[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 2052]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   CELEBRATING OREGON'S BLACK HISTORY

  Mr. SMITH. Madam President, each Congress I rise to honor February as 
Black History Month. Each February since 1926, we have recognized the 
contributions of Black Americans to the history of our Nation. This 
month I want to celebrate some of the contributions made by Black 
Americans in my home State of Oregon.
  The story of Abner Hunt Francis, a merchant from Buffalo, NY, is 
particularly moving. Francis, a man who gravitated to leadership, co-
founded the Buffalo City Anti-Slavery Society in 1838 and organized 
local colored conventions throughout the 1830s and '40s in his native 
state. In 1851 he left the East Coast for the City of Portland in the 
Oregon Territory, expecting to encounter freer country on the American 
frontier.
  Francis was disappointed to discover that despite the progressive 
attitude of its settlers, racist laws still encumbered Oregon 
Territory. It was not long after opening a boardinghouse that Francis's 
brother, O. H. Francis, was arrested. O. H. was detained in Portland on 
the grounds that men and women of color were not legally allowed in 
Oregon Territory, pursuant to an existing ``exclusion'' law. The case 
went immediately before a lower court, where it was decided that O. H. 
would have 6 months to vacate the territory. Unsatisfied that the judge 
had given O. H. ample time to leave, the complainant in the case 
appealed and the matter was elevated to the Territorial Supreme Court.
  Abner Francis was incensed by the fact that such a law existed in the 
so-called free territory of Oregon. He described the plight of his 
brother and detailed the case made before the Supreme Court in a letter 
to his friend and fellow civil rights advocate, Frederick Douglass. 
When Judge Orville Pratt ruled against the defense, giving O. H. 4 
months to leave the territory, Abner engaged Col. William M. King, then 
the representative of Portland's district in the State legislature. 
Representative King agreed to try to repeal the law outright. The law 
was not repealed until 1926, but a group of outraged Portlanders, led 
by Abner, successfully petitioned for an exemption for O. H.
  Douglass wasted no time in publishing Francis's letter. Many 
abolitionists and civil rights leaders were learning of racial 
injustices in the undeveloped West for the first time when they read of 
O. H. Francis's case.
  Outspoken men and women like Abner Francis forced Oregonians and the 
Nation to acknowledge that the bitter struggle for equality was to be 
fought not just in the East, but also in the farthest reaches of the 
American West. Francis must be recognized as one of the first vocal 
advocates for racial equality in Oregon. Today, I honor Abner Hunt 
Francis for his contributions.

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