This year Portland's Juneteenth celebration will return to Jefferson High School's sports field. "The spirit of Juneteenth is jubilation," says Doris Rush, chair of the Portland Juneteenth Committee. "It's happy. It's a celebration of freedom, and it's about freedom for everyone, not just African Americans, because slavery still exists in the world."

An increase in violence this year, has brought community leaders and grassroots activists together in an attempt to strengthen community networks and support minority youth. African American ministers called a meeting Friday at Life Change Christian Center on N. Williams St. to coordinate that effort.

Portland Commissioner Nick Fish announced an action plan for the city's housing discrimination problem.
Several "tests" (read: stings) over the past year have revealed that a number of landlords in the city treat Black, Hispanic and disabled people differently than their White counterparts.
The action plan – which includes a partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries– requires:

This week anti-crime crusader Kevin Mannix revealed that behind all the get-tough-crime rhetoric he's talked about over the years, there's been something soft and squishy there all along.
Mannix, the man behind Measure 11 and other measures that have increased sentences for a variety of crimes, shocked the audience at Better People's  June 9 "Pay Now or Pay Later" forum  by saying some pretty progressive things about crime and punishment.

Three teams of SEI students from Portland high schools, worked for 6 months with mentors from NIKE and SEI, to develop shoes, clothing, branding and a marketing strategy for their product lines.

With a crime on your record, getting that next job just got harder.
When a person is given a felony conviction, in today's modern world, they've just been handed a life sentence. Until they die, they will likely forever be labeled a felon.
And given that we are imprisoning more of our own citizens than we have ever before – and more than any other country in the earth, including China – it's surprising that not more is being done in the name of reform, to allow people to "correct" themselves after they've served their sentences.

They are young, gifted, Black… and very professional. If that describes you too, they have a network for you. But what ever your age, the Urban League of Portland's Young Professionals invites you to join them for the Let's Move health event Saturday June 11

Rose Festival activities continue this week with Fred Meyer Junior Parade, the Spirit Mountain Casino Grand Floral Parade.
The junior parade will take over the Hollywood District on Wednesday, June 8. More than 10,000 children will continue the tradition set in 1936 to dance, drum, skate, bike, trike, unicike, scoot and stroller down Sandy Boulevard at 1 p.m. The biggest parade of the festival, the Grand Floral Parade, will kick off at 10 a.m. on June 11 at Memorial Coliseum.

Anita Hill's testimony at Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings brought sexual harassment into the open. This week the Brandeis University professor comes to Portland as the 'Courageous Voice' at Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette's Courageous Voice Breakfast 2011.

Grassroots community activists are organizing events aimed at building support networks around Portland's youth. The move comes as a response to the rise in youth violence that has brought more than 30 reports of shootings this year and five teen deaths, several grassroots efforts to build community and surround teens with caring adults.