When Norman Sylvester was just 12 years old, long before he earned the moniker "The Boogie Cat" or shared stages with blues legends like B.B. King, he embarked on a transformative journey. He boarded a train in rural Louisiana, leaving behind a childhood steeped in the simple rhythms of Southern life – savoring wild muscadine grapes from his family’s farm, fishing in the bayou, and churning butter to the cadence of his grandmother’s gospel hymns. His father, having sought better employment opportunities in the distant city of Portland, Oregon, had sent for him. For young Sylvester, this summons felt like being plucked from paradise.

It was the autumn of 1957, a time when Oregon carried a stark reputation as an unwelcoming territory for Black families. For decades, from 1844 until 1926, the state had enforced a series of exclusion laws specifically designed to prevent Black people from settling within its borders. The Oregon Donation Land Act of 1850, for instance, generously granted up to 640 free acres to white settlers while explicitly prohibiting Black individuals from claiming any land. Oregon notably declined to ratify the 15th Amendment, and in 1917, the state’s Supreme Court upheld racial discrimination in public accommodations. By the 1920s, Oregon had become home to the largest Ku Klux Klan chapter west of the Mississippi River.

Despite this deeply entrenched hostility, Black pioneers were among Oregon’s earliest settlers, persistently carving out lives and striving for equality amidst these formidable challenges. The Portland chapter of the NAACP, established in 1914, stands as a testament to this enduring spirit, recognized as the oldest continuously operating chapter west of the Mississippi. However, the state’s pervasive anti-Black policies acted as powerful deterrents. By the time Sylvester arrived, African Americans constituted less than 1% of Oregon’s population, and Portland’s Black community was notably the smallest among major West Coast cities. This stark contrast to his Southern upbringing was palpable when Sylvester stepped out of Portland’s Union Station, entering a world of profound cultural shock.

Sylvester was soon to begin seventh grade at his first integrated school, and a haircut was his immediate priority. His first venture into his new city led him to a barbershop near the intersection of Williams Avenue and Russell Street in North Portland. Upon reaching the corner, he was met with a vibrant scene. A handsome brick building, crowned with an onion-shaped cupola, anchored one corner, while homes and businesses lined the others: a bustling cafe, a well-stocked drugstore, and a lively produce market. Everywhere he looked, he saw a familiar sight, reminiscent of his Louisiana home: "African American people – in charge of businesses, driving nice cars up and down the street, strutting their stuff." He would later compare this vibrant tableau to Harlem, but on that day, it simply brought back memories of the place he had left behind. Despite the thousands of miles separating him from the muscadine vines twining his grandmother’s fence, standing on that corner, he felt an overwhelming sense of belonging. Even the air seemed familiar, carrying the comforting aromas of Southern cooking and the infectious melodies of gospel and jazz. "The place just embraced me," Sylvester recalled recently. "Everybody was singing the same song, if you know what I mean."

This dynamic intersection was, in fact, the heart of a neighborhood known as Albina. In the early 1900s, Black Portlanders, many of whom were employed as railcar attendants, began settling in this area due to its proximity to Union Station. In the subsequent decades, persistent landlord discrimination and deeply ingrained institutional policies, including a 1919 Portland Realty Board ruling that deemed it unethical to sell homes in white neighborhoods to non-white buyers, effectively excluded Black residents from other parts of the city, further concentrating the community within Albina. By 1940, over half of Portland’s Black population, then numbering just under 2,000 individuals, resided in Albina.

The outbreak of World War II brought a massive influx of over a hundred thousand newcomers to the city, drawn by the booming shipbuilding industry, with approximately 20,000 of them being African American. Among these wartime migrants were Sylvester’s parents, aunt, and uncle. They settled in a defense housing development called Vanport, constructed behind a railroad embankment in the floodplain of the Columbia River. Vanport quickly became the largest wartime housing project in the nation, with Black residents comprising about a quarter of its more than 40,000 inhabitants, establishing it as Oregon’s largest Black community by a significant margin.

