Notes on Little Central and the Colored School around 1870

It's Black History Month and Macy's is closing.

It's a good time to revisit the "Colored School" in Little Central located on the corner of Marion and High Streets, the north side of the Macy's block.

Little Central, home for "Colored School" on Marion at High
(Streetview in 2012, State Library inset)

There's nothing really new here, but maybe we can refine a few details.

In her recent book, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, Manesha Sinha focuses on Black self-determination as she stresses bottom-up action in "grassroots Reconstruction" and "Black Reconstruction." On education she writes

In 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau ran 740 schools with 90,589 students and 1,314 teachers....This was a "drop in the bucket," though, as the Bureau received hundreds of applications for new schools from freedpeople....As a result of congressional appropriations during Reconstruction, the Bureau schools were put on a firmer footing. But the biggest driver of the educational success of the Bureau remained freedpeople themselves. By 1867, "colored pupils" were paying school tuition and freed people contributed considerably to the upkeep of freedmen's schools....Freedpeople's desire for education transcended age; many adults started "self-teaching." Freedpeople established their own schools in "cellars, sheds, or the corner of a negro meeting house"....

Our establishment histories haven't said much about the Colored School here, in part because little was known. As I read it, pretty much everything depends on and is a refinement of Sue Bell's 2002 piece in Historic Marion and later adapted for her Oregon Encyclopedia piece, "Salem's Colored School and Little Central."

The Salem Online History, now hosted at the Mill, discussed it in the context of Black History more generally.

In 1867, the African American community in Salem raised $427.50, which allowed them to operate a school for six months. They placed an announcement in the newspaper, saying that “Notice is hereby given that the colored people of Salem expect to pay all the expenses of the Evening School now being held by them, without aid from other citizens – no person is authorized to collect funds in our name.” The following year, the city of Salem continued what they had begun, and opened Little Central School. This segregated school was located near Central School on High Street between Center and Marion. Its fifteen minority students were taught by Marie Smith and Mrs. R. Mallory. Tuition at Little Central was $4 a term, the same that white children paid to attend “big” Central School.

And reference in the Mill's piece on Emancipation celebrations:

the African American community of Salem was renting a room in order to have a school that their children could attend, the city’s schools having barred their children entry (even though they were paying the taxes that supported the city’s school system).  Fed up, parents raised enough money to hire a teacher and rent a room to provide their children with an education.

Sinha's notes on history and self-determination suggest a broader reading of the Colored School as an expression of Reconstruction here in Salem. It was not just a local story but took place in that national context, and also would offer more evidence that Reconstruction was story for a much wider area than the South.

There is some evidence that locals understood it this broader way.

Even Unruly, Protest on Foot not equal to Dangerous Motorized Street Takeover

Salem Police today sent out a weird release. Seemingly by design, it conflates a protest on foot, sometimes unruly, but not anything inherently dangerous with lethal force, and an inherently dangerous street takeover by cars and drivers drifting with lethal force.

From Salem PD:

Street takeover closes northeast Salem intersection Saturday night, five arrested

Salem, Ore. -- The intersection of Lancaster DR and Market ST NE was closed at about 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, February 1 after the area was taken over illegally by a crowd of people and vehicles.

At approximately 12:00 p.m., a crowd of people gathered in the parking lots of several businesses on the four corners of the intersection of Lancaster DR and Market ST NE. The group was demonstrating against national immigration enforcement efforts.

By 2:00 p.m., the group was estimated to have 300 participants. The gathered remained relatively peaceful, although traffic in the area was congested. As the event progressed, callers reported participants throwing objects and hitting passing cars.

Eventually, more police resources were called in to address the event.

Other reports were received at about 7:00 p.m. of participants standing in the crosswalk not allowing traffic to continue, fireworks being ignited, and vehicles driving recklessly. At this point further police resources were necessary, including calling in officers from home and requesting outside agency assistance.

At about 8:30 p.m., the intersection was overtaken by drivers performing burnouts and dangerously drifting and spinning in the roadway, and nearly 50 people occupying the street.

