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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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Mallory
Avenue Christian Church
Research
by Alan Silver, Ismoon Hunter-Morton, and Sharon Rose
Mallory
Avenue Christian Church
After the sale of the Williams
Avenue Center in 1959, the YWCA found a new home in the Mallory Avenue
Christian Church, located at the corner of Alberta and Mallory Avenues
in Northeast Portland. In the 1970s, church leader Audrey Sanders ran
a highly successful program called "People are Beautiful," which provided
activities for teens in the summers as well as outreach to women at the
nearby Dekum
Court housing project. A group
of YWCA women at Dekum Court took the name "Dekum Doers" and
together offered each other support and mutual aid. Cooking and canning
were popular classes offered through the YWCA, as were classes in studio
art, especially painting and pottery. One woman taught bible study for
young people. The Dekum Doers also performed community service, like cleaning
up a local Fred Meyer that had become shabby and painting Mallory Church's
kitchen. One YWCA staffer recalled that "we did some dynamite programs
out of the Mallory Avenue Christian Church."[1]
The Dekum Doers also took happy pride in their accomplishments. "I'm so
proud of us," recalled one participant. "We were a bunch of scared women
and now we can put on a lunch."[2]
1.
Ismoon Hunter-Morton, "Interview with Marsha Mulvey," 2001,
Portland YWCA Archives, Portland, Oregon.
Back
to Text
2.
Sharon Rose, "Interview with Delvon Barrett," 1996, Portland
YWCA Archives, Portland, Oregon.
Back
to Text
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