Oregon State University – Cascades will host a lecture on Jan. 29 in honor of Black History Month about the life and legacy of Letitia Carson, one of the first Black woman settlers in Oregon.
The lecture, by Zachary Stocks, a public historian and executive director of the Oregon Black Pioneers, will take place from 5:30 – 7 p.m. in the Charles McGrath Family Atrium in Edward J. Ray Hall on the OSU-Cascades campus.
An accompanying exhibit about Carson will be on view Jan. 29 – Feb. 5.
Stocks will offer a detailed narrative of Carson’s life and accomplishments and discuss her place in Oregon and U.S. history. A formerly enslaved woman, Carson came to Oregon in 1845, when African Americans were legally barred from residency and civil rights. She married an Irish emigrant, David Carson. After he died she was forced off her land because of Oregon’s exclusion laws. She filed two lawsuits against the administrator of her late husband’s estate and despite the Oregon Territory’s exclusionary laws, won both suits.
Carson’s estate sits on land owned by OSU in Benton County.
Stocks is also an outdoor educator and historical interpreter, focusing on 18th and 19th century America, with an emphasis on African American history and the history of westward expansion. He previously worked at the Northwest African American Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Lewis & Clark National Historical Park. He holds a master’s degree in museology from the University of Washington.
The talk and exhibit are made possible through the Letitia Carson Legacy Project, a partnership between the Black Oregon Land Trust, Oregon Black Pioneers, Linn-Benton Counties NAACP, Mudbone Grown and OSU.
The lecture is free, but registration is requested at beav.es/Letitia-Carson.