KBOO Remembers 1948 Vanport Flood
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1948 Vanport Flood
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A massive flood responsible for wiping an entire city off of the map near
Portland in 1948 was the subject of a three hour KBOO-produced special broadcast on Friday May 24th.
Sixty five years ago, a dike broke on the Columbia River and record Spring runoff washed away Vanport City, the largest public housing project ever built in the U.S. Fifteen people died in the flood, which also left 18,500 people homeless, a large number of whom were black. The flood changed race relations in Portland forever.
Our special programming on the Vanport flood looked specifically at lingering racism in Portland, sixty five years later. We featured historians and archived audio, as well as a discussion led by Portland State University professor and activist Walidah Imarisha asking 'Why are there so few black people in Oregon'. Listen to the audio below.
Why Are There So Few Black People in Oregon? | 
