About Us
Black Joy Oregon is a non-violent organization that has traveled across Oregon to demonstrate loving and joyful celebrations of Black Joy and culture. Black Joy Oregon uplifts women into positions of leadership and empowers communities of color. We organize within our state to demand change for our most marginalized community members. In true non-violence form, we seek to create social change through truth-force and love-action. With a willingness to undergo suffering rather than inflict it, and never looking for retaliation.
What We Do
Spreading Black Joy & Celebrating Black Excellence
The original idea of Black Joy Oregon was dreamed up by our Founder Juli Ray C. Joy, sparked by a conversation she had with a young Black Woman from a rural Oregon community. She had shared that while growing up in rural Oregon, she had never seen another Black person outside of her family. She had been wanting to organize an event/protest but she didn’t know who would stand with her and Juli Ray thought to herself… We will stand with you!! Juli Ray realized that although we had seen a huge influx of protests and support for the Black Lives Matter movement along the I-5 corridor, those who live in rural Oregon may not feel or see the same support. We decided that we would travel to rural Oregon to make sure our Black and Brown Oregonians know that they are loved, supported, and represented.
Black Joy Oregon uplifts women into positions of leadership and empowers communities of color. We demonstrate and organize within our state to demand change for our most marginalized community members. We help locate and provide assistance with resources for Black folks, whatever they need we help them find. We provide opportunities for BIPOC Youth and community members to do their community service with us.
We were awarded grant funding to partner in getting 4 doulas fully certified at no cost to them, to be able to provide labor, postpartum, and abortion services. All of the doulas are people of color and/or members of the LQBTQIA+ community, and we were able to cover the cost for over 20 family's full doula services.
Spring 2024 - we broke ground on the Black Joy Farm. A contract for a quarter acre of raw land in Keizer was donated to us and we started working on getting the ground ready for planting. We have now transformed that space into a fully functioning organic community garden. The Farm took off quickly and we were ready for our first harvest on Juneteenth! Fastr forward to the end of the summer, we have harvested over 1,000lbs in produce. All of which has been given out to BIPOC households in the Salem/Kiezer and surrounding areas. While most people struggled to get their gardens to have high production this summer, we seemed to have the opposite experience... we attribute it to the sheer amount of love present each week!!
Coming soon!! Urban gardening systems that will be put inside peoples homes, so they are able to grow their own food at home even if they don't have a yard!
Our operation is run off of fundraising, grant funding, volunteers and donations!
We appreciate any and all support y'all give us!! Donate, follow, like & share.
Everything counts!
Our Founder
Juli Ray C. Joy
Juli Ray founded Black Joy Oregon in the summer of 2020. Her goal behind starting this group was to bring a different side of the movement to the forefront and focus on Joy as Resistance. Juli Ray has been an organizer for many years with different unions, including SEIU, and is currently the Movement Building Director for Partnership of Safety and Justice. She does custom DEI and De-escalation trainings all over the state and has served on countless panels. Juli Ray works tirelessly to ensure that the Black People in Oregon are well taken care of and she does everything in her power to create a safer Oregon for all marginalized communities.
How You Can Help
Donate to Our Cause
Donations help our operation run! Everything we do is made possible from fundraising and donations. When we travel, we like to take care of as much as possible to limit any financial strain on our folks. Donations help make community events happen and everything you give will help us continue pouring into our community!