Some big news last week was the $400 million that Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of Nike, is contributing to an investment fund to support Black residents of Portland. In the news it was stated the 1803 Funds were for education services, art programs and other projects for Black Portlanders in the Albina neighborhood which is located in North and Northeast Portland.
The 1803 Fund was created by the Albina Vision Trust. That organization has been a part of the talks leading up to the Rose Quarter Highway Improvement Project.
But, Phil Knight seemed to have his wallet open because it was also news last week that he made a $2 billion offer to purchase the Portland Trail Blazers. The team plays at the Moda Center which is a part of the Rose Quarter improvement area. The chair of the teams organization, Jody Allen, who is and the trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust, said last year that the team was not for sale.
This area in North, Northeast Portland was where many Blacks moved to after the Vanport flood. The Fund’s board of directors is made up of some incredible Black leaders in Portland to include SEI’s Tony Hopson, Ron Herndon, and Larry Miller. They know the story. A highway, stadium and Emanuel Hospital are all part of the breaking up of the Black community in Portland. Albina was the center of Black life where businesses flourished in the early 1900s.
The times of the 1960s was about fighting because by then, the Black communities had been broken apart. If that was not enough, there has been chronic gentrification. People can now log on to the Resource Scholars Show website (www.resourcescholarsshow.com) and view a number of videos and radio shows on the Black local radio where African-American residents talk about the community they grew up in becoming foreign to them.
Many know that Michel Jordan, Tiger Woods and a host of high level Black athletes have made the Nike company and Phil Knight’s family very wealthy. Knight has a history of giving to Republican politicians in Oregon. So many from the Eliot, Boise, Humboldt, Overlook and Piedmont neighborhoods have been scattered to so many places. This is why the touch and approach levied by entities taking huge steps in building sustainable Black wealth.
