Local Learning and Resources

OPB’s Oregon Experience - Broken Treaties

Hundreds of books exist about the Lewis and Clark expedition and the decades of pioneers who followed them West.  But even today, most Oregonians don't know much about the people who had settled here centuries before "the settlers" came.  "Broken Treaties" introduces viewers to the tribes of our state and explores a thread of the Oregon story that hasn't been told very well over the years.

Wacth Documentary

Two Spirits, One Heart, Five Genders

For European settlers the Original Peoples way of life was perplexing, including the the Two Spirits tradition.“The New World.” This romanticized term inspired legions of Europeans to race to the places we live in search of freedoms from oppressive regimes or treasures that would be claimed in the name of some European nation.

At the point of contact, all Native American societies acknowledged three to five gender roles: Female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male and transgendered. LGBT Native Americans wanting to be identified within their respective tribes and not grouped with other races officially adopted the term “Two Spirit” from the Ojibwe language in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1989.

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REMEMBRANCE  How do you reconcile a lynching?

It starts with remembrance. For three years, ORP, the Coos History Museum, and the City of Coos Bay worked to memorialize Alonzo Tucker, Oregon's only documented African American victim of lynching, into the collective memory and collective consciousness of Oregon. This work began February 29, 2020 with a soil collection ceremony for Alonzo Tucker near the spot where he was killed. Two jars of soil were collected. One was sent back to a museum in Montgomery and the other was put on display at the Coos History Museum. On June 19, 2021, a historical marker was installed in Coos Bay to honor Alonzo Tucker and the thousands of other African Americans who were lynched in the United States. This historical marker has become a permanent fixture in the geographic memory of Coos Bay and represents a community's intentional commitment to finding justice for historical injustice

Black Land taken by City of Portland & Emanuel (Lutheran) Hospital, Now Legacy Emanuel

Click here For Emanual Hospital Story

Vanport by OPB’s Oregon Experience

Watch OPB's Vanport Documentary