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76 CHAPTER FOUR Building a Community If at any time you are inclined to be the least skeptical about this city’s continued growth, hop right into an automobile and drive around the town. You will be agreeably surprised to find that Portland is growing steadily and rapidly. … Keep an eye on Portland and watch it continue to grow. — “Portland Is Growing,” the Advocate, August 27, 1932, 21 Cannady was adamant about the need to promote Portland as a vibrant, livable place, so she continually reminded people of their duty to their city and its black citizens. “When a fellow boosts his own town he does not stop there; he is performing an act that improves his own condition,” Cannady proclaimed in 1929. “Think it over and then join the Boosters Club.”2 She had no patience for individuals at the other extreme, those who seemed to “have a grudge against the city” where they lived and worked. She called them “laggards,” “knockers,” and “hammer throwers,” and likened knocking to “a disease to be dreaded” because it infected citizens and spread throughout the city, hindering progress and discouraging newcomers.3 It also affected racial unity and individual and group uplift, themes that she and other black leaders wrote about frequently.4 Unity was particularly important in cities with small black populations. “Portland has … as fine a people as God ever made, and great opportunities [are] in our reach if we will only unite our forces and work together for the interest of all,” she told readers in 1928.5 Consensus was necessary to achieve equal rights and liberties, particularly when black Oregonians’ very existence was threatened by external forces such as the Ku Klux Klan. Absent a unified front, she feared that conditions would grow even worse and that Jim Crow laws would become immutable. However, Cannady did not always live up to her own mandate. She could be blunt about race relations in Portland, and stated unequivocally in 1925 that “colored people are not treated on equality with other racial groups in Oregon.”6 But even the darkest of editorials could offer hope for a better future. And articles in the Advocate frequently illustrated the ways in which people used creative resistance to overcome Jim Crow, in the process creating tight-knit communities and a burgeoning civil rights movement. B 77 chapter four: Building a Community Cannady enjoyed the visits by Langston Hughes, Roland Hayes, J. Rosamond Johnson, and other distinguished individuals. But Hughes stayed with the Graysons while he was in Portland, and Cannady hosted Hayes when he toured in 1925.7 Jim Crow laws made it difficult for people to travel, but legal—or extralegal—segregation of accommodations, places of amusement, public transportation, and restaurants did not prevent people from pursuing a career or families from taking trips. Instead, “lives [became] interwoven with people in other cities.” Kathryn Bogle recalled that it was common practice to call friends to see if they knew anyone living in cities where she and her family planned to travel. If they did, a letter would be sent to introduce the family and inquire whether it would be possible to stay a few days. She said lodging “operated that way” in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities and towns across the country.8 Cannady alluded to the importance of these cross-country connections by reporting the details of readers’ journeys. Lena Bowers, for example, returned safely to Portland in the fall of 1926 after “a month’s visit to Chicago,Cincinnati,Nashvilleandothercitiesofinterest.”9 She“wasroyally entertained” in Nashville by Bula Morrow Oliver, a connection probably arranged by Bula’s sister Beatrice some two thousand miles to the west.10 The Cannadys opened their Irvington-neighborhood home to visitors, too. Longtime subscriber Daniel Parker and his friend, Fred U. Harris, secretary of the Tacoma, Washington, NAACP Branch, stayed with the family during a visit to Portland in October 1923.11 The following summer, the Cannadys welcomed Richard H. Cole for three nights. The principal of Edward J. Simmons School in St. Louis, Missouri, was described as “a wide-awake, broad-minded and far-seeing man” who participated in his city’s religious, social, and civic life.12 Hosting guests also was an opportunity to roll out the welcome mat. Society notices in the Advocate reveal how Portlanders enjoyed themselves despite Jim Crow restrictions on theaters and restaurants, places one might normally take a visitor. Black-owned cafés were one...

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