Earline Penson, Principle Broker - Coldwell Banker Seal

Earline Penson, Broker with Coldwell Banker Barbara Sue Seal Properties and President of NAREB on The Portland/Vancouver Realtist mission is to enhance the economic empowerment of its members and the community we serve through education,

community development and legislative involvement.

The local chapter of NAREB is the Portland/Vancouver Realtist Association, formed in 2005 by the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), the oldest African American real estate trade association in the United States. It was formed in 1947 because of discrimination, when African Americans were not allowed membership to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR).  The Negro Baseball League was established for the same reasons.

Today, we are proud to support Melvin Broadous, broker with RE/MAX Equity Group, Inc., and member of NAREB, to become the first African American President of the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors®. It signals we as a people, and a country, have come a long way towards equality for all. We embrace him in the NAREB and look forward to working together with PMAR supporting the Association and members in their work in building dreams of homeownership one family at a time.

The Portland/Vancouver Realtist mission is to enhance the economic empowerment of its members and the community we serve through education, community development and legislative involvement. We are committed to democracy in housing in Portland and increasing the opportunities for homeownership for people of color. We are comprised principally of African Americans and other minority real estate professionals but membership in NAREB is open to all races that are interested in achieving the ideas of the Realtist theme “Democracy in Housing.”  Broadous has been a strong advocate and member of the organization – we are a relatively young local group but have been recognized nationally. NAREB held its first conference in Portland in May 2007, as well as a workshop put on by NeighborWorks America in December 2007 where there were over 1,800 visitors. Issues centered on the sub-prime lending debacle were discussed as other states around the country have already begun to feel the impact of foreclosures and short sales.  Best practices ideas were exchanged on how to manage this issue and what effects there are on people of color in Oregon.  Many of the national members had never visited Oregon, and were impressed with Portland’s public transportation system and the area’s “green” community development, and vowed to return to our wonderful City of Roses. 

We at NAREB are excited about our participation in and the future direction of PMAR’s Homeownership Opportunities Committee (HOC) and www.HOWNW.org, a terrific resource designed to serve the community’s home buying needs.

Earline Penson, broker with Coldwell Banker Barbara Sue Seal Properties, and local President of NAREB Portland/Vancouver Realtist chapter, is also a member of the City of Portland’s Operation Home Advisory Committee, whose initiative is to help people of color obtain the American Dream of homeownership. NAREB wishes you a great 2008!

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In memory of a profound pioneer, Martin Luther King - Earline Penson, Broker Coldwell Banker Barbara Sue Seal Properties - Portland, Or

It is a testament to the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr. that nearly every major city in the U.S. has a street or school named after him. It is a measure of how sorely his achievements are misunderstood that most of them are located in black neighborhoods.

Three decades after King was gunned down on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tenn., he is still regarded mainly as the black leader of a movement for black equality. That assessment, while accurate, is far too restrictive. For all King did to free blacks from the yoke of segregation, whites may owe him the greatest debt, for liberating them from the burden of America's centuries-old hypocrisy about race. It is only because of King and the movement that he led that the U.S. can claim to be the leader of the "free world" without inviting smirks of disdain and disbelief. Had he and the blacks and whites who marched beside him failed, vast regions of the U.S. would have remained morally indistinguishable from South Africa under apartheid, with terrible consequences for America's standing among nations. How could America have convincingly inveighed against the Iron Curtain while an equally oppressive Cotton Curtain remained draped across the South?

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