Following the war, residents began to depart Vanport. While Sylvester’s mother returned to Louisiana, his uncle secured employment at a local hospital, and the rest of the family decided to remain in the Portland area. Denied housing in most neighborhoods due to their race, they continued to live in Vanport. Tragically, it was there, on Memorial Day in 1948, that disaster struck. The Columbia River, swollen by spring rains and snowmelt, breached its embankment and surged toward the city. Within a mere 40 minutes, Vanport was submerged. At least 15 lives were lost, and over 18,000 residents, a third of them Black, were left homeless.

Sylvester’s family, like most African Americans displaced by the flood, found refuge in the only Portland neighborhood that welcomed them: Albina. By the time Sylvester settled in the city, four out of every five Black Portlanders called this district home. Although housing conditions in Albina, marked by redlining, underinvestment, and neglectful landlords, could sometimes be overcrowded and dilapidated, the neighborhood fostered a strong sense of community and vibrancy. Black-owned businesses, churches, and gathering spaces thrived. "Everything you needed in a community was right there," Sylvester told me.

Central to this community was music, and in Albina, during the decades following Sylvester’s arrival, it was abundant. Gospel choirs filled churches with powerful harmonies, while soul bands packed the Cotton Club, which stood as the Pacific Northwest’s premier destination for soul music. Nearly every night, jazz, blues, and funk ensembles could be heard emanating from the neighborhood’s numerous venues, including teen clubs and all-ages spaces. Bands formed in basements, backyards, schoolrooms, and churches, fueling a rich musical ecosystem.

When Sylvester was 13, his father, working two demanding jobs – at the hospital by day and the foundry by night – saved enough to buy him a guitar. It wasn’t the gleaming red electric he yearned for, but an $11.95 acoustic from a pawnshop. His father promised that if Sylvester mastered three songs, he would then purchase the electric guitar. Finding music instructors in Albina was not difficult; Sylvester learned his initial chords from an elderly Creole man who owned the house his family rented. Later, a fellow high school student mentored him in the blues. Sylvester proved to be a quick study, and the guitar soon became his primary means of expression. As a shy country kid from the South, he often felt overwhelmed by Portland’s urban youth. He stammered when he spoke, but "with my guitar in front of me, I could express myself," he shared.

Now 80 years old, Sylvester has dedicated his life to expressing himself through music. His first band, Rated "X," was among Portland’s pioneering soul groups. They recorded a single in 1972, and were building local momentum when Sylvester’s employer, a trucking company, placed him on a graveyard shift, forcing him to leave the band. However, he continued to play, eventually establishing himself as a prominent blues musician. The Norman Sylvester Blues Band has now been performing for four decades. He has shared the stage with luminaries such as B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Mavis Staples, and in 2011, he was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame.

Sylvester’s accomplishments are significant, but he is far from the only remarkable musician to emerge from Albina. He is part of a diverse and deeply interconnected community of Black musicians, educators, and arts advocates who converged in this neighborhood during the latter half of the 20th century, transforming the region into a Western hub for music and creating a legacy that endures today. Until recently, however, the rich narrative of Albina’s musical history was largely confined to the memories – and sometimes, the forgotten boxes – of those who lived it, a generation of artists now nearing the twilight of their lives.

By the time Bobby Smith moved to Albina in the early 2000s, the neighborhood bore little resemblance to the predominantly Black community of Sylvester’s youth. Smith, a young white schoolteacher who also occasionally freelanced as a music journalist, was aware of a vibrant jazz scene that had flourished there in the 1940s and 50s, an era chronicled in Robert Dietsche’s 2005 book Jumptown. Yet, the public narrative of Black music in Portland seemed to cease in 1957, leaving Smith to wonder: what happened next? As an avid record collector, Smith began searching for albums that could illuminate this period. For years, he scoured used record stores and consignment shops, but commercial recordings by Portland’s Black musicians from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s were remarkably scarce. One day, he stumbled upon the 45rpm single that Sylvester had recorded with Rated "X" in the early 1970s, one of the few records from those decades he could find. Simultaneously, he engaged with his neighbors, lingered in parks whenever he heard music, and frequented Clyde’s Prime Rib, one of the city’s few venues that regularly featured elder Black performers.

