Rukaiyah Adams has been imagining what is now called The 1803 Fund since late spring of 2020.
As protests over George Floyd’s murder continued throughout the summer and into the fall, Adams said she found herself imagining a world where Black people shifted from the objects of the American financial system to the subjects that control it.
She said she began exploring the topic of reactionary activism, and how Black Americans could shift into proaction through the power of capital. That’s when she said she realized that she, a fourth-generation Portlander with a passion for her community, could make all the difference, and that her extensive knowledge of managing money was just a plus.
“People think that the essential skill that I have is managing money. No, my essential skill is being able to hold the truth and also be optimistic. Like, almost painfully optimistic, about where we can go,” Adams said.
Adams debuted The 1803 Fund and the related Rebuild Albina project at Nike’s World Headquarters in late April. With the help of a $400 million investment from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, The 1803 Fund will focus on supporting current and future generations of Black Portlanders through investments in education, place and culture and belonging in the Albina community.
Adams, an Albina native herself, explained the goal of the fund as a shift of energy. While the monetary value of the fund is critical, it is about more than just that to Adams.
“People think that it's the dollar amount, that is actually not my objective. My objective is to convince all of us that people – in this case, Black folks – who've been objects, will make the jump to being subjects in control of capital, and will behave in different ways in stewarding that capital,” Adams said.
It’d be shortsighted, though, to ignore the sheer capital involved with the fund. Knight’s investment, which nearly matches previous estimates as to how much wealth the Albina community lost during its destruction in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is bolstered by Adams’ goal to get the fund to the $1 billion mark.
Additionally, $1 billion isn’t a number Adams picked from thin air, she said.
“That number is what we need to maintain the organization, but also I want the number to be so big that it becomes abstract. If someone asked you to imagine a thousand $1 bills on this table, you could imagine that. If I asked you to imagine a million $1 bills, you could probably do that. A billion though, it's pretty hard to imagine right?” Adams said. “So when you make that jump from currency and literal wealth to something else, that's the jump to (being the) subject.”
As a reflection of her fund goals, Adams said she aims to hire 10 to 12 full-time employees by the end of the year who see the project as relational rather than transactional.
The fund is currently searching for people to fill positions such as executive assistant, IT manager, finance and operations manager, professional partnerships manager and more, Adams said, adding that people will be hired on a rolling basis as the organization finds the best people for each position.
“This assemblage of people that we're trying to gather, I need them to be able to convert pain, rage, disappointment and lots of creativity into something else,” Adams said.
