The Importance of Dawson Park to the Community

by Maddie Gadbaw and Sophia Spry

“Do these rocks mean anything?”

We were asked this question by a young, white man lounging against the rocks in Dawson Park on the first sunny day of spring. To someone visiting the park, these rocks, inscribed with words and pictures, don’t look like much. But to the community that surrounds the park, the rocks, which explain significant events for the black community in Portland, do in fact mean a great deal.

One man approached us while we were asking questions. He was an older, black gentleman with an army print jacket, white wispy hair, and a cigarette in his hands. The first thing he wanted to know was: What were we doing? It was a fair question. We certainly looked like strangers holding a camera and walking up to different people. We explained to him that we wanted to learn more about the history of the park, he seemed almost defensive.

Before he would answer our questions, he wanted us to answer his question first: “What do you know about the park?” We told him the truth; that is we really don’t know much about this community. He led us over to the rocks mentioned earlier, and instructed us to count them. He pointed to the 12 rocks, instructing us to read the writing inscribed on each before asking him any more questions.

Our goal of going down to Dawson Park was to ask a wide variety of visitors about this park. We asked them, “What does this park mean to you? What memories do you have of this park? What do you think about calling parts of this park ‘kid-friendly’ and ‘sketchy’?”  The last question is supposed to get people to talk about the very clear divide between the young, white families and the black community that runs almost directly through the middle of the park.

On one side, there is a shiny new playground where kids run around screaming and playing. On the other side, black families play dominoes, cook food, and play music. No one on either side interacts much with the other. As one community member sitting on a bench calmly eating her lunch blatantly put it in her opinion: “There’s the bad side, and a good side.” The purpose of this experience for us was to see what the people around Dawson Park think about the dynamics of their community.