In 2014, Smith began DJing for XRAY-FM, a nascent community radio station broadcasting from Albina. By then, he had amassed a small collection of recordings from the region’s musical past and started inviting local musicians to the station to discuss them on air. One of his earliest guests was Calvin Walker, a drummer, bandleader, and self-proclaimed "child of Albina." Walker initially came for a 30-minute interview but ended up staying for three hours. He shared his life story, inadvertently mapping out an entire ecosystem of musicians and educators who had profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, Albina. "If you’re really curious about this, here’s a list of people you need to start talking to," Walker told Smith. "And I’ll help you."

Soon, Smith’s weekly radio show became a hub where elder Black musicians shared their stories. Despite the systemic barriers that had limited their access to the recording industry, Albina’s musicians had diligently documented their own work. A wealth of unreleased recordings survived in their possession: demos, reel-to-reels, cassettes, and VCR tapes. This ever-growing cache of music and memorabilia pouring into the station revealed an extraordinary legacy of Black arts and culture in Portland, representing an untold chapter of Oregon’s history.

In 2015, Walker, Smith, and Ken Berry, another local musician and community leader, founded the Albina Music Trust (AMT) with an ambitious goal: to preserve thousands of obsolete and decaying media items and make them accessible to everyone. Elder engineers donated equipment and trained volunteers in the operation of archaic machines. Each item was meticulously digitized and uploaded into a categorized database. After a decade of dedicated work, in 2024, AMT publicly launched the Albina Community Archive, believed to be the only community archive in the United States exclusively dedicated to the restoration of a Black community’s musical culture.

The online repository now houses over 13,000 items sourced from 180 contributors. It includes not only music – encompassing live recordings, out-of-circulation albums, and unreleased demos – but also film, newsprint, posters, handbills, and invaluable oral histories. This extensive collection forms the backbone of the archive, functioning more as a seedbank for historical artifacts than a static museum. These materials are brought to life through projects extending far beyond the website. An art installation titled Wall to Wall Soul combines restored and recolored posters and photography into striking images exhibited across the city and now permanently displayed in the dining room of Clyde’s Prime Rib. Under a record label of the same name, AMT releases vinyl albums featuring never-before-heard music from Albina’s past, as well as new works by contemporary artists from the community. An audio tour, The Albina Soul Walk, guides listeners on a mile-long, music-infused journey through Albina, visiting the sites of former venues and gathering places while musicians and club owners narrate the neighborhood’s history. Listening to the tour feels akin to donning 3D glasses, suddenly bringing an unseen dimension into sharp focus. Even after removing the earbuds and the present-day sounds of the city rushed in – the rustling of maple leaves, the whir of passing cyclists – the voices from the tour lingered, subtly altering the perception of the urban landscape.

One morning last summer, I met Smith, Walker, and Berry at AMT’s modest office in Northeast Portland. The space, no larger than a walk-in closet, was lined with shelves packed with neatly labeled boxes. Audio equipment spanning various eras – turntables, reel-to-reel machines, cassette players, CD drives – crammed the desks and floor. A grid of framed record sleeves adorned a lime-green wall, and the air was filled with the gentle strains of jazz. Settling into one of the four mismatched chairs arranged in this cozy space felt less like a formal meeting and more like joining a family around a warm kitchen table. That day, I experienced something akin to Smith’s first encounter with Walker: expecting an hour-long conversation, I found myself immersed in stories that flowed from one to another, leading us to a late lunch at a taqueria across the street, where we continued our shared meal and conversation.

