The same lower Albina streets where Portland's Black musical culture took root are the subject of a guided walking tour running every other Saturday through September.

Oregon Black Pioneers, which describes itself as the state's only historical society dedicated to African American history, leads two-hour tours of the neighborhood's Black landmarks starting at the Matt Dishman Community Center.

The next tour is this Saturday, July 25, at 10 a.m. Tickets are $10, and groups are capped at 35 people. They sell out fast.

Mariah Rocker, OBP's public programs and exhibits manager, designed the tours when they launched in 2023. The route passes Dean's Beauty Salon and Barber Shop at 213 NE Hancock Street, the oldest continuously operating Black-owned business in Oregon, open since 1954 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.

It also stops at the Billy Webb Elks Lodge at 6 N. Tillamook St., a 1926 building that housed the local NAACP chapter, the Urban League of Portland, and the Congress of Racial Equality. The lodge was heavily damaged by fire in 2021 and is working toward a centennial-year reopening.

"We could do 20 different versions of this tour, and we'll hopefully continue to iterate and update it as we move forward," Rocker told Willamette Week.

The tour focuses on pre-Hip Hop Black history, but the lineage is direct. Albina's concentration of Black families cultivated a booming jazz, blues, and gospel scene in the 1940s and '50s that earned the neighborhood the nickname "Jumptown," according to the I-5 Rose Quarter Project's historical documentation.

That musical thread ran through soul, funk, and R&B into the Hip Hop that artists like Cool Nutz and Vursatyl of The Lifesavas built on those same corridors decades later. Albina Music Trust, based at 2828 NE Alberta St., holds more than 13,000 archival items documenting that legacy.

OBP relocated from Salem to Portland's Albina area in January 2024 and is pursuing a permanent museum. Rocker is also collaborating with the Billy Webb Elks Lodge on an online exhibition of the building's history.

Remaining 2026 tour dates: Saturday, Aug. 8; Saturday, Aug. 22; Saturday, Sept. 12; and Saturday, Sept. 26. Tickets at oregonblackpioneers.org.