Urban League on a ‘placemaking’ mission at Pendleton Round-Up

James McKenzie was initially hesitant when the Urban League of Portland invited him to the Pendleton Round-Up.

The venerable nonprofit was planning its biggest Round-Up celebration, a culmination of six years of outreach and community building. But McKenzie, a member of the Urban League’s Young Professionals program, knew Eastern Oregon could be a lot different for a person of color than his home in Portland.

“(There was) a lot of anxiety and anticipation because once you go out of the bubble Portland, then you enter into more red areas within the state,” he said “It’s almost as if you pass this invisible Mason-Dixon Line past Hood River.”

Ultimately, McKenzie was swayed by the chance to dress like a cowboy for a few days. Within his first few hours at the rodeo, he scored a Pendleton Whisky belt buckle.

“It’s really incredible,” he said. “They’ve been doing this for a real long time. Just driving around the city finding parking I found (out) that everything shuts down for it. This is the event to do”

Founded in 1945, the Urban League focuses on providing advocacy and social services for Oregon’s Black communities. This year, the Urban League arrived in Pendleton 40-strong, the largest group the league has ever brought to the Round-Up. The organization aimed to give its members the full Round-Up experience: a day at the rodeo, a wagon in the non-mechanized Westward Ho! Parade and time to connect with people in Pendleton.

While much of the group she was with had never been to Round-Up or even a rodeo in general, Urban League President and CEO Nkenge Harmon Johnson said she started bringing the organization out to Pendleton as a way of “placemaking,” creating a space for Black Oregonians who otherwise might not feel comfortable at an event where most of the participants are white.