Ken Berry arrived in Oregon from Kansas in 1953 at the age of four. His family settled in Southeast Portland, where he became the first Black student at Laurelhurst Elementary School. However, two years later, following complaints from anti-integration neighbors, their landlord had the house demolished, and the Berry family relocated to Albina. There, he began playing piano during Sunday school at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, earning 75 cents a day. He joined the choir at Jefferson High School and, after graduating, started playing a Hammond B3 organ at what was then Albina’s most prominent jazz club, The Upstairs Lounge. It was there he met the late Thara Memory. Memory, a trumpeter from Florida who had played with artists like James Brown, was en route to Seattle with his band when they stopped in Portland to perform at The Upstairs Lounge. However, Albina – with its majestic trees and vibrant community – captivated him, and he chose to stay when his band continued north. Memory and Berry later formed a group called Shades of Brown, one of several collaborations that would significantly shape Albina’s music culture for decades.

Around the same time, not far from The Upstairs Lounge, Walker encountered Memory at another vital community hub in Albina: the Albina Arts Center. As a teenager, Walker frequently performed there with his jazz-infused funk band, The Gangsters. "Thara comes in one night and says, ‘Can I play your trumpet?’" Walker recalled. He handed over the instrument and listened, utterly astounded. "I never played trumpet again!" Instead, Walker continued on drums, and Memory joined him on trumpet.

In the summer of 1970, the American Legion held its annual convention in Portland. In an effort to preempt potential war protests disrupting the event, the city organized what would become the only state-sponsored rock concert in U.S. history: Vortex 1. The Gangsters, though not officially invited, loaded their equipment onto an Albina Arts Center truck and drove to the festival, positioning themselves near the stage. When the manager informed them that all performance slots were filled, Memory retorted, "But you don’t have any all-Black bands." Thirty minutes later, they were on stage. "We played for an hour and a half, and I think they even paid us!" Walker said with a grin.

Despite its historical significance, most retrospective coverage of this event, including books and television documentaries, omitted this crucial detail. When AMT inquired about the omission, the answer was consistently simple: researchers simply didn’t know about it. Like much of Albina’s history, this story was held within the community, not within institutional archives. "The public library and the Oregon Historical Society have existed for over a hundred years," Smith told me. "But in the 10 years we’ve been around, we’ve become the largest digital repository of Black arts and culture in the entire state of Oregon." Walker nodded in agreement. "People are putting their lives in our hands because they trust that their story will be told accurately," he said.

AMT is part of a burgeoning nationwide network of community archives dedicated to preserving collective histories often excluded from mainstream repositories. Over 300 such archives have been mapped across the country, each documenting a distinct facet of American life, from LGBTQ+ experiences in the Deep South to the activism of radical Indigenous women and the stories of communities impacted by the death penalty. As control over historical narratives increasingly becomes a politically charged battleground – evidenced by actions that seek to marginalize or reframe historical accounts – community-based archives like AMT broaden the spectrum of voices contributing to the historical record, fostering a more inclusive and multifaceted understanding of America’s story.

In the Trust’s compact office, Walker, Smith, and Berry seamlessly wove together the organization’s narrative with the deep rapport forged through years of shared dreams and problem-solving. Despite their differing ages and racial backgrounds, the mutual respect among them was palpable, evident in the effortless flow of conversation. One man would recount an anecdote, another would clarify the timeline, and the third would provide crucial context, creating a cohesive and engaging account. Later, I recognized the experience for what it was: akin to listening to a masterful musical performance, where each musician contributes a distinct element without overshadowing the others, resulting in a harmonious whole far greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Before departing, Berry handed me a copy of the YouthSound album, then requested a text upon my safe arrival home. That evening, as I placed the album on my turntable and perused the liner notes, a cascade of voices – dozens of children and adults singing in unison within a high school auditorium four decades prior – filled my living room. "It was all about listening," one student recalled. "Anybody could put out a tune. But your tune gotta match the person standing next to you. This was about teamwork. We needed to sound as one."

While their work often involves the literal preservation of the past, AMT’s fundamental mission is focused on the future. "In another 50 years, we don’t want a couple of guys like me and Ken sitting around talking about the good old days," Walker stated. To this end, the Trust collaborates with Portland schools and nonprofits to expand access to arts education, thereby connecting students with Albina’s rich Black music legacy.

Last June, I drove to the school district headquarters for "Rhythms of Tomorrow," one of 38 public events AMT hosted in 2025 alone. This initiative, a collaboration between AMT and Portland Public Schools, marked the first district-wide celebration of Black Music Month. En route, I stopped for lunch on Mississippi Avenue, in the historic heart of Albina. There, I joined a bustling crowd waiting for tacos, comprised largely of Blundstone-boot-clad, finely tattooed individuals in their thirties and forties, predominantly white. Nearby, a cafe advertised boba tea and artisanal donuts, while a boutique nursery offered mounted ferns for $150 each. Yoga studios and brewpubs abounded.

Decades after city bulldozers razed Albina, another wave of displacement reshaped what remained of the neighborhood. In the 1990s, the area’s affordable housing began attracting white residents priced out of other districts. The city initiated investments in Albina, previously withheld, implementing measures to combat predatory lending and housing abandonment. These changes primarily benefited middle-class white newcomers, and gentrification soon pushed housing prices beyond the reach of many long-term residents. By 2000, less than a third of Black Portlanders resided in Albina, and for the first time since the 1960s, the area no longer held a Black majority. "A lot of folks are out in The Numbers now," Sylvester remarked, referring to the far eastern reaches of Portland. He reminisced, "I used to cruise around in my 1974 Dodge Charger – it had a sunroof and an 8-track. I could wave at 50 people, stop and talk to 30. Now, I can drive from my house in Kenton, all through Albina, and never wave once."

A mile south of Mississippi Avenue, the school district’s headquarters stands on a sprawling 10.5-acre campus. This site, one of the "urban renewal" projects that displaced residents in the 1960s, is a stark, drab industrial building resembling a parking garage. However, on the day of my visit, the building’s uninspired exterior stood in stark contrast to the vibrant scene unfolding within. Children darted about, enjoying watermelon slices and salami from a long table laden with snacks. Adults exchanged warm hugs and handshakes. A DJ, positioned behind a set of turntables and mixers, captured the attention of many 11-year-olds, filling the room with buoyant music.

Norman Sylvester opened the event, kicking off a lineup of musicians and speakers that spanned genres and generations, from blues to hip-hop, high school students to esteemed elders. He stepped onto the stage, his guitar held more like an extension of his body than an object. Though Sylvester has explored various musical genres throughout his career, his roots remain firmly planted in the blues. When asked about his connection to this music, he mused, "I can only imagine a man like Muddy Waters or Son House, plowing a field, driving a tractor all day, and still being able to play a guitar and sing at that quality. Where did that come from?" Before I could offer a guess, he provided his own answer: "From the dedication they had to doing something better. Those journeys just mean something to me, so I want to keep that going." Listening to him play that afternoon, his guitar bending notes into melodies that were both achingly sweet and profoundly resonant, I reflected on his words and their profound implication: a song is not merely an artifact to be archived, but a living archive in itself, preserving a record of life within its melody, lyric, rhythm, and pitch for future access.

The Gangsters’ musical output lasted a few years, during which they recorded several tracks at a studio in Vancouver, Washington. After the band disbanded, some members achieved significant success elsewhere: two toured with B.B. King, another played with the jazz icons The Crusaders, and Memory eventually won a Grammy. However, The Gangsters’ recordings were never officially released, languishing in a closet for four decades. Even Memory’s daughter, Tahirah Memory, remained unaware of these recordings until AMT rediscovered them in 2017. Tahirah herself is an acclaimed vocalist and songwriter based in Portland, known for her melodic and lyrical songs steeped in jazz and soul traditions, performing at approximately 90 shows annually. Although she grew up immersed in Albina’s music scene – "at our house, musicians were always coming and going, Mel Brown, Ron Steen, Janice Scroggins" – she did not fully grasp the extent of the obstacles they faced or their remarkable perseverance. "The archive fills in a lot of gaps," she told me, both personally and publicly. "In this country, there hasn’t been a huge invitation for Black folks to have a history." In 2018, AMT released The Gangsters’ album on vinyl, accompanied by a booklet featuring oral histories and photographs chronicling the band’s journey. To celebrate, the Trust organized an album-release concert that reunited historic groups alongside contemporary musicians, selling out the 300-seat Alberta Rose Theatre within hours.

