Portland State Magazine Fall 2018

28 This past June,Washington was honored by the University’s College of Urban and Public Affairs with the Nohad A.Toulan Urban Pioneer Award for Public Service. It recognizes community leaders who exhibits values such as public service and civic leadership that are core to the college’s mission. We sat down with Washington just after he received this award to reflect on his life and the role Por tland State has played in his journey. When did you and your family first arrive in Portland? I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1937, the oldest of six children. My father got a job working in the Kaiser Shipyards in Por tland building ships for World War II, so we moved west. I remember my family arriving at Union Station, taking a cab and settling in Vanpor t.Vanpor t was an area outside Por tland set up with war time public housing. Both blacks and whites lived in Vanpor t and the schools there were integrated. Having black and white kids in the same classrooms and having black teachers was unusual in Por tland in those days. How formative was your early school experience? As an eighth grader at Irvington School I remember my teacher, Mrs. Hazel Hill, star ting class one day by asking for our help. She said that for the next six months we were going to have some new kids attend our school for speech therapy. All the students were wheelchair bound and would need assistance from us kids. “Would you agree to help these kids?” she asked. “A lot of people won’t say nice things about these students and might even say some of those not nice things to you.” I was among the first kids to volunteer to help, and as I look back I realize that it established the value of service and gave me the courage to stand up for what I believed in regardless of what my friends did or said. I realized that these classmates, whatever their limitations, were just like us. It was a valuable set of lessons. When was the idea of going to college first introduced to you? My mother talked with me about going to college beginning at a very early age.When my mother and father separated after the war, she was left with raising six children all by herself. She made it clear to all us kids that no one was going to quit high school early to help the family. Everyone was expected to contribute to the work and health of the family. In those days there were only cer tain jobs that blacks worked in.There were very few blacks working for the city of Por tland.There was only one black plumber and no black bus drivers.The only teachers were those from Vanpor t. On the other hand, all the doormen and busboys were black. As were the railroad por ters and redcaps hauling people’s bags at Union Station. As a kid I joined local Boy Scout Troop #90, worked in the Boy Scout headquar ters as an office boy and was mentored by the chief Scout executive, George Herman Ober teuffer. Mr. Obie, as we called him, was a profound influence on my life. He recognized that as a black man I would face additional challenges. But he also envisioned a better future. I remember him saying, “I know that things aren’t the way they should be for you. But things will change. And I want you and your brothers to be ready when those changes occur.” In addition to my mother, it really was Mr. Obie who imprinted the impor tance of going to college onto me. I remember him saying, “I don’t want to see you pushing someone’s bags at Union Station.You must star t thinking about college.” How did you come to choose PSU for your own college experience? I went to Grant High School and all my classmates were talking about going to college as they neared graduation. Most were talking about going to the University of Oregon, Oregon State and Linfield College. I wanted to go to the U of O. But in the end my decision to go to Por tland State was purely economical.With five brothers and sisters raised by a single mother, there simply weren’t the resources for me to go south to Eugene. I didn’t have that kind of money. PSU was the only avenue for me. So, I waited a year out of high school and star ted by going to PSU at night in 1957. In those days Por tland State College, as it was then called, ran its night school classes out of what is today the Parkmill building on the South Park Blocks. I studied the preliminaries—English, writing, math and history—and later earned my degree in liberal studies. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. How did you come to work at Portland State? I began work at Por tland State in January of 1993. I had already been serving as a Metro councilor for a couple of years by then. PSU’s president at the time, Judith Ramaley, approached me about coming to PSU to do