cleanup or things that really need to be addressed. But like everything else, to really restore it, we would need a huge sum of money. I think basically what they’re doing is to take little bites at a time and those little bites might take fifty years, but I think those fifty year little bites are better than no bite at all. It’s just so expensive, but if we keep nibbling at it eventually it will be in pretty good shape.
GWW: In some of my research a phrase that I commonly run across is ��environmental racism’, and they use that when they describe what’s happened to the Columbia Slough and to the community of Albina in Northeast. What is your feeling about that phrase?
EW: Well I can’t tell you that I could go into the Black community and find hordes of people that have been hurt by the Columbia Slough. Now obviously if there are some people that are fishing there and they’re eating the fish without having it checked then it’s obviously going to impact them. But in many respects, with all due respect to the environmental community, I think many times that’s sort of their play on words. I think it’s their way of getting attention to their cause — to talk about the damage it’s doing to Black folk. You know if they would get as many Black people on their boards as they talk about Black people getting hurt, they would be a hell of a lot better off. I think sometimes they just sort of play that part. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been [environmental racism], but I’m not aware of a devastating effect that those things have had on Black people per se. I think the slough has had an impact on everybody — Black, White, Asian, everybody. But Blacks, Whites, Asians, Russians are not the only ones. Those are the only ones that have been using it since some of them have gotten involved with doing something about it. I think that rather than racism, that’s a human impact. All of us. I’m not certain that it’s tearing up any one group of people. I don’t know of any evidence of that.
GWW: You touch on a real good point there. I know nationwide they tend to have the economically disadvantaged in more polluted and worse-off areas, and sometimes they don’t have these kind of situations like the slough. Like in a more well educated economically advantaged areas. Do you see when you were coming up, did it seem like there were a lot of pressures for Black or people of color to stay in the Albina, Northeast area?
EW: I think so. But I think that once the fair housing laws were people did move where they wanted to move. But I think obviously in the 40’s, 50’s and part of the 60’s and perhaps even in the 70’s that people were not encouraged to get out of the neighborhoods. They were encouraged to live over there because that’s where we lived, over there. So I think that’s always been the case. I don’t see that as much today as thirty years ago. I really don’t. Because you can move anywhere that you want to move. You can move anywhere you want to live if you can afford it. That’s what it really boils down to — if you’ve got the money you can buy.
GWW: I know you’ve been president of NAACP for a couple of years.
EW: Three or four years was the amount of time I was there.
GWW: And I know you’ve had interactions with the Urban League, the Black United Front. Are there any concerns or problems that they shared with you regarding the way the slough’s been handled?
EW: No, not really. When I came here to Metro and they formed the environmental coalition, I think senator Avel Gordly was on it. That is when I saw more people of color, but I think that was really driven by some of the larger white environmental groups to sort of bring attention to that issue. I would say that I’ve probably heard more about it from an African-American standpoint in the last four or five years than I did prior to that. And I think that was more of a an evolution of some of the environmental groups that really wanted to create that awareness because they knew that many Russian and Vietnamese and not many Blacks were fishing on the slough. And I think that was one of the real big issues that brought the issue of color to it. I think that it was more of an emphasis than then there had been before. That’s my read for that.
GWW: Some of the groups I’ve just previously named, have they made efforts to get better signage around the slough or encourage people to not use it?
EW: I think, I believe the signage came from the Black United Front with Richard Brown. The Black United Front was probably more involved in that than the NAACP or the Urban League. The Urban League came into the environmental situation when Florence Dart got there and that was really through things such as Coalition for a Livable Future, the Audubon society and some of those groups who I think were just trying to hang their hat to bring some attention to the minority community. But I would say that the Black United Front was really the lead in that, really much more than the Urban League or the NAACP initially.
GWW: Is there anything that you would like people to know about the Albina or North Portland community from a councilman’s point of view?