Watching the story of Albina’s past unfold through the work of AMT has been a deeply healing experience, Tahirah shared. "The archive is as much about social change as it is about music. It’s a record of how Black people have leaned on art to make a way." Facing adversity, she explained, "this is what people with brilliance and light and determination do. Some of the best magic has come out of Albina because it was a place where not-great things happened."

By the time The Gangsters recorded their tracks in the 1970s, Albina had undergone significant transformations. Following World War II, Portland, like many cities across the nation, embarked on a program of "urban renewal." Utilizing federal funds designated for clearing "slums," local governments systematically dismantled neighborhoods and repurposed the land for commercial and institutional development, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents. Black and minority neighborhoods were disproportionately identified as "blighted" and subsequently demolished under the guise of renewal. In a poignant 1963 interview, James Baldwin starkly articulated the reality behind this euphemism: "Cities now are engaged in something called urban renewal, which means moving the Negros out. It means Negro removal; that is what it means." Portland was no exception to this pattern.

In the late 1950s, the city demolished hundreds of homes in Albina to make way for Interstate 5 and the Memorial Coliseum. Then, in the late 1960s, Portland secured federal funding to raze 76 acres for the expansion of Legacy Emanuel Hospital. This land encompassed hundreds of residences, vital community gathering places, including a teen club called the Seven of Diamonds, and the commercial heart of Albina: the intersection of Williams and Russell. Black leaders mobilized to resist the city-sponsored destruction of their neighborhoods. Even where housing was less than ideal, "the community was thriving," Walker asserted. Advocating for rehabilitation rather than demolition, organizers formed the Albina Neighborhood Improvement Project in 1961 and successfully halted the destruction of some areas slated for demolition, leading to the rehabilitation of hundreds of homes and the creation of a park.

However, other projects proceeded unabated. Neighborhoods in lower Albina were razed and replaced by the Portland Public School District’s headquarters and the Water Bureau. Subsequently, in the early 1970s, the city approved the hospital expansion. The intersection of Williams and Russell was condemned and bulldozed. A single physical remnant survived: the onion-shaped cupola was relocated to a gazebo in Dawson Park a few blocks north. This project displaced 171 households, three-quarters of them Black. Yet, the hospital expansion never materialized. Instead, the land lay vacant for the next 50 years. In total, more than 1,100 housing units in Albina were destroyed through "urban renewal," along with dozens of businesses and community hubs.

Following these demolitions, financial institutions further redlined what remained of the neighborhood, denying residents access to mortgage and home improvement loans. Those seeking to purchase a home or invest in a business faced a stark choice: leave Albina or borrow from private, often predatory, lenders. This situation exacerbated displacement, and by the 1980s, vacant buildings began to proliferate. One neighborhood activist, urging city intervention, documented 900 abandoned structures.

As Albina’s businesses and clubs faced closure or demolition, racial tensions intensified across Portland in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Downtown venues began excluding Black bands, fearing alienation of white audiences. Competition from other entertainment forms, such as late-night television and disco, coupled with new drunk driving laws and instances of police brutality, led to a decline in live music attendance. This confluence of factors made it increasingly difficult for musicians to earn a living from gigs. Concurrently, the problems stemming from chronic disinvestment grew, manifesting as unemployment, gang violence, and the drug trade. Nevertheless, music remained a vital force: "It was a way of maintaining camaraderie, a connecting piece for people’s spirits," Berry told me. During these challenging years, Albina’s musicians, educators, and community leaders redoubled their efforts to sustain Black music culture in Portland.

