In Parts of U.S. Northwest, a Changing Face

The dispersal of African Americans is also an embarrassing reminder of why they were concentrated in the first place -- and of a time when neither Portland nor Seattle was especially tolerant.

In the '50s and '60s, when the black population was growing in the region, restrictive real estate covenants and racial prejudice kept most African Americans in selected central areas of the two cities.

"Finally, the African American community is able to make the same choice about where it's going to live as the white community," Rice said. "They are choosing to move. Is that bad or not? Stay tuned."

In northeast Portland, where Ford has been complaining for years about gentrification, he acknowledges that the tipping point has come and gone. White folks are taking over, he said, and blacks folks are all but gone.

Recently, Ford took a reporter on a tour of his gentrified neighborhood. En route, he discovered that a not-so-handsome house was for sale for $400,000. The price astonished him, especially because the house was considerably smaller than his own.

"When I see prices like that, I wonder who . . . of my race can continue to live here," he said.

Ford began ruminating about the price -- and the profit -- he might be able to get for his house, which he has owned since 1968 and which sits on a fine corner lot near a fixed-up city park.

"I have said I would never sell," Ford said. "But who can resist these prices?"