EW: It’s a great area. If there’s anything I would tell people I would encourage them to stay here, not to leave North or Northeast Portland. I think that if people really look at where they live, say from the peninsula all the way out to anywhere in the Northeast. You know 42nd, 52nd and from the Columbia river down to I-84. That’s where the town is. That’s where the city is. Why would you want to leave that area? You’re close to shopping. You’re close to schools. You’re close to junior college. You’re close to community college, you’re close to hospitals, you’re close to transportation. You’re close to freeway access, if and when you have to do that. You’ve got streets and sidewalks already in. You’ve got trees already in, and you’ve got an area with some of the greatest houses in this region. So I guess if there was any message that I would give to all of my constituents in all of North and Northeast it’s to stay put. It’s a great place. It’s always been a great place. And it’s more diverse than a lot of other places. It’s just a great place and that’s what I would say. Stay put, don’t leave your area.
GWW: Kind of piggybacking that. Is there anything you would like people to know about your experience with Vanport or the Vanport flood that we haven’t already talked about?
EW: No, other than to say that it was a wonderful place to grow up as a kid. The memories of growing up and living there have never left me. I have friends and we still converse about growing up in Vanport. It was sort of a magic place for kids. It was just different. I think part of it is that we were all thrown together there during this tumultuous time during the Second World War where life was really being lived to it’s fullest. It was thriving. Lots of different people. Woods to play in, sloughs to play in, bikes to ride, skateboards to scooter. Skateboards to make, you know tops to spin, the yo-yos to throw down and caseons to roll down the sidewalk through the wash houses. It was a wonderful place, an ideal place for a kid and it was pretty safe.
GWW: I was going to touch on that.
EW: Yes very safe.
GWW: Some of my research talked about police and crime, and what was that relationship like, with the police and the minority community in Vanport City?
EW: I think that back in those days in Vanport they had two Black police. They had three. Jesse, I forget Mr. Jesse’s last name. Mr. Travis, and Mr. Dishman, Matt Dishman — three Black deputy sheriffs. In those days their job was to deal with Black people. In those days that was all there was and they did they deal with us fairly. And there were white police and Vanport was county they hired the county sheriff to police Vanport. But they didn’t bother you. But if you did something it was a little bit different back in those days with the police People didn’t mess with the police back in those days like they do now. They just didn’t because they would pop you upside your head. If you got out of line they just popped you upside your head. People didn’t want to get their heads popped and I don’t mean just Black people, I mean nobody wanted their head popped.
So I remember as a kid the police were very nice but you were taught to respect the police. You were taught not to mess with them. If you did something wrong and they caught you, more than likely they’d know it was probably me. Which it never was. But they’d just come looking for you. So that’s how it was. I don’t remember it being a bad relationship. I don’t remember the police beating up on anybody or stuff like that. You know if a guy got drunk and he got out of line and the police stopped him and the guy took a swing, they were just gonna knock him upside his head. That’s all there was. You wouldn’t run down to ACLU, you know. I mean I’m sure they would in big cases, but for the general cases people didn’t bother the police like they do today. Because you just knew better. Right or wrong you just knew better.
GWW: Can you just briefly discuss what has been you’re most significant contribution along with other people and their cleanup efforts of the Columbia Slough?
EW: For me it’s Whitaker Ponds. If there’s anything that I remember about the slough, it’s the fact that we were able to take an old junk yard five years ago. And I mean it was a junkyard, it was unbelievable, and turn it into a nature park. That to me is the most significant thing. And then continue to enhance Smith and Bybee lakes, which connect to the Columbia Slough. That is what I’m most proud of.
GWW: And then piggybacking that. Is there anything during your term as a councilman that maybe could have been done differently in regards to the cleanup efforts to the slough?
EW: Well I think you do what you do with what resources you have. And I just wish Senator Hatfield was still in, but we had a little clout. I don’t think so you know — just lack of funding. I wish there was more money, I really do. But as far as doing anything different �? no. It’s a slow evolutionary process and you just have to keep at it. That’s all there is to it.
GWW: My wrap up question — I appreciate your patience here. Is there anything that you would like to be a part of the record that we haven’t touched on?
EW: Not really. I think we covered it pretty thoroughly. I appreciate just having the opportunity to give at least my insight to your project and to your effort and really to the citizens. For those who will see this or hear this I hope that it will be of some value to them. Because it’s a great deal of value to me, but it’s a different kind of value to me — I lived it. I just hope it that through this very very small presentation that I have painted a little picture for some people.
GWW: I think you have. Thank you very much.
EW: Thank you.
GWW: This concludes my interview with Councilman Ed Washington. The time is twelve tewelve. Councilman Washington willingly signed the legal release form after reading it.
