About Untold Stories of the Civil Rights Movement
Our panel of guests -- Joyce Harris, Senator Jackie Winters, Charmaine Coleman and Charlotte Rutherford, moderated by Joy Alise Davis -- will reflect on their work in the Oregon Civil Rights Movement (specifically as women of color) and will advise on how we can all get involved to make positive differences in our communities.
About the Speakers:
Joyce Harris’s career has been defined by her professional (and
personal) work in making connections and meeting the needs of communities and
educators. She currently serves as a manager with a focus on community
engagement at Education Northwest. Previously, she served as an administrator
at the Black Educational Center, a school she co-founded in Portland, from
1980-1993. Harris presents annually at the Leveraging Resources Joint
Conference through the U.S. Department of Education and has presented at
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her off-hours work with survivors of
Hurricane Katrina led to Portland Monthly recognizing her as one of the 25
people who most define Portland. She is currently finishing a doctoral program
in community college leadership from Oregon State University, and she has
degrees from Portland State University and Reed College. Joyce’s passion is
collecting books and memorabilia that document the history and culture of
African Americans. Her personal library contains over 6,000 books.
Jackie Winters represents District 10 in the Oregon State Senate.
She began her life-long interest in citizen involvement in public policy
listening to her parents’ discussions around the table in Topeka, Kansas, where
she was born, and later in Portland, Oregon where her family moved in 1941. She
began her governmental service in 1959, at Oregon Health Sciences University,
and later joined the staff of the Portland Model Cities Program. In 1969, she
was recruited to be supervisor of the Office of Economic Opportunity’s New
Resources Program at the request of Governor Tom McCall, and she was appointed
Ombudsman, by Governor Victor Atiyeh, in 1979. In 1985, Jackie opened her first
Jackie’s Ribs restaurant, in Salem. Over time, she and her family expanded the
operations to include three restaurants and three franchises. In 1998, voters
of District 31 elected her as their State Representative, the first African-American
Republican to achieve this honor. She was re-elected to this office in 2000. In
2002, 2006 and again in 2010, she was elected as State Senator for District 10.
Charlotte Rutherford is a community activist and former civil
rights attorney, journalist, administrative law judge, and entrepreneur. She
was born in 1947, the third child of Verdell Burdine and Otto G. Rutherford.
Rutherford grew up in Portland’s Albina District and attended Highland Grade
School and Jefferson High School. She attended Los Angeles City College,
arriving in the city during the Watts riots, and witnessed the rise of the
Black Power movement. In 1967, she returned to Portland and wrote for the
Oregon Advance Times, a local Black newspaper. Rutherford attended the
University of Washington before enrolling at Portland State University, where,
in 1976, she earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Administration of Justice and a
minor in Black Studies. Rutherford completed her JD at Howard University School
of Law in 1983 and her LLM at Georgetown University Law Center in 1985. She
worked for seven years as a civil rights attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund in both Washington D.C. and New York City, and served as director of the
NAACP’s Black Women’s Employment Program. Rutherford credits this position with
giving her a better appreciation for feminism and feminist theory. In 1992,
Rutherford returned again to Portland and worked as an administrative law judge
for Oregon’s Office of Administrative Hearings until her retirement in 2010.
Joy Alise Davis, M.A., is Executive Director of the Portland
African American Leadership Forum (PAALF). She is an experienced
interdisciplinary design professional who has held support and leadership roles
in various social justice organizations for over six years. Joy is a Cincinnati
native and graduate of Miami University with a Bachelors of Arts in Political
Science. While attending Miami University, she focused on grassroots
organizing, civic engagement, activism and digital media. She worked full time
at The U.S. Fund for UNICEF on the UNICEF Tap Project campaign centered on
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in developing countries around the world before
earning her Master’s in Theories of Urban Practice program at Parsons The New
School for Design. Joy was also a graduate of the Public Allies- New
York/AmeriCorps Nonprofit Apprenticeship Program. After completing her studies,
Joy founded the social lab, Design+Culture Lab, LLC, a research-based urban
social enterprise dedicated to the transformation of urban neighborhoods
through collaborative design strategies to address the complex spatial issues
associated with cultural, racial and ethnic inequality.
Photo Courtesy: City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2004-005.2957
Sponsors / Partners:
Oregon Black Pioneers
