Lakayana Yotoma Drury is an educator, social entrepreneur, community advocate, writer, poet, filmmaker. He now adds to this list as “editor-in-chief” of the publication of “503.” He said he wrote it as “defiant anthem of Black joy and resilience against a backdrop of gentrification, community violence, miseducation, and white supremacy.”

The dedication reads:

“To the youth of Portland, Oregon, who have taught me so much. To those not allowed to get in. Denied access to the resources of the city. Kicked out of institutions and codified as collateral damage. To the youth who find a way. Make a way. Demand a way. On the bus. On the MAX. On foot. To the city that gave me a chance to be great. 503 is for you.”

Originally from Wisconsin, Yotoma Drury got his first teaching job in Portland at Rosemary Anderson High School shortly after moving to the city from Philadelphia. Speaking on “Think Out Loud” this week, he said he was just starting his teaching career when he moved.

“I typed in ‘alternative high school,’ and the first one that came up was Rosemary Anderson High School, and the students told me on the first day, ‘This isn’t a real school,’ because they were just like me when I was in high school,” he said. “The education system had given up on them, and so they gave up on education.”

Yotoma Drury said he knew he had “found his people” at Rosemary Anderson, and learned an enormous amount from his students who told him their stories.

“They told me the neighborhood that you’re teaching in is known as Albina. And they showed me streets where their cousins had been killed and corner stores where they would shop at and malls where they were chased out of. And so it was an exchange,” he said. “They told me stories of the underground Portland, and I gave them hope and education.”

He wrote about these students in the first poem called “Welcome to Classroom 201,” which he read an excerpt from:

You see, I don’t do this for the money.

I do this for the Black boys that society wants to send to jail.

The Black boys who grew up with me like me without a father.

I do this for my students who live in a world that won’t accept their identity.

I do this for the Latina girls who could be first-generation college graduates.

I do this for the white kids so they aren’t in history.

I do this for the ‘alternative kids.’

I do this for little me, who never would have imagined I’d be a teacher.

Lakayana Yotoma Drury

Other themes in “503” include the relegation and exclusion of Black historical figures and Black history by white culture, and stories of “Black Portland transplants” and their relationship to historic Black Portland.

Lakayana Yotoma Drury hopes the publication encourages a greater investment in young people. He serves as vice chair of the Oregon Commission on Black Affairs, and founded Word is Bond, a nonprofit with the mission of empowering young Black men to their fullest potential.

“Some of my first students in Classroom 201 are now my age when I first moved here,” he said. “Some of them told me 5 years ago, ‘I’m never going to college.’ And now they’re seniors at PSU. They’re graduating. They’re beating expectations.”

Copies of the magazine can be purchased at Third Eye Books, the Chess Club and on Lakaana Yotoma Drury’s website.

You can listen to the whole conversation with Lakayana Yotoma Drury on “Think Out Loud” by pressing the play arrow above.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/07/503-collection-experiences-black-portlanders-poems-essays-photos/