Guests mingle April 11 during the opening night of Clark County Historical Museum’s newest exhibit, “This Is Our Legacy,” which commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Vancouver NAACP. (Photos by Zach Wilkinson for The Columbian)Photo Gallery
The NAACP’s Vancouver branch is celebrating its 80th anniversary this month with a new exhibit at the Clark County Historical Museum. “This Is Our Legacy” opened with a reception April 11 and will be on display for at least three years, said Katie Bush, the museum’s engagement and interpretation manager.
“We’ve been working for about two or three years to get this exhibit off the ground, working with the NAACP, talking with former presidents and leaders to learn a lot more,” Bush said. “It’s really collaborative.”
History and housing
The seed for the exhibit began with the late Claudia Carter’s “Black History Highlights of Southwest Washington Presented by Vancouver NAACP,” Bush said, created 2018 in partnership with the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District and displayed outside the Clark County Historical Museum during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Carter died in 2022.) The timeline created a lot of interest about local Black history, Bush said.
The NAACP Vancouver Chapter was founded in April 1945 in response to Vancouver’s burgeoning Black population, many of whom came to work for the Kaiser Shipyards during World War II. Vancouver’s population was just under 19,000 before the war but it grew to nearly 70,000 during the war, with roughly 9,000 Black residents. (By comparison, Vancouver now has a population of about 191,000, with about 6,200 Black residents, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.)
IF YOU GO
What: “This Is Our Legacy: The 80th Anniversary of the NAACP Vancouver Branch 1139-B”
When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 5 to 8 p.m. on the first Friday of every month
Cost: $5 for adults; $4 for seniors ages 62 and older or students ages 18 and older with student ID; $3 for children ages 5 to 18; free for ages 4 and under; free for active military, first responders, essential health care workers and their families.
Historical documents reveal rising racial tensions in the community, Bush said. The NAACP Vancouver branch was formed to combat the discrimination Black citizens faced as they sought housing, education and jobs.
Vancouver responded to the population growth by building more housing, Bush said. Vancouver didn’t have “redlining” per se — denying mortgages based race or ethnicity, regardless of creditworthiness — because it was too small. (The practice was finally outlawed in 1968 with the Fair Housing Act.) However, Vancouver was segregated in practice through restrictive covenants stipulating that no people of color could live in certain houses. Bush said that more research is needed to gain a better understanding of discriminatory housing practices in Vancouver’s history.
‘Groundswell of support’
The Vancouver NAACP still focuses on housing equity, but it’s only one of many initiatives, current President Larry Nelson said. He began his two-year term in January after serving as the NAACP’s political affairs chair. Leadership of the group has also expanded.
“Last year, there were 10 people on the executive committee. Recently we had a groundswell of support within our community and now our committee is 20 people strong,” said Nelson, who retired in 2020 from his 32-year career for the city of Portland.
He said the chapter has created nine new committees, including Young Professionals; Health and Wellness; Economic Development; Community Engagement; and Youth and Education. The Vancouver NAACP now has its first-ever LGBTQ+ committee, Nelson said, offering outreach to student associations and local pride organizations.
Nelson acknowledged the hard work of recent past president Yolanda Frazier, not just in terms of what she did for the NAACP but also her key role in creating “This Is Our Legacy.”
“What I do know is that this vision for the exhibit was inspired by Yolanda Frazier, working in concert with the Clark County Historical Museum,” Nelson said. “Pretty much all I did was see it through to the finish line.”
Leading the change
In addition to honoring Frazier’s leadership, “This Is Our Legacy” highlights several key figures in the Vancouver NAACP’s history, Bush said, such as Valree Joshua, president of the Vancouver NAACP for over 20 years, and Earl Ford, president for 10 years. Bertha Baugh, co-president with Joshua from 1973-1977, was one of the Vancouver NAACP’s charter members, along with her husband, David, and Mark A. Smith Sr., originally from Houston, Tex.
