Perhaps the whitest city of any significant size in America.

In 1859, the new state of Oregon forbade African-American settlement. Those who defied the rule faced punishment.

After the Civil War, black people could not marry outside their race, had to pay poll taxes and could not serve on juries.

In the early 1900s, lynching and mock lynchings became a part of vigilante justice in Southern Oregon.

The Ku Klux Klan dominated state politics in the early 1920s.

In response to the state's reputation, the black population stayed small, growing to only 1,556 in 1920.

On the eve of World War II, the Portland African-American population was less than 2,000.

A hostile Jim Crow climate limited black employment, housing and other opportunities. Jobs were limited to the service industries and the railroad.

By the early '60s, a significant part of the community was leveled for the Memorial Coliseum.

Then the building of the Minnesota (Interstate 5) Freeway corridor destroyed a huge part of what was left.

In 1970, the Portland Development Commission dealt a major blow by tearing down 33 blocks for the planned, but never built, Emanuel Hospital Urban Renewal Project. The heart of the architecturally rich and culturally complex community of Albina was eviscerated.

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