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African-American
Women and the Portland YWCA
Document
1
Document
2
Mallory
Avenue Christian Church
Williams
Avenue Branch
Program
at Williams, 1940s
Young
Women at Williams
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What Strategies
Did African-American Women Use to Achieve Their Goals and Fulfill Their
Needs through the YWCA in Portland?
Research
by Rose M. Murdock and Patricia A. Schechter
YWCA
activity was one among many religious, benevolent, and educational undertakings
by urban black women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Portland's black community, though numbering only about 2,000 people
before World War I, was no exception to this pattern of association.
As early as 1918, Portland black women sought the attention of the National
YWCA and the Portland board concerning the community's need for a "club
house" and "boarding home" for girls and women.[1]
After neighborhood fundraising, support from the Community Chest, and
a donation from Mrs. E.S. Collins (who was white), a temporary structure
was erected at the corner of northeast Tillamook and Williams in 1921
and a permanent building opened to great fanfare in 1926.
The
Williams Avenue Center served northeast Portland through the 1950s,
hosting dozens of community groups in addition to its YWCA offerings.
Unfortunately, the stepped-up building campaign for a new downtown facility
drained the attention and budget of the YWCA board. The changing character
of the neighborhood to a more industrial rather than residential base
discouraged investment in the program. A short-lived "Co-Ed Inn," a
canteen for teens, operated in 1954-56 but struggled to hold the interest
of young people. Despite a "Williams Avenue YWCA Study Committee" report
in 1956 that underscored the need for intervention in the lives of area
youth, the YWCA gradually withdrew its support for the Center altogether,
in favor of a settlement approach by another agency.[2]
The building was sold in 1959. "Selling that building was a very big
heartache to a lot of people," noted Joyce Roggi, long-time Health,
Physical Education director at the downtown YWCA building. "It was a
sad chapter in our life."[3]
1.YWCA
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, 27 February 1920, Portland YWCA
Archives, Portland, Oregon.
Back
to Text
2.
"Williams Avenue YWCA Study," April 1956, Portland YWCA
Archives, Portland, Oregon; "Report of Discontinuance of the
Coed Inn at Williams Avenue YWCA Center by the Decision of the YWCA
Teen-Age Committee," 23 May 1956, and Essie L. Maguire to Mrs.
Irma T. Huppel, 26 April 1950, Williams Avenue Pages, Oregon Historical
Society, Portland, Oregon.
Back
to Text
3.
Patricia A. Schechter and Janice Dilg, "YWCA History Focus Group
Interview," March 2001, Portland YWCA Archives, Portland, Oregon.
Back
to Text
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