The Pacific Northwest and mountain states have long been fertile ground for progressive politics. The Western States Center has helped make that a reality.
Aimed at promoting equity and racial justice in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Alaska, the center operates out of Portland, Oregon. The group provides toolkits and educational resources through its site for the 21st-century racial justice movement its helping lead on the west coast.
A history in the PNW
Led by Executive Director Eric Ward, the center draws on the potential for mass movements to promote a vision of America based on social justice and racial equality.
Based in Portland, the center was founded in 1987 as an explicitly anti-racist organization. That work has continued over the years and the center has been a prominent player in the opposition movement to the far-right demonstrations and attacks that have occurred in the city's streets.
In addition to Ward, the center is led by a board, made up of Chair Scott Winn, of Washington; Treasurer Bookda Gheisar, also of Washington; Secretary Mariotta Gary-Smith, of Oregon; and board member Laura Martin, of Nevada.
Healthy funding
According to the Western States Center's mission statement, it "works on three levels: strengthening grassroots organizing and community-based leadership; building long-term strategic alliances among community, environmental, labor, social justice and other public interest organizations; and developing the capacity of informed communities to participate in the public policy process and in elections."
That work has attracted the attention of big donors. In 2020, the Meyer Memorial Trust and Ford Foundation each gave $100,000 to the group. Meyer also donated in 2019, giving $360,000 in three donations—nearly matching the $400,000 the Libra Foundation gave in one donation that year.
Libra gave $100,000 in 2018, one of a number of groups to donate in the six figures. The others—$195,000 from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, $140,000 from the New Venture Fund, and $125,000 from the Collins Foundation—were among a generous group of donors that year who provided over $1 million in operating funding for that year.
A moment of promise
Executive Director Ward noted the opportunity of the current moment in an NPR interview in October: "Support for an inclusive democracy that is people-centered, accountable and transparent is the majority of America," said Ward. "That is the aspiration."
Ward told the Southern Poverty Law Center that dismantling white supremacy is a key to a better society—echoing the Western States Center's central aim of ending racism and confronting white nationalism in institutions around the region.
"From chattel slavery of our past to mass incarceration today, white supremacy is a historic and present-day system grounded in anti-Blackness,” Ward said. “To dismantle this system, we must have a fundamental understanding of what white supremacy and anti-Blackness are and how they manifest in today’s movement for social, political, and economic equality."
