Juneteenth Community History Walk

The Willamette Heritage Center, Oregon Black Pioneers and Just Walk Salem Keizer host an annual community history walking tour to celebrate the Juneteenth Holiday. The vision for this event, which started in 2023, was to bring people together to walk as a community and follow in the footsteps of local families whose lives were impacted by slavery and emancipation. The walk tells these families’ stories by visiting the physical locations in which they lived, worked, worshiped, and commemorated the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation. We hope to feature a new family or individual each year and further document and celebrate Salem’s early Black community.

This year’s walk will start and end at the Willamette Heritage Center (1313 Mill St SE).  Free parking in the museum’s lot is available. There are several ways to participate.  We will host four guided walks, leaving at 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:15 AM and 12:15 PM. The full walk spans a 2.8-mile loop through downtown Salem, returning to the museum.  Guided walks will be capped at 50 people.  Maps will also be available at the museum from 9 AM to 4 PM on the day of the event for those who wish to take a self-guided version of the tour (or drive it).  An online map will also be posted on the day of the event for further access. 

The walk is free, but donations to help support future walks and the research that goes into making these events possible are appreciated!

Date: June 19, 2025

Guided Walk Times:

• 9:00 AM
• 10:00 AM
• 11:15 AM
• 12:15 PM

Guided walks capped at first 50 people to arrive.  Self Guided brochures available at the museum from 9 AM – 4 PM.  See event details for more information.

2025 Walk: Gorman Family

Signature of Hiram Gorman as found on petition dated 1886. Oregon State Archives. Hannah Gorman Probate File.

On June 19, 2025, we will host our 3rd Juneteenth Community History Walk, following in the footsteps of the Gorman family, whose story of reunification despite enslavement, cross-continental journeys and decades is nothing short of remarkable. 

Matriarch Hannah Gorman and her daughter Eliza were some of the earliest Oregon Trail travelers, arriving in Polk County in 1844 with their enslavers.  Their move to Oregon put half a continent between Hannah and her son Hiram.  As Hannah and her daughter Eliza eventually built a life for themselves in Corvallis, her son and his family, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil War, slowly made their way west to Salem via a ranch in Montana. In Salem, Hiram was a long-time employee of the Oregon Statesman newspaper, helping, through his great strength, to run a printing press traditionally operated by a steam engine. Reunited in Oregon after decades of separation, Hannah would spend her last days at her son and daughter-in-law’s home in Salem.   

 This walking tour will visit sites connected with the Gorman family, like the Oregon Statesman newspaper pressroom where Hiram worked, the garden where he grew pea stalks large enough to warrant newspaper coverage, and the family home purchased by Hiram’s wife, Georgia Ann.