The intersection was closed shortly afterward with north and southbound Lancaster DR closed between D ST and Sunnyview RD, east and westbound Market ST was closed between Fisher RD and Tierra DR. Cherriots buses were rerouted. Oregon State Police temporarily closed the Market ST offramp.

As specialized crowd management officers from the Mobile Response Team (MRT) arrived, the group surrounded a vehicle on Lancaster DR blocking all northbound traffic. The officers cleared the area allowing the vehicle to proceed. The protestors threw water bottles and cans of beer at Salem Police vehicles.

MRT and patrol officers contacted individuals observed engaging in criminal activity and seized one handgun....

five individuals were arrested on various charges including reckless driving and disorderly conduct....

The remaining crowd gathered on the sidewalks dispersed slowly, and traffic diminished, allowing the street closures to be lifted at approximately 11:00 p.m.

There were no reported injuries; however, officers will be conducting follow up investigations on several complaints of criminal mischief.

Salem Police Chief Trevor Womack remarked, "Saturday's unruly protest, along with other emergency calls including an armed kidnapping, strained our limited patrol staffing resources. Multiple Salem officers were called in from home and partner agencies also responded to ensure safety was maintained and criminal offenders were appropriately held accountable.

"I am very proud of the work our officers accomplished under challenging and dangerous circumstances, yesterday's events just being the most recent examples. I want to thank them and our regional partners for their service, dedication, and professionalism."

For this incident, the Salem Police Department received assistance with traffic control from the Oregon State Police, and the Keizer Police Department assisted by handling calls in the city while patrol officers, MRT, and Strategic Investigations Unit detectives addressed the street take over and disorder.

It is very likely the daytime protest on foot was overpoliced and it should have been treated as a separate event from the nighttime street takeover with burnouts, drifting, and spinning. One was primarily an instance of political speech; the other was not at all an instance of political speech.

This looks like the Police trying to paint protest on foot as more dangerous and unlawful than it is, and guilty by association with the street takeover. 

There may not be anything more to say, but it's something to monitor as protests become likely here in the immediate future.

Addendum, February 3rd

The paper online has a totally misleading image-text combo, casting aspersions on the sidewalk protest.

This does not show a "street takeover"!

Previously:

• "Politics of Public Space: Autoism and Delegitimizing Users" (2020)
• "Herding the Urban Deer: Autoism and Right of Way in Differential Policing at Protests" (2020)
  

Kinder, Küche, Kirche comes to Transportation Funding

While there are more exigent matters in Washington, DC at the moment, a development this week has been an attempt to impose an ideology of Kinder, Küche, Kirche on transportation funding.

If you had any doubts, it's happening.

September 9th, 1936 (with an edit)
See also the editorial, Sept. 13th

When an unelected oligarch with private security and technical forces is taking over central government computer systems, the Department of Justice and FBI are undergoing purges, appointments and orders and actions constitute a blitzing vandalism on state capacity, databases and document libraries with years and decades of research are being scrubbed, and the flurry of those executive orders attempts (perhaps successfully!) to circumvent the legislative process, we have names for all that.

Conspicuously, the press is avoiding naming what is obvious. The front pages talk around the nub of the matter, framing things as minor deflections from norms, hardball gamesmanship, division rather than bipartisanship, and not the shattering of norms in any kind of coup.

It's all too much, but maybe we can understand a little in our focus area of transportation.

This past week the US Department of Transportation published documents that attempt to impose eugenics, segregation, and patriarchy on funding.

Eugenics in an order

Memo for climate denial, jim crow, and patriarchy

Eugenics, climate denial, jim crow, the patriarchy — the reactionary, fascist package is all right there. "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" might seem like an exaggeration, but that's really the revanchist game plan.

First Mixed-Use Building with Apartments Proposed for Close-in West Salem with new Zoning

The City has published notice for what might be the very first mixed-use block to use the new zoning in the "West Salem Central Business District" on Moyer Lane, a block off Wallace Road at the intersection with Bartell Drive.

Ground floor retail on right side
32 apartment homes above and a few in back

The draft for the new zoning went public in 2017 and Council adopted it in 2018. The new zoning was for close-in West Salem along Edgewater; and the area between Roth's, Wallace Marine Park, and the bridges.

