Auteur confronts racism in the family

Mac Diva

Nancy Dorr is a very rare kind of white person. Sad to say, but the norm for white people in America is to disavow responsibility for both historical and continuing racial discrimination. Mention the word racism and they begin obfuscating -- if not trying to ride you out of town on a rail. Meanwhile, many of them, including some who deem themselves liberals, are still engaged in racially motivated abuse as a regular aspect of their lives. The Portland, Oregon woman, the daughter of a Ku Klux Klan leader, is taking responsibility for the racism of her family and others.

After being trained in filmmaking at the Northwest Film Center in Portland, Dorr saved $15,000 from her work as a nurse's aide and embarked on a two-month road trip to 50 cities in 23 states. She focused on the sites of historical Klan activity, lynchings and race riots. She interviewed African Americans and whites, Klansmen, as well as descendents of lynchers and those who had been lynched.

Dorr plans to complete the film, Sacrifices of Hate, and enter it in film festivals this year. Regardless of how widely it's distributed, Dorr says she feels as if the film has accomplished its primary goal -- to, as [Margaret] Isaacs, put it, look at her own wounds from her family's legacy of racism.

"It's my life's work," Dorr, 52, says. "All my life, I thought about things my father did and wondered, 'Could I have done something? Am I responsible?' It took (making this film) to get that out of me. It's about acknowledging a terrible injustice happened and not allowing it to be invisible anymore."

In the course of making the film -- mostly in the South and Midwest -- Dorr says she's met many descendents of Klan members, like herself, and of Klan victims. Even when she returned to Oregon, she found that talking about her project brought histories of many residents out of the woodwork.

Dorr made efforts to interview members of her family, perhaps in hope some of them had changed, but was soundly rebuffed. She has had to choose between maintaining relationships with her racist relatives and going her own way. Dorr has found the psychological strength to do the latter.

While making Sacrifices of the Heart, Dorr learned about Oregon's place in the racist history of the United States, something I've known about for awhile. In 1848, the Oregon Legislature passed a law revealing in its rawness.

Slavery is declared illegal in the Oregon Country. The infamous "Lash Law," requiring that blacks in Oregon -- be they free or slave -- be whipped twice a year "until he or she shall quit the territory," is passed in June. It is soon deemed too harsh and its provisions for punishment are reduced to forced labor in December.

The Oregon Constitution included a provision excluding 'negros and mulattoes' from becoming citizens of the state, beginning in 1848. It was not repealed until 1926. Many Southerners migrated to Oregon and Washington after the Civil War. By 1920, Oregon may have had the largest population of Ku Klux Klan members in the country. Today, racist groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans have active chapters in both Washington and Oregon. The Pacific Northwest is perceived by many members of racist movements as an Aryan homeland.

Nancy Dorr is a novice film maker who hopes her inaugural effort will find viewers in Oregon and elsewhere. Read more about this remarkable woman in the Oregonian.

Reasonably related

Peruse a timeline of African-American history in the Pacific Northwest.

Note: This entry also appeared at Silver Rights.

By Mac Diva Jan. 12, 2005