Salem Art Association & Oregon Black Pioneers Present: The Statesman and The Freedman

Show Notes

The Bush Pasture Park, its buildings and its history are very nice and
also a stark reminder of Oregon's racist history. This week on The
Forum, you'll hear about Oregon's entry into statehood, just a few years
before the Civil War, and the racist law enacted as a tradeoff for not
being officially a "slave state." Asahel Bush, the farmer who left the
land to the city, also ran a newspaper in the pioneer days and used it
to trumpet his pro-slavery opinions. Years later that newspaper's
best-known employee was a Black man, a Civil War veteran. The Forum this
week presents a review of that time in our history, as researched and
delivered by Zachary Stocks, the Executive Director of Oregon Black
Pioneers.