In 1976, Berry co-founded the World Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating African American culture through community choirs, orchestras, marching bands, and after-school programs. An annual event known as "Keep Alive the Dream" showcased these ensembles and remains one of the nation’s longest-running tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. In an endeavor to reconnect musicians who had strayed from the path back to the stage while introducing new audiences to Black music traditions, Thara Memory helped establish a concert series called TimeSound. The inaugural performance in 1981 featured a 24-piece ensemble at the Civic Auditorium in downtown Portland, successfully transcending the racial barriers that often restricted access to downtown venues.

Inspired by TimeSound, Albina’s musicians initiated a similar big band and choir program for young people. YouthSound brought together hundreds of students for weekly rehearsals at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. While many participants were Black, the program was inclusive and spanned diverse genres, from jazz to classical. For many white students, it marked their first exposure to gospel music. This initiative led to a series of programs providing music education to Portland children who otherwise lacked access. Several alumni of these programs have since achieved international acclaim as musicians, including Domo Branch, Charlie Brown III, and the five-time Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding, widely regarded as the foremost female jazz bassist of her generation.

While the development of musical skills was a primary focus – and often an outcome – of these projects, their creators harbored a more profound objective. As Berry recounts in an oral history included with YouthSound, an AMT album featuring the ensemble’s 1982 performance at Jefferson High, "Each person in the choir is an individual, and when we sing, we’re making sure to let one another know that, even though we’re different individuals, we’re all connected. We have to deal with the same things together. I’m talking about social justice. I’m talking about peace, joy, happiness. That’s what the music did for all of us that were in the choir."

In the school auditorium that day, Ward and the gospel quartet commenced with Walter Hawkins’ song "Be Grateful." Their voices intertwined, building a sound so rich and layered it felt almost tangible. A young girl nearby, paused mid-bite into a cookie, her mouth agape, transfixed by the singers. The music filled the room, immersing everyone present in its resonant embrace.

The event concluded with Portland-based producers Tony Ozier and Jumbo, two of the five artists who remixed archival recordings to create contemporary, beat-driven tracks for AMT’s 2025 album, Soul Assembly. "We figured we could be the bridge, not just to take the old to the now, but to pass the torch so the youngsters can take it from us and walk forward," Jumbo announced to the audience. Soul Assembly derives its name from a 1968 musical theatre production conceived by the Black Student Union at Jefferson High in response to the escalating racial tensions following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Performed throughout the city, the production illuminated African American history while celebrating the vibrant culture and creativity of Portland’s Black community.

When Ozier encountered this story within the archive, he was struck by its significance. Portland, he noted, does not typically have a strong reputation for Black culture. Upon moving to the city 19 years prior as a young funk musician, he had not anticipated discovering such a deeply rooted Black music scene. However, he soon met Janice Scroggins, who introduced him to a wealth of local funk musicians. "I thought I was funkin’," Ozier recounted with a laugh. "She said, ‘You are funkin’ – but Portland ain’t new to funk.’" Ozier now teaches youth music classes for the Bodecker Foundation and hopes that AMT projects like the Soul Assembly album can help connect young people to the music and stories of Albina’s past. "This is Black history in Portland – where else do you hear that?" he asked. Culture, Ozier emphasized, is shaped by the music that young people engage with. "Listening to ‘say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud,’ when you’re 15 is different than listening to ‘you used to call me on your cellphone.’ Those words, they get stuck in your head whether you want them to or not."

That day, Ozier and Jumbo performed two tracks. The first, "Searchin’ for Love," was recorded in the 1970s by Shades Of Brown and released in 2024 on AMT’s label. With its laid-back groove and piercing vocals, the song is both irresistibly catchy and imbued with a palpable sense of anguish. Described in the liner notes as a "cry for decency," the track reflects the Albina community’s profound dismay at the city’s disregard for their neighborhoods. Next, Jumbo presented a remixed version, layering samples from his own coming-of-age years over the original track. A thumping beat and electronic intensity lent fresh potency to the original vocals, which reverberated relentlessly throughout. The song seemed to collapse time, holding the audience captivated with heads nodding in mesmerized appreciation. Its impact was perhaps especially powerful in this context – within a building constructed on the very ground where a once-thriving neighborhood had been razed, now filled with members of that displaced community who had returned to celebrate the enduring fruits of their culture. The setting mirrored the sonic landscape Jumbo had crafted, where histories layered upon one another, and echoes of the past mingled with present dreams. Like the song, the event served as both a tribute to history’s enduring influence and a testament to humanity’s capacity to create something new from the inheritance of experience.

