Urban League Of Portland

Our Advocacy and Civic Engagement efforts focus on informing, engaging and organizing the community to achieve a more equitable and just place to live and work. Recently, the program, in efforts to create stable, viable communities, engaged and activated citizens to advocate for policy change in the city, county, and state and to work for equity in public health, employment, education, and entrepreneurship.

We also conduct research and assemble data for publication of the State of Black Oregon report, which measures the status of African Americans using key social and economic indicators and include new demographics. The report highlights the disparities faced by African Americans, who were near or at the bottom ranks of almost of every quality-of-life indicator in the state (infant mortality, poverty, incarceration, proximity to environmental toxins, underrepresentation in the workforce, high-school completion rate, post-secondary education, and home ownership, for example).

The report has informed policy throughout state and local government, has been implemented in the curricula of several Oregon institutions of higher education, and was hailed as "required reading" by The Oregonian's editorial board.