Conversation Series Sofa Issues Winter 2026
The Mayor is in the House
Domenic Ahmad Toliver in Conversation with The Honorary Mayor of Albina, Paul Knauls Sr.
“They’ll remember forever. You don’t know what it means to them, but they’ll remember.” – Paul Knauls Sr.
What does it mean to build more than a place? To build space. Space where people belong, where stories gather like music in the air?
I sat down with Paul Knauls, former owner of the Cotton Club, a man who helped shape the rhythm of Northeast Portland long before redevelopment changed the cityscape. To some, he’s a businessman. To most he’s the Northeast’s spirit and Honorary Mayor of Albina. Through our conversation I found he’s a keeper of community, someone who remembers how streets, laughter, and late-night conversation could make a neighborhood feel alive.
In my work, I keep circling questions about home, change and presence: who gets to hold it, who gets moved from it, and what stays behind when everything disappears. Paul doesn’t just remember; he shows how a place is built through people, through connection, through insistence that we need each other.
This conversation isn’t just about what once was. It’s about how we make community, how we sustain it, and how memory itself can be a foundation for something today.
This isn’t just history. It’s a blueprint. How we make space, hold space, and leave it alive for the next people to arrive.
Domenic: Paul, I wanted to talk with you cause you’ve seen Portland change over the decades. While the city has been changing and now it seems like they’re trying to fix some of those mistakes, through it all, you’ve remained this thread– someone for people to look to and revisit that era. Why do you think that is?
Paul: I think a big part of it is that I always went straight to the people. If something needed to happen, I asked around, and used my skills. I got people involved.
Dom: So you think the reason that was successful was because you were able to get people in community?
Paul: Oh yes, absolutely. You know I always went straight to the people.
I remember running into a judge in the grocery store, a Jefferson High School football star who later became a federal judge. I told him, “Judge, we’re raising money for a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near the convention center. Next week we’re printing a list in the paper of everyone who contributed. I think you’d like your name on that list.”
He said, “Well, what do you need?”
I told him, “Whatever your desire, sir.”
He wrote a check, printed his name clearly, and I told him that name would be engraved around the base of the statue. If he wanted to include his wife or daughