By Rayna Reid Rayford ·Updated December 5, 2023

Last year, “26 Black descendants of families” who resided in the historically Black neighborhood of Albina, filed “[a] federal civil rights lawsuit…against the city of Portland and Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center,” The Oregonian reports. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the suit, but last Friday, a judge ruled that the plaintiffs can proceed.

As the complaint reads, “[t]his case is about the intentional destruction of a thriving Black neighborhood in Central Albina under the pretense of facilitating a hospital expansion that never happened.”

“This horribly racist chapter from Portland’s past has not closed, causing plaintiffs continuing harm,” the suit continues. It also alleges a conspiracy, stating that “[r]ecently discovered information, long concealed by defendants, shows that urban renewal and blight were pretexts for defendants’ real motive: a racist desire to remove Black people from the economically valuable neighborhood of Central Albina.”

During the 1960s and 1970s, approximately 80 percent of Black Portlanders resided in Albina. In a press release announcing the lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs Connie Mack said, “That home was our foundation, and the sense of community in that neighborhood is what made us thrive.”

“I was taken out of my safe and loving community,” Mack lamented. “I was moved into a neighborhood that saw me as a nuisance and to a school where I was one of three Black children.”

Another plaintiff LaKeesha Dumas echoed these sentiments, stating, “My great grandma owned a boarding home that helped the Black community. I’m devastated that her work didn’t get passed down…There was a racist conspiracy to violate our civil rights. It’s my turn to get in the fight and advocate for our family.”

In addition to financial compensation, the group wants “tangible justice beyond symbolic apologies,” for their significant losses.

In their motion to dismiss, attorneys for the city and hospital attempted to argue that the plaintiffs who were suing “did not suffer direct harm and that the statute of limitations had run out.”

However, “U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon disagreed, saying the loss of community, including family homes and intergeneratio[nal] wealth, is indeed direct damage,” KGW8 reports.

“The destruction of Central Albina and the failure to expand the hospital as promised, leaving vacant and abandoned land, has certainly injured the public generally,” wrote Judge Simon.

The judge also noted how this displacement caused Portland to be robbed from housing a “thriving Black community” on top of depriving the community from “expanded health care.”

TOPICS:  Portland Oregon Racism

The post Lawsuit Says City Of Portland, Hospital Conspired In The “Intentional Destruction” Of A Thriving Black Neighborhood appeared first on Essence.

Decorated U.S. Olympian and maternal health advocate Allyson Felix opened up about the death of her former teammate Tori Bowie during a televised interview on Sunday morning.

The track star appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and addressed Bowie’s pregnancy-involved death last year, her own struggles during childbirth and the overall topic of Black maternal health.

MORE: Maternal Death Rates Have More Than Doubled For Black Women, New Study Finds

Felix recalled her own experience of being compelled to “hide” her pregnancy from her main sponsor Nike because of contractual reasons, calling it “a really isolating and lonely time, instead of a really – a time that we could celebrate.”

WATCH: @allysonfelix calls for more implicit bias training in the medical community.

“There’s countless stories of women not being heard when they are in the delivery room, at doctor’s appointments.” pic.twitter.com/nFPelVj4C3

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

That tragic-turned-triumphant experience is in part what helped Felix become an advocate for maternal health, a topic she discussed and contextualized with her teammates’ complicated pregnancies as well as Bowie’s death in May of this year from complications from childbirth. Bowie was about eight months pregnant with a developed fetus when she was found dead, according to an autopsy.

Officials have speculated that Bowie’s death could have been brought on by a condition called eclampsia, which is defined by the Mayo Clinic as “a complication of pregnancy” that “usually begins after 20 weeks of pregnancy in women whose blood pressure had previously been in the standard range.” Notably, it can be deadly if left untreated.

Felix — with severe preeclampsia — gave birth to her son in 2018 after having to undergo an emergency C-section at 32 weeks. The life-threatening experience changed her life completely and now Felix looks to help others become aware of the maternity mortality crisis Black women face.

“This condition does not discriminate. It doesn’t matter if you have the – the best medical care. You can still suffer from it. And to me, it just really hurts my heart that my friend, Tori, passed away, and it brought this back to the forefront,” Fleix said. “But this has been happening, you know? This is the reality of Black women giving birth in America. And there are so many situations that are like this. And so I hate that it takes such a – a devastating loss, you know, to bring it back to the forefront. But it also is just such a motivation that, you know, we have to do better.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Black women dominate the maternal mortality rate with “significantly higher than rates for White and Hispanic women,” citing statistics from 2021. The disparity has nothing to do with education or socio-economic levels.

“Black women face disrespect, abuse, and mistreatment in facility-based settings like hospitals, at a much higher rate than other people of color, particularly, more so than white women,” Breana Lipscomb, senior advisor for Maternal Health & Rights at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told NewsOne in an interview last year. “We have to make sure that they are receiving safe and respectful care when they walk into a hospital.”

Click here to watch the full “Meet the Press” interview with Allyson Felix.

SEE ALSO:

Lawsuits Against Program Helping Black Women Survive Childbirth Reveals Pro-White Agenda

It’s Time To Prioritize Black Maternal Mental Health

The post Allyson Felix Opens Up About Tori Bowie And ‘The Reality Of Black Women Giving Birth In America’ appeared first on NewsOne.