In 2015, Albina Music Trust began as a response to support and collaborate with historic Black and Brown musicians in the Albina District of Portland, Oregon. Our practice has involved networking within the community to document oral histories, rare local music, and ephemera. Once the largest Black community in the state of Oregon, Albina’s legacy has been under threat due to historic systems of oppression such as redlining, civic disinvestment, and gentrification. In collaboration with community members, we’ve produced a variety of musician-led programs and have invested in these artists and their work. We developed a responsive preservation practice, accepting greater responsibility as stewards of Albina’s historic material and were soon adopted as a program under the World Arts Foundation, a Black-led 501(c)3 serving Oregonians at the intersection of arts and education since 1976.

In 2020, we formalized our preservation efforts with a plan to cultivate an initiative generating broader access to Albina’s arts and culture legacy of the late 20th century, the Albina Community Archive. We began with a simple goal: to create a digital repository where community members might access historic materials we’d preserved for educational use. With strategic planning and community feedback, we established the web architecture for a custom website and spent thousands of hours uploading materials we’d preserved to the site. Additionally, we broadened our collection development work in the community and expanded the website’s features to include a mobile-friendly layout, mapping and timeline integrations, as well as an interactive component allowing users to contribute information to the site.

On February 1, 2024 the Albina Community Archive went live. We celebrated this important milestone with our community and the response has been astounding. Some metrics reflecting our success include:

• 150 materials collections represented on the website, contributed by community members and partner organizations.

• 12,000 archive items featured throughout the site. These items include photography, film, audio, articles, printed materials, and oral histories.

• $450,000 raised that funded the project. Funds were used to subsidize 8 part-time and seasonal archive staff, 2 web developers, equipment and supply purchases, and event programming.

• 22 in-person and virtual events from 2020-2024 with roughly 4,450 total attendees. Most 2023-2024 events featured pop-up stations where community members were provided opportunities to engage with the developing website, meet archive staff, and share feedback about the website through an online survey.

• A weekly radio program “The Archive” on KMHD 89.1FM. The program engages listeners with music from the Albina Community Archive as well as interviews with musicians. The program currently airs twice per week with roughly 50,000 listeners.

An enormous THANK YOU goes out to our funders that helped us to realize this project: Regional Arts & Culture Council, Collins Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation, Marie Lamfrom Foundation, City Of Portland, Albina Vision Trust, Oregon Cultural Trust, Vanport Mosaic, Oregon Humanities, Travel Portland, Black United Fund Of Oregon, and the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition.

The Plan

With this phase of the project complete, we now look to the future and the next evolution of our work. We recognize the barriers to access that institutions have historically presented to minority populations seeking to document their history. And we understand the agency that community-based archives can offer community members. The reality we’re facing is that the vast array of cultural materials reflecting the experiences of marginalized populations are not commonly found in our institutions. They’re in the margins. These important stories and artifacts have been contained within communities and, without preservation resources in the community, they’re quickly disappearing.

We seek to maintain the Albina Community Archive as a full service community archive that will remain a resource to community members in perpetuity. By increasing public and private investment as well as membership in our resource council, we aim to accomplish this goal. As we build capacity to meet the growing needs and opportunities in this work, we will be seeking a path to investment that secures our ability to meet those needs.

Our program has grown immensely since the time we began. And while we are grateful for years of collaboration with The World Arts Foundation, we are now operating independently and evaluating the prospect of establishing Albina Music Trust as a 501(c)3.  This step ensures our ability to better serve our mission and respond to the needs and opportunities ahead. In the meantime, our office remains located at the Black United Fund of Oregon who is acting as our fiscal sponsor.

In conclusion, we invite you to join us in our next chapter to maintain this important service in our community. We believe that the act of preservation is simple. And it’s these simple acts that you find in a community archive that make healthy communities - where those who otherwise may not be recognized for their legacy and artistic contributions can be seen by their friends, their grandchildren, and future generations to come. To be validated through our work, our passions, and our presence is one of the greatest gifts we can receive. The work of the Albina Music Trust stands to do just that.