Journal of Women's History

Murdock, Rose M.
The Persistence of Black Women at the Williams Avenue YWCA
Journal of Women's History - Volume 15, Number 3, Autumn 2003, pp. 190-196

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Rose M. Murdock - The Persistence of Black Women at the Williams Avenue YWCA - Journal of Women's History 15:3 Journal of Women's History 15.3 (2003) 190-196 The Persistence of Black Women at the Williams Avenue YWCA Rose M. Murdock Despite the Portland YWCA Board's lack of direction in determining what "interracial" work really meant, Black women persisted in the long struggle to end racism and discrimination by bringing unity among races. According to the city of Portland publication, "A History of Portland's African American Community," as early as 1906, Blacks voted and served as jurors, and Black and white children shared school classrooms together. They also sat side by side with whites in restaurants and theaters. As World War I brought demographic and industrial change, Jim Crow segregation took root in the city. The process of institutionalized discrimination became a reality for Portland's Black community. Blacks found themselves "shut out by the unions, who refused to admit the black worker to membership." Due to these conditions in Portland, on 13 November 1918, Mrs. C.A. Jenkins wrote a letter to the national YWCA in New York requesting instructions on how to organize a YWCA. Within two years, a branch of the Portland YWCA was established in a portable structure on the comer of North Williams and Tillamook Streets. The Williams Avenue YWCA, managed by Black women, was much needed during this time to build up the Black community socially,...