By Bry, Caitlin, and Katie

Our Black Lives Matter PS 407 class had the exciting privilege of hosting Mark Harris for a guest lecture this past week. Mark Harris is a father of seven children (two biological) with his partner in Eugene. He self-identifies as an American maroon griot of West Coast Origin. Harris was the third person in his family to graduate from high school dating back to slavery, and earned a Master’s degree at Sonoma State University. He is a 31-year resident of Eugene, OR where he is a professor for both the University of Oregon and Lane Community College. Professor Harris’ subjects of study include Substance Abuse Prevention (SAP) and Addiction, Ethnic Studies, and African American Studies. With over 40 years of experience in the drug and alcohol abuse field, Harris is responsible for counseling students and staff, college policy, and staff and community training. As part of his community training, Harris helped start the “I Too Am Eugene…” project in a response to the lack of knowledge in and teaching of Eugene and the State of Oregon’s racist history in his children’s classes.

During his presentation, Harris exposed specific examples to the invisible nature of Oregon’s racist history and provided a narrative for how to use this knowledge to look forward for change. A few of the specific topics we discussed revolved around significant people of color in Oregon’s history, such as Wiley Griffon (University of Oregon’s first black employee) and how these figures had to either compromise their identity or conceal visibility in order to be accepted into the white utopia that defined the state until recently (and is arguably still present today). The
naming of the street dedicated to Sam Reynolds in our own town of Eugene served as another prime example of this; where for decades the street was called “Sam R” because a local, white resident would not allow a public street to be named after a black man.

In addition to drawing on local examples, Harris explained how these specifics reflected the dominant racial attitudes and even legal policy. He shed light not only on the widely supported exclusion laws, but revealed the great extent to which these “acceptable” racist perspectives reached; from prominent members of the KKK holding significant power (politicians, judges, etc.) to the common use of violent practices such as cross burnings, destruction of racialized neighborhoods, etc. Another interesting takeaway from Harris’ presentation was his differentiation of the 6 different kinds of racism that manifests in U.S society today. According to Harris, the most prevalent types within the Oregon experience are verbal/physical assault and conscious institutional legal racism; however non-verbal/microaggressions, sociostructural violence, unconscious institutional, and conscious institutional illegal racism – are other prevalent forms of racism in the United States today.

“I Too Am Eugene” documents experiences and histories of racism specifically in Eugene, Oregon. These accounts are chilling not only because of the discrimination and hatred present in any incident of racism, but because contextualizing these incidents in familiar buildings and places forces the reader to recognize and confront the severity of racism within their own community. “I Too Am Eugene” is a multicultural history project that, in the words of Harris, aims to be a “model for historical activism, revealing history that has been deliberately hidden.” Its goal is “to empower communities of color and to enhance community understanding of the roles of allies.” “I Too Am Eugene” seeks to place instances of discrimination and racism into a familiar context, and to begin the attempt to reconcile oppression in the places we know. It seeks to bring to light the “hidden histories” of Eugene, a place widely regarded as a liberal, progressive haven but in actuality a town that has a very deep-rooted, historical opposition to progress. “I Too Am Eugene” gives a voice to those marginalized by a town characterized by white liberalism, and strives to honor those who have dedicated their lives to the same principle, as the program did for Wiley Griffon, the first Black UO Employee that was not given adequate respect even in his obituary. “I Too Am Eugene” reinforces Harris’s concept of “conservative radicalism” — encouraging social change as quickly as possible, short of military force.