By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – Zachary Stocks is heavily involved in the Oregon coast tourism industry.
The native of Williamsburg, Va. has worked on the tall ships that visited ports up and down Oregon and Washington. He’s currently an interpretive guide at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park in Astoria.
As the executive director of a statewide historical group, he visits museums all over Oregon.
And, Stocks also calculates he is one of 40 Blacks living in Astoria, population 10,000.
“Sometimes I can go whole weeks without seeing another Black person,” he told an audience of 100 Oregon coast tourism workers and officials Tuesday in Yachats.
The challenge for people running coastal hospitality businesses, he said, is to make “visitors of color feel welcomed” in a state that has not always been so welcoming.
Stocks’ keynote speech Tuesday was part of a two-day fall conference by the Oregon Coast Visitors Association, one of six regional arms of the quasi-state agency Travel Oregon. It drew more than 100 tourism promoters, operators and hospitality industry bosses and workers to a series of workshops and networking events throughout Yachats.
The coastal tourism agency highlights its extensive advertising and promotions with the theme “The Peoples Coast.” Stocks was asked to speak on how to make that promotion as welcoming to all visitors, especially people of color.
Stocks told the largely white audience how they might feel walking into a gathering – a party, family event or business meeting — where they can immediately sense tension in the room. That’s how many Black people subtly feel when traveling to a largely white area.
“… it’s a lifetime of practice being hyper-aware of what’s going on in our surroundings,” he said.
As executive director of the Oregon Black Pioneers historical organization, Stocks says he regularly gets inquiries from out-of-state potential visitors asking if it is safe to travel or move to Oregon.
He tells them that Oregon can be a welcoming state but is not without overt or subtle racial violence. He pointed to the July 4, 2020 incident in Lincoln City where a Black family from Portland was harassed by a group of white men from Vancouver, Wash. while trying to enjoy a fireworks show on the beach.
“Incidents like that are a reminder to Black families that it may not be a safe place to visit,” Stocks said.
While there are many ways to try making everyone feel welcome while visiting the coast, Stocks encouraged tourism workers to delve into their area’s history to learn about African-Americans who may have been noted in journals, newspaper clippings or land records – and include that information in promotional material and displays.
He said Sir Francis Drake had three African men and one pregnant woman aboard his Golden Hind when it came ashore near Whale Cove just south of Depoe Bay – the first visit of a white explorer to Oregon.
“As long as there have been white people in Oregon, there have been Black people,” Stocks said. “The truth is that Oregon’s African-American history begins on the Oregon coast.”
He said it’s up to the hospitality industry to dig up those facts – with the help of Oregon Black Pioneers or local historical groups – to display to all visitors.
“We’re a historical society … ” he said. “But we want to be a different kind of historical society.”
For example, Stocks said, how many Oregonians know of Beaver Hill in Coos County which had 100 Black residents living there working as miners between 1895-97? They then comprised one-tenth of Oregon’s entire Black population.
Stocks lauded the effort of the visitors association and the city of Waldport to name its new park after Louis Southworth, a former slave who homesteaded along the Alsea River and donated land for the area’s first school. The park entrance will feature a life-sized bronze statue of Southworth commissioned by the OCVA, which has a section of its website promoting a coastal Black history road trip.
“Make sure that racism and intolerance is not a part of your community,” Stocks said. “Help to make sure the People’s Coast is for people like us too.”
Thank you for this! I will certainly research and connect with the Oregon Black Pioneers in my on-going research for the third book in my Pocket Full of Seeds Trilogy.
Waldport is determined in its recognition of Louis Southworth, a former slave who bought his freedom by playing the fiddle, and donated the land for the first Waldport school. The new park will bear his name and the entryway will have a wonderful statue of the man. More than this, the city of Waldport recognizes a policy of diversity, equity and inclusion. All citizens belong in our city, none are left out.