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Oral history interview with Isaka Shamsud-Din [Transcript]

Transcript. This oral history interview with Isaka Shamsud-Din was conducted by Milo Reed and P.C. Peri from December 7, 2018, to January 25, 2019. Isaka Shamsud-Din was nominated by Oregonians to be interviewed as part of a program by the Oregon Historical Society Research Library to enhance and expand the range of voices in the library's collections. Interviewees are selected from the pool of nominees by a staff committee appointed by the historical society's executive director. The interview was conducted in three sessions.

In the first interview session, conducted on December 7, 2018, Shamsud-Din discusses his family background and early life on a farm in Atlanta, Texas. He talks about his life in Vanport, Oregon, from 1947 until the 1948 flood that destroyed Vanport. He shares his experiences studying art at the University of Kansas and at the Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon, while a teenager; and talks about the reasons he considered dropping out of high school, including racism he experienced and the focus of public school curriculum on white culture and history. He also shares his reasons for changing his name to Isaka Shamsud-Din. He talks about hitchhiking to San Francisco, California, after high school.

In the second interview session, conducted on January 18, 2019, Shamsud-Din discusses studying art at Portland State University and painting his first murals. He speaks at length about his involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas during the civil rights movement. He talks about living in San Francisco from 1966 to 1967 and about his involvement with the Black arts community there; about living in Anchorage, Alaska; and about returning to Portland to teach at PSU. He discusses serving as artist-in-residence at several educational institutions during the 1970s, including Reed College; talks about his work with the Albina Mural Project; and shares his experiences of not being paid adequately for his work. He talks about the status of the Black community in Portland.

In the third and final interview session, conducted on January 25, 2019, Shamsud-Din discusses his role in starting Black studies courses at San Francisco State University and at PSU, and shares his thoughts on the value of such programs. He talks about his involvement with the Nation of Islam, about his reasons for leaving the organization in 1976, and about his identity as a Black Muslim. He also speaks further about his reasons for changing his name. He discusses his painting process and his work as an editorial cartoonist, and talks about vandalism of some of his murals in Portland. He closes the interview by talking about the lives of his siblings, about the patronage of Arlene Schnitzer and Harold Schnitzer for his art, and about the many jobs he worked over his life.

Shamsud-Din, Isaka, 1940-

Oral history interview with Gladys Sims McCoy [Transcript]

Transcript. This oral history interview was conducted by Linda S. Dodds at the Multnomah County Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, from February 20 to June 22, 1981. At the time of the interview, Dodds’ name was Linda S. Broday.In this interview, McCoy discusses her early life on a farm during the Depression in Chattanooga, Tennessee, including how segregation affected her childhood, her education, and her early jobs. She then discusses attending Talladega University in Alabama, including the experience of having an international faculty and thereby an integrated community in the heart of the segregated South. She also talks about studying sociology. She describes seeking employment in the field of social work and accepting a job in Portland, Oregon, as assistant teenage program director at the YWCA. She discusses differences in the ways the black population was treated in Portland, compared to her experiences in the South. She describes meeting Bill McCoy and their subsequent marriage, giving up her career to stay at home, and later pursuing a career again after raising seven children over 17 years. She talks about attending Portland State University as an older student and the difficulty of finding child care. She then describes her work with Project Head Start in Vancouver, Washington; teaching sociology and counseling students at Clark College; and teaching sociology at Pacific University in Forest Grove. McCoy discusses her involvement in local politics. She talks about serving on the board of Portland Public Schools, including her campaign and programs to improve schools. She speaks at length about the board’s efforts to implement middle schools, and the opposition the idea faced. She talks about her involvement with Bob Straub’s successful 1975 campaign for Oregon governor and serving as an ombudsman for the governor, as well as some of the cases she investigated. She talks about her 1978 campaign for Multnomah County commissioner. She describes some of her work as commissioner, the types of complaints she received, and her support for city-county consolidation. She closes the interview by discussing her philosophy of life.

McCoy, Gladys Sims, 1928-1993