Smith, a Tuskegee Airman and student at New York’s Columbia University, came to Vancouver in 1943 to work as an U.S. Air Force radio and radar technician. NAACP branches were established in Seattle and Portland in 1913 and 1914, respectively, but resources were scarce for people of color in Vancouver. Smith founded the Vancouver chapter with 10 other members and became its first president.
The group grew to 378 members by the end of its first year and decreased Black unemployment locally by 47 percent, according to a report by NAACP leadership. Smith went on to work for the Vancouver Housing Authority but remained president of the Vancouver NAACP until the 1950s, when he became the administrator of the Fair Employment Practices Division of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and later the administrator of the bureau’s Civil Rights Division.
A living exhibit
“This Is Our Legacy” outlines the chronology of the NAACP from its start to today, including details about civil rights, elections, the pandemic and local and national issues related to the NAACP’s advocacy work. The panels highlight significant events as well as “lesser-known protests that we’ve been lucky enough to learn about,” Bush said.
“We also created a civil rights timeline to place the NAACP in context of the greater Civil Rights Movement, what was happening in Washington state, as well as in Vancouver. It’s nice to juxtapose those things,” Bush said. “We’re hoping this is a jumping off point to learn more.”
Bush said that panels will be expanded throughout the exhibit’s duration as more information comes to light or current family members of past NAACP members share more of their family’s history. The goal is for the Black community to be in control of its own stories, Bush said. A highlight of this continuing narrative is an open letter from Mark Smith’s granddaughter, Darlene Smith.
“She worked with the museum to write a letter responding to her grandfather’s life that we’ve included in the exhibit,” Bush said. “It’s really special. It’s truly my favorite part of the exhibit — being able to create space for Darlene Smith to write about her grandfather and share photos. I hope to replicate that throughout the exhibit.”
Visitors can also see objects from the NAACP Vancouver’s history, including pamphlets, training materials, photographs and the branch’s 1945 charter. Bush said the museum would work with the Black community to “swap things out and keep things fresh” over the next three years.
“This Is Our Legacy” is a “living exhibit,” Nelson said. He encouraged community members to reach out to the museum at 360-993-5679 or NAACPStories@cchmuseum.org if they have anything to add to the NAACP’s story in Vancouver. Nelson himself made a remarkable discovery: His great aunt, Wallicia Harrison, had been a member of the Vancouver NAACP in the 1970s and ’80s.
“I didn’t know it until I looked the through the exhibit and found her handwriting on some of the papers from the NAACP Vancouver branch,” Nelson said. “I basically held a document that she held. I thought that was very powerful. I was blown away by it, caught completely off guard.”
The next generation
The exhibit also offers information about the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics for high school students, launched in 2021 by past NAACP president Bridgette Fahnbulleh. Nelson said that 17 students are currently participating in ACT-SO’s year-long program, working with volunteer instructors and mentors on a curriculum set by the national NAACP. Projects range from visual and performing arts to business and culinary arts, with tutorials and field trips to offer enrichment and encourage achievement. Regional winners compete for scholarships in a four-day national event.
Some NAACP branches have discontinued the program due to budget constraints, Nelson said, but the Vancouver branch is committed to keeping it going. It’s funded by donations and grants, Nelson said, including the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington, United Way and Initai Foundation. Nelson called it an “Olympics of the mind,” and said a number of past participants have gone on to college.
‘Unity and allies’
Nelson said the Vancouver NAACP currently has almost 170 members and he expects that number to grow.
“We seem to have people joining every week now,” he said.
NAACP members come from all racial backgrounds, Nelson said. The Vancouver NAACP briefly had a white president, Helen Holcomb, in the 1970s. Even the founding members of the national NAACP weren’t all Black. In that spirit, Nelson said he intends to deepen ties with the local League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). The Vancouver NAACP has been resilient and unwavering in its commitment to justice, he said, but there’s much more work to do, especially at this moment in history.
“We have come together with the single purpose to fight for civil rights. We understand that change doesn’t come easily but through determination and unity and allies in this community, it laid the foundation of where we are today,” Nelson said. “The Southwest Washington community needs us more than ever.”
Morning Briefing Newsletter
Get a rundown of the latest local and regional news every Mon-Fri morning.