Zoning proposal for close-in West Salem (2017)

(A detail that hadn't seemed important to register during Our Salem is that the "Second Street Craft Industrial Corridor" zone disappeared into MU-III zoning. But Edgewater Mixed-use Corridor remains even though it's swallowed up so far by a monoculture of medical clinics.)

Current zoning (City of Salem)

From SRC 525.001

The purpose of the West Salem Central Business District (WSCB) zone is to implement the Central Business District comprehensive plan map designation through the identification of allowed uses and establishment of development standards that promote a mix of residential, commercial, and civic uses developed in a manner that creates a walkable, thriving, and attractive central business district in West Salem.

This purpose also consistent with any Climate-Friendly/Walkable Mixed-Use Area the City might designate.

The parcel in question had a small house on it, which was demolished in the summer of 2012. It's been a vacant lot since.

At the Legislature in 1925: Proposed Drunk Driving Law, Motor Vehicle Associations

As the Legislative session for 1925 cranked up, one of the more interesting bills concerned drunk driving.

January 28th, 1925

It was a little surprising to see that this was not primarily framed as a way to improve traffic safety.

Instead it was mainly about prohibition, a way to penalize drinking more heavily and to enforce temperance.

January 28th, 1925

It may not be the first "drunk driving" legislation in Oregon, however. Wikipedia says New Jersey's law was first in 1906 and New York followed in 1910. A random Oregon DUI lawyer's page says Oregon's first was in 1913, which would coincide with the start of the Highway Commission and is a plausible date, but it was not easy to confirm this, and we'll have to come back to that another time.

Tentatively, then, this was the first headline level mention, and marks a shift in tone and emphasis.

The headlines for the session also mark greater organization for the motor vehicle lobby and autoist interests. They seem to have overstepped, however.

On Mildred Lane and Elsewhere our Minor Arterial Standard is often too Big

Over at our Strong Towns group, Planning Commissioner Slater takes issue with a priority on more narrow lanes for safety.

Mildred Lane at the park is wide and zoomy

He cites Mildred Lane as an example, but does not show Mildred Lane and instead shows a typical Salem cross-section in our standards.

But the discussion, as informed as it is, does not attend enough to the particularities of our standards as they are actually built. As I read the note, it builds to a support of that current cross-section and of our current approach.

via FB

Instead, from here it has seemed clear this cross-section, even with 11-foot travel lanes, is often still too wide and still induces speeding in many places around town.

More particularly, how is it possible to argue that the cross section on Mildred Lane at the park (top image) is safe and does not induce speeding? If you start with a 35mph limit and add the wide and open street, it's clear why speeding is common there.

Between the park and the walled off subdivision, there are no turns possible! Only straight line travel is possible.

There is no reason to have a continuous turn pocket.

There is so much slop in that cross section that even striping for 11 foot travel lanes is clearly excessive. With a better cross section, maybe an 11 foot width is defensible. But not in this one.

On the specific question of lane width, Strong Towns said recently

[M]ost often, our policies treat an 11- or 12-foot lane as the default, and allow the engineer to make a case for a narrower lane width.

This is backwards. A 10-foot lane, at the widest, should be the “default setting” for any sort of urban street: a place lined with homes and businesses, where traffic should flow slower than 35 mph. This should be understood as the risk-averse approach. If the engineer wants to make the lanes wider, they should have to justify the choice.

This is still a controversial change. It shouldn’t be: all the evidence points to the safety benefits of narrow lanes and traffic calming. But conventional U.S. engineering “wisdom” has said the exact opposite, for decades.

That fact ought to be a huge scandal.

Jeff Speck agrees, centering a ten foot standard in Walkable City Rules.

New Project Scoring possibly Revised: At the MPO

The Policy Committee for our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets tomorrow, Tuesday the 28th.

NY Times earlier this month on LA fires

It was a little disappointing to see the technical committee earlier this month with a move to invite the Policy Committee to adopt a scoring rubric "scaled back" from a staff recommendation for stronger weighting on safety, transit, filling in gaps, and greenhouse gas reduction.

The proposal earlier this month

Public comment was overwhelmingly in favor of stronger consideration for these factors, and the technical committee seemingly suggests watering them down.