New mural honors Portland's Black business owners

There’s a new mural on the corner of Northeast Shaver Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Portland. It’s big, bright and colorful, like the lives of those depicted on it — Black business owners who paved the way for future generations.

“This is Portland history,” said Cobi Lewis, executive director of Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon (MESO), whose building the mural is painted on.

MESO provides business support for underserved entrepreneurs. The nonprofit helped Jimmy Wilson get his food cart business, Jimmy’s Corner on Northeast Fremont Street, off the ground, as one of the first-of-its-kind in Portland. The mural includes a painting of Wilson with his grandson.

“That is recognition for me for hanging in there,” said Wilson during Thursday’s ribbon cutting ceremony.

Among the others featured on the mural is Gloria Dean of Dean’s Beauty Salon & Barber Shop, and Dorothy and Hurtis Hadley. The Hadleys ran Oregon’s first Black-owned bakery, Milwaukie Pastry Kitchen, when they purchased the business in 1977.

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