PORTLAND, Ore — Until this week, the city of Portland had never named a park after a black woman. And now, while seemingly the entire country is talking about how we can end systemic racism, it finally happened.
Portland Parks and Recreation announced the opening of Verdell Burdine Rutherford Park on Tuesday. The park in the Centennial Neighborhood in Southeast Portland was formerly named Lynchview Park, after Patrick Lynch.
"For the community to know that there's a park named after a black person, let alone a black woman," said Charlotte Rutherford, Verdell's daughter. "It's new, it's exciting, it's positive - let's hope, in this time of lots of adversity. Yeah, it's a good thing."
Verdell Burdine Rutherford was born in Oklahoma in 1913, and moved to Oregon with her family later that year. Her family's goal was to get farmland under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. But when they arrived, they learned that black people were prohibited from owning free land in Oregon.
Verdell married Otto G. Rutherford and settled in Portland in 1936. The two were leaders of the Oregon chapter of the NAACP - Otto as president, Verdell as secretary. They worked hard to enact change, including the passing of the Public Accommodations Act of 1953 - also known as the Oregon Civil Rights Bill - which outlawed discrimination in public places on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.
"Public accommodations was an affront to black people. Signs saying you could not come in, you could not eat, you could not sleep, you could not transverse - you could not be there. So the public accommodations law that [my parents] passed really did set the tone for future laws and future protections for protected classes."
"This renaming is an important way to recognize her contributions to Portland and to show that Portland is learning from its racist past to create a more equitable future," said Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Verdell was also an avid historian of Portland's black community, and her collection of photographs, albums, newspapers, and more has been digitized to be available for academic research and public use at Portland State University.
From a young age, Charlotte remembers her mom collecting and saving those items, and working extremely hard to help the black community. But Verdell was never the one front and center, making speeches.
"She was not one who wanted to be up front, to get all the glory," said Charlotte. "She did all the work for the person who went out and made the speech. She did the fliers, she did the handouts, she did the program, you know. And the meal after the speech - if there was food, she would've cooked that too."
"She was very much a volunteer," said Charlotte. "Church, civic organizations, her own job - she worked also for Doctor [Denorval] Unthank, who was the only black doctor at the time. She taught herself how to be a medical secretary."
At first glance, the naming of the 8-acre park may seem perfectly timed, while the topic of racism is front and center in America. Thousands of people are marching through the streets of Portland every day, protesting the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while in the custody of a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day. But Verdell Burdine Rutherford Park was in the works before the protests began.
Before former Parks Commissioner Nick Fish passed away in January 2020, he directed a naming committee to recommend a new name for the park.
And when Charlotte heard the naming committee's decision, she fought to make sure her mother's full name ended up on the park.
"You've got the whole name, so you can tell who this person is," she said. "The other parks [e.g. Irving Park in Northeast Portland] you just get a piece of name, you know, you don't really know who the people were to begin with. So there's a whole name that, you know, you can actually associate with somebody. And let's hope that enough people recognize that that name is of a black woman."
And the committee that named the park didn't even know about a hidden connection between Nick Fish and Verdell's family, that brings the project full circle.
"I have known Nick, and his wife especially, Patricia Schechter, is largely responsible for my mom's collection being at Portland State," said Charlotte. "So there was a connection to my mom - indirect though it was - and the parks department through Nick Fish, that Nick didn't know anything about. He passed before they made the decision to give it to my mom. So it's come full circle on its own."
The playground at Verdell Burdine Rutherford Park is currently closed due to COVID-19 (as are all PP&R playgrounds), but the rest of the park features are open. That includes a renovated grass soccer field, a new picnic shelter, and pubic art installations. A Portland Loo is expected to open this summer, but a portable toilet is on site in the meantime. These renovations are thanks to the 2014 Parks Replacement Bond and Parks System Development Charges.
"It's really appreciated. And I think the black community will be equally appreciative," said Charlotte. "I hope we're all able to get out there and use that park, and appreciate Mom's name being on it."
A community celebration at Verdell Burdine Rutherford Park will be held at a later date.