Portland State Magazine, Spring 2021

6 The Flood in Vivid Color Tucked into the south stairwell in Smith Memorial Student Union, a vibrant, 14-foot mural by Isaka Shamsud-Din ’99 MFA ’01 tells the story of the Vanport food. As a boy, Shamsud-Din and his family fed a racist mob in Texas, landing in Vanport, Oregon, where his father worked at the Kaiser shipyards. (A temporary city built to accommodate the infux of World War II workers, Vanport was the only place in the area, other than Portland’s Albina District, where Black people were allowed to live.) Less than a year later, on May 30, 1948, the food hit.Te waters overwhelmed the barriers, killing 15 people and washing away the homes of 18,500—including some 6,000 Black residents. Seven-year-old Shamsud-Din and his family were among those displaced.Te Vanport Mural puts the viewer in the center of the turmoil he and his family experienced that day. Adults and children fee on foot as rising waters fll the frame. Pain, chaos and bewilderment are expressed through his distinctive style and vivid color. Shamsud-Din painted the mural as an art student in 1965 after winning a contest held by Portland State’s Art Department. He left his studies to become an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights group, in Arkansas. Returning decades later in his 50s, he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and later served as the James DePreist Visiting Professor of Art. In 2019, Portland declared June 19 Isaka Shamsud- Din Day, in honor of his art and social justice leadership. For more than half a century, the Vanport Mural has quietly stood both as a window into the life of this important artist and activist, who spent his career working to document and illustrate the African American experience, and as a powerful connection to a core event in PSU’s history—the Vanport food. — KAREN O’DONNELL STEIN SPRING 2021 // 25 7 During the 1960s, Portland State College grew quickly, and with that growth came the need for more buildings and parking. Today, we can still fnd some of the project models from this time, including those of the Business Administration building and State Hall (now Cramer Hall) stashed in archivist Bryce Henry’s ofce. Te University kept models and ephemeral items not because they serve a practical purpose anymore, but because they show interesting visual and historical looks at campus. In this archival photo, a reporter (left), Business Manager William T. Lemman, Jr. (center) and President Branford Price Millar (right) examine an early scale model of planned growth during the 1962 homecoming. An aerial photo of campus from that year shows the mere six main buildings that were the campus at the time. — JENNIFER LADWIG A 1962 shot of campus, looking westward toward the Park Blocks. UNIVERSTIY ARCHIVES DELANO PHOTOGRAPHICS A Growing Campus