For 37 years, people in Ashland have gathered to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of justice, service and community. This year’s celebration, themed “The time is always right to do right,” features music, dance, spoken word and a call to action, urging people to not only to remember Dr. King’s legacy, but to carry it forward throughout the year.
Amy Bowers Cordalis, an Ashland attorney and key figure in the world’s largest river restoration project, will speak Saturday at the Ashland library about her memoir, “The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life.” The book documents her family’s long legal and cultural struggle to remove four dams from the Klamath River, a fight that culminated in their removal in 2024.
Black Alliance & Social Empowerment (BASE) Southern Oregon hosted a Kwanzaa celebration Sunday at the Historic Ashland Armory, featuring music, dancing, youth presentations and a candle lighting ceremony.
A Kwanzaa cultural celebration featuring live music, dancing, and dinner is set for 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 28, at the Historic Ashland Armory. Kwanzaa, an annual week-long celebration of African-American culture, is a time for communities to close the year together and “step into the new one with purpose,” the registration form reads.
A record $4.15 million in grant funding has been awarded to 91 organizations statewide through the Oregon Cultural Trust this year, with BASE Southern Oregon selected as one of the grant-winning groups and will receive $34,000.
Ashland residents gathered Sunday at the mural of Aidan Ellison to honor the Black teen’s life five years after his killing. Speakers called for continued reflection, racial justice work, and keeping Ellison’s story alive for future generations.
A local artist who arrived in Ashland three years ago is having his first solo art show at the White Rabbit gallery in downtown Ashland. Micah Blacklight has been waiting for the chance to show the personal perspective of an injustice he has witnessed over decades.
What does community service mean to you? When Ashland Middle School Black Student Union Advisor Sessceal Reynolds asked her student club this question, the answer was “giving back” to the community by starting “where they were,” in the spirit of the famed Arthur Ashe quote: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
“We are still here” was the theme for Saturday’s Native American Heritage Celebration at Southern Oregon University, hosted by the SOU Native American Student Union (NASU) and SOU Native Nations Liaison Kenwanicahee (Kenwani) Kravitz (Madesi Bandi, Pit River Nation Winnemem, Nomtipom and Nomsus Bands Northern Wintu).
Southern Oregon University (SOU) will host a Native American Heritage Month Celebration — open to anyone — from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, with an Indigenous artisan market, a salmon bake lunch, dancing, and singing. Open to the public, the event will feature about 20 informational and artisan vendors, guest speakers, and intertribal performances representing more than 20 tribes.
Criminal charges will not be filed against a Talent resident reported to police for watching videos of naked children on three separate days in December at the Talent library. The Jackson County District Attorney’s office announced Thursday afternoon that it found no evidence of illegal conduct after reviewing the incident involving 33-year-old Nicholas Johnson, a Talent resident who identified himself to police as a registered sex offender.
Ashland City Council debated whether to consolidate city services into a single civic campus, potentially including the sale or lease of City Hall, during a special study session Wednesday.
A South Ashland retail space that has sat vacant since 2020 has new life again, returning to its roots as a grocery store with the opening of Grocery Outlet next week, adding 20 full-time jobs to Ashland’s economy.
For 37 years, people in Ashland have gathered to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of justice, service and community. This year’s celebration, themed “The time is always right to do right,” features music, dance, spoken word and a call to action, urging people to not only to remember Dr. King’s legacy, but to carry it forward throughout the year.
Dennis Kendig: Give away tickets to Native individuals if you wish, but don’t make me sit through your self-serving announcements.
Herbert Rothschild: Those who wish to sanitize our history in the name of national pride tend to be the very ones who are perpetrating the present harms. For example, after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Republican legislators moved quickly to suppress once again Black participation in elections.
(It’s free)