Before the end of summer, I attended one more AMT event: the latest performance of TimeSound, Albina’s historic concert series, recently revived by AMT after a three-decade hiatus. This performance was part of the grand reopening celebration for the expanded Albina Library. Located on Russell Street, the library now stands just a block east of the intersection where Norman Sylvester found himself that autumn day in 1957, a young boy seeking a haircut. Before the concert, I walked over to the crossing.

There, the afternoon sun pooled on the asphalt, broken by the shade of street trees. Cars passed by. A woman carried a toddler down the sidewalk. I imagined Sylvester standing at this very spot all those years ago. If that 12-year-old boy returned today, I wondered, would he recognize anything? Apartments occupied two corners, and a commercial complex on the third housed the Urban League of Portland, a civil rights nonprofit. On the fourth corner, where the brick building with the onion-shaped cupola once stood, a chain-link fence enclosed a rectangle of bare land.

This space had remained vacant since its demolition in the 1970s. Now, half a century later, that is finally changing. Last February, a collaboration guided by a Black-led nonprofit, the Williams and Russell CDC, broke ground on a residential and commercial development that prioritizes access for individuals with generational ties to the neighborhood. The city of Portland, which in June agreed to a settlement paying $8.5 million to 26 descendants of displaced Black families, is among the project’s partners. Funding for the development is partly provided by the 1803 Fund, an organization dedicated to investing in Black Portland and supporting several restorative development initiatives underway in Albina. The 1803 Fund also supports AMT’s work, as Juma Sei, the organization’s community partnership manager, explained: "You can have a bunch of buildings, but it doesn’t matter if there isn’t a culture to put people into those buildings."

Sei first encountered AMT shortly after returning to Portland in 2024. He had grown up in the area, but his parents immigrated from Sierra Leone, leaving him without deep generational connections to Portland’s Black community. Seeking a better understanding of local Black history, he began exploring archives and discovered AMT. He was astonished. Sei had lived in Atlanta, Washington D.C., and Detroit, all cities celebrated for their Black culture. "Portland isn’t on that list," he noted. "But here was this living, breathing thing – the largest archive of its kind in the U.S. – right here in Portland. To me, it was a treasure trove."

Demographically, Sei observed, Albina is no longer the epicenter of Black life in Portland. Most Black Portlanders now reside further east or outside the city. At the library celebration events held thus far – featuring puppet theater and 3D printing demonstrations – Sei noticed a distinct lack of Black attendees. However, the scene at the TimeSound concert presented a stark contrast.

In a spacious meeting room, a dreamy mural served as a backdrop to a stage, and glass doors opened onto a courtyard where attendees stood in the sun, enjoying complimentary horchata oat-milk popsicles. The space was bathed in light and filled to near capacity with a predominantly Black audience, though others were also present, creating a crowd that spanned generations: seniors, individuals in their forties, and infants in arms.

Calvin Walker stepped up to the microphone first. "Is this not a miracle?" he exclaimed. "To have this beautiful facility, the second-largest library in Portland, right here?" The room erupted in applause. "There was a time when nobody wanted to live in Albina," he continued. "After Vanport, this is where we landed, and we made it vibrant. Now, it’s going to come back, and it’s going to come back with all of us."

The concert was directed by Ward, who, in the TimeSound tradition, led an intergenerational ensemble performing works by Albina’s Black composers. When Berry asked her to direct, Ward admitted to some trepidation. "It’s hard not to get imposter syndrome. These musicians are my heroes, my teachers. They’ll always be legendary to me." Yet, on stage