In memory of the late Dana Thompson, a Portland nonprofit teaches rock ‘n’ roll to Black youth

The slow, repetitive bass line of Queen’s “Another Bites the Dust” blares from a classroom at Portland’s Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary where a handful of kids – some of them as tall as the bass guitars they are playing – attempt to pluck strings in unison.

Instructor Dave Shirkhani shows them the basics: how to position the instrument and hold a finger against a fret. Most of the students, ranging from second- to fifth-graders, have never held a bass guitar before, let alone played one.

“Most of these kids wouldn’t have this opportunity to even touch these instruments,” Shirkhani said. “My big thing is I just want to put them in their hands and give them a chance to make some noise.”

This is “Schools Out, Rock Out,” one of several free, after-school offerings at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary. Since January, local Black musicians have spent Monday and Wednesday afternoons teaching students guitar, bass, keyboard and vocals.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t get to touch a bass guitar until I was at least 16 or 17,” said Shirkhani, who’s the bassist for local rock band, The Quality. “I had to borrow it from a buddy, and my mom just yelled at me the entire time, ‘You’re being too loud!’ So, this is awesome that these kids have an opportunity to be loud on school grounds.”

Awesome is an apt word to describe it.

Schools Out, Rock Out was created by the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome.

After Dana Thompson, a local Black performer, died unexpectedly at age 41, her friends and bandmates formed a nonprofit in her honor with the goal of supporting Black youth in the arts – specifically in rock ‘n’ roll.

Their motto? “We rock mics, not stereotypes.”

Dana Thompson’s legacy

The nonprofit’s name is a mouthful, but it sums up who Thompson was.

She was awesome. Everybody loved her.

Thompson was a Black woman active in pop culture scenes that are often white-dominated. She loved Harry Potter cosplay, traveled to Burning Man, performed on stage as Lt. Uhura in Trek in the Park, acted in local indie films, and sang in the rock/punk band Dartgun and the Vignettes.

“She was part of a lot of communities,” said Maylorie Townsend, who was friends with Thompson for 20 years and now serves on the board of the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome. “We did memorial services for her, and hundreds of people came, so many people I’d never met. She had all of her rock and punk rock friends, all her nerd circles, all her acting circles. Even though we were super close, there were still so many people she knew that I had no idea who they were.”

Thompson worked in the offices for the Multnomah County Health Department. In July 2019, she was at work when she suddenly collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital but died from a brain aneurysm.

It was a complete shock to her wide circle of friends and fans.

“People were wanting to hand me money right after she died,” said Christine Claringbold, one of Thompson’s bandmates and now the president of the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome. “People were just overcome with wanting to give something. I said, ‘I can’t take your money, but we’ll start something proper.’”

Within months, the group had 501c3 status and was planning a New Year’s Eve fundraiser concert (Dec. 31 was Thompson’s birthday) called DanaFest.

The goal was the raise money to send Black girls to Portland’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls.

“It was a group idea of let’s do something to honor Dana that would get Black girls involved in playing rock music like Dana did,” Claringbold said.

In 2020, the fund sent five girls to camp. The following summer, the fund doubled in size and provided 10 scholarships.

But the next year, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls closed, and the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome was left without anything awesome to fund.

One of the group’s board members suggested creating their own, culturally specific rock camp aimed at serving Black youth.

“Instead of sending Black kids into these white-dominated spaces, why not do something that’s just for them and have Black teachers?” Claringbold said.

The nonprofit Friends of Noise, which provides opportunities for young people in the creation and production of live music, had received the instruments from the defunct Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls and was willing to loan them to the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome. Grants from the Oregon Community Foundation and the Regional Arts & Culture Council covered the bulk of the program’s $8,500 price tag.

Though the initial idea was to run a summer camp, the concept evolved into a partnership with Self Enhancement Inc., which runs after-school programming at the historically Black Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary.

Schools Out, Rock Out is open to all children, but the program was a good fit for this particular school, where Black students constitute nearly 44% of the student body, and the school’s minority student population is 77%.

SUN School

Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary is part of a county-wide program that designated it as a SUN School – it stands for Schools Uniting Neighborhoods. SUN Schools offer free after-school programs, adult education classes and extra resources for families who need food, shelter and help paying bills. Multnomah County has 85 SUN Schools across six school districts.

On an average day, about 100 students can be found after hours at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary, learning everything from sewing to dance to robotics to sports.

“We try to offer something new for the students to be able to experience,” said Ali Martin, who manages the SUN school programs, “getting them exposure to things that they might not necessarily be exposed to outside of school.”

Martin was particularly interested in working with the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome because of their emphasis on hiring Black instructors.

“The importance of having somebody that looks like you is you’re seeing yourself in them,” Martin said. “A lot of times, we don’t think that we can be the president. We don’t think that we can be an accountant or a rock star because many people in those positions are not people of color. It’s just giving them different role models. Seeing people of color in spaces of power empowers our children to want more.”

Ta’Mara Walker, who performs under the stage name FIYA, was one of the vocal teachers for the School’s Out, Rock Out program.

“The Black community does like rock, we’re not hip-hop only,” she said. “We do opera, we do it all. But do we ever get the opportunity and the chance to explore it? That’s what the Dana fund is giving our culture.”

A final gift

At the end of every SUN School term, parents are invited to a showcase where students show off what they’ve learned. A sewing class presented the bags they made. Students in a leadership class gave speeches. A dance group performed the routine they had rehearsed.

The finale was a musical showcase from Schools Out, Rock Out. One group had learned to played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on electric guitar ­– not bad for just a few weeks of lessons. Walker’s vocal group sang a song they had written that included the constant refrain, “We will rock you.”

Shirkhani brought out a vintage iPod and put on “Another One Bites the Dust” to give the kids a beat. And together — with four bass guitars, a drum machine and a singer, they performed the Queen classic in front of their classmates.

Claringbold and Townsend were there, singing along and filming as the kids performed. And at the end of the song, the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome board members had a surprise.

All 22 students in the inaugural School’s Out, Rock Out program received a new acoustic guitar, thanks to a donation from Trade Up Music.

“We get to keep it?” one girl asked in disbelief while hugging the guitar case.

Yes, she could keep it.

The Dana Thompson Memorial Fund hopes to keep Schools Out, Rock Out going. The nonprofit aims to raise $12,000 a year to hire more Black musician instructors and put more guitars ­­– to keep – in the hands of young kids.

“I think (Dana) would be really touched by this,” Townsend said. “I think she would feel honored that we’re doing this in her name.”

How to help: Learn more about the Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome, or make a donation, at dtmfa.org. SUN School programing at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary is run by Self Enhancement Inc., a nonprofit that works with underserved youth. Learn more at selfenhancement.org. Learn more about Friends of Noise, a nonprofit providing resources to youth in live music, at friendsofnoise.org.

-- Samantha Swindler covers features for The Oregonian and Here is Oregon. Reach her at sswindler@oregonian.com.

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