Join Mt. Adams Institute for a virtual Sense of Place event, “Black Pioneers on the Oregon Trail,” on Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. on Zoom, featuring historian Zachary Stocks.
“Written records, journals, and oral histories have given us an incredibly detailed understanding of the individuals and families who headed west on the Oregon Trail,” said a Mt. Adams Institute press release. “But there is one group of pioneers who we still know very little about — the Black Americans who traveled the trail. What might it have been like to come to Oregon, the only state in the union to paradoxically declare itself a free state, while also having Black exclusion laws on the books? And who are some of the Black pioneers that came to the Pacific Northwest and forever changed this place, its people, and history?”
Zachary Stocks will share stories of Black pioneers on the trail and in the Gorge and why there’s still so much of this history yet to be uncovered.
Stocks is a public historian, educator, and museum professional from Astoria. Stocks has interpreted the experiences of people of African descent in the Pacific Northwest for more than five years. He is a former staff member of the Northwest African American Museum and Historical Seaport, a volunteer interpretive ranger at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, and is the new Executive Director of Oregon Black Pioneers, the state’s African American Historical Society.
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