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.

Scroll down for information about upcoming walks and to access the materials from past walks.

In Partnership with:

On June 19, 2024, we will host our 2nd Juneteenth Community History Walk. This year, we will host four guided walking times, each limited to 45 participants. Pre-registration will guarantee you a spot on one of the guided walks. We will accommodate walk-ins on a first-come, first-served basis up to the cap on each walk.

Self-guided tour maps will also be available at the museum from 9 AM to 4 PM and online on June 19 for those wishing to take a self-guided version. 

The Rev. Daniel Jones was born in 1830 in Reading, Pennsylvania to a father who had escaped his enslavers in Maryland. As a teenager Rev. Jones became a ‘49er and sought his fortune in California’s gold fields. He eventually made his way to Jacksonville, Oregon, and met and married his wife Ann. The family relocated to Salem, where he somehow found time to run a barbershop, attend Willamette University’s college preparatory school, help found a school, become ordained, and plant a church. When he was transferred by the church to New Jersey and Kentucky, he continued to represent Oregon, becoming its delegate to several national Civil Rights conferences. 

This walk will visit the sites of two of the family’s homes, the Rev. Jones’s barbershop, the corner on which his church meetings were held and the site of one of his Emancipation Jubilee speeches.

Event Details

Date:

June 19, 2024

Guided Walk Times:

• 9 am
• 10 am
• 11:15 am
• 12:15 pm

Sponsored by:

Self-Guided Tour Options

Digital Map

Printable Maps

11×17 map can be printed at home on 11×17 paper. For ease of use print 2 sided.

OR you can send it to a FedEx for self-service print.

1. Download the file
2. Email it to printandgo@fedex.com
3. Go to your nearest FedEx Store
4. Use the code FedEx emailed to you at the self-service copier.
5. Print the document 2 sided.
6. Fold paper in half and then into a trifold.

8.5×11  map can be printed at home on 8.5×11 paper. This will make 2 pages front and back.

OR you can send it to a FedEx for self-service print. See directions above.

Learn More About the Jones Family

Read

• Rev. Daniel Jones’ Biography in Simmons, Rev. William J., D.D. Men of Mark and Measure: Eminent Progressive and Rising Cleveland: Geo. M. Rewell & Co., 1887.   Online version HathiTrust.org
• Read about Emancipation Jubilee Celebrations the family participated in in Salem here.

Watch

Albert and Mary Ann (Reynolds/Randles) Bayless were born into slavery.  Albert escaped to northern California during the Gold Rush and started a new life mining.  Mary Ann was freed by her enslaver as a teenager.  She moved to Missouri and started a family before coming west over the Oregon Trail.  In 1866, Albert and Mary Ann married Salem — the city that would be their home until their deaths in 1907.

In this walk we will visit the site of their home in the Piety Hill neighborhood (just north of the Oregon State Capitol), where the Bayless family hosted an Emancipation Day celebration in 1879, the site of Albert’s blacksmith shop, and one of the churches Albert was credited with inspiring the last push in fundraising to build.

Event Details

Date:
June 19, 2023

Guided Walk Time:
9 am

Digital Map

Printable Maps

.PDF File
Prints best on 11 x 17 paper.

Learn More About the Bayless Family

Watch

Read

Perseverance : A History of African Americans in Oregon’s Marion and Polk Counties(2011)
Buy the book
Find at a library near you