Like Indiana, Oregon had only a small number of these minorities. The state’s racial animus dated to at least 1844, when the provisional government ordered all Black people out of the territory. After Oregon became a state in 1859, it banned nonwhites from living there. Following the Civil War, Oregon was one of only six states to refuse to ratify the 15th Amendment, which granted full voting rights to all male citizens, regardless of race. By the mid-1920s, there were more Klansmen, per capita, in Oregon than any state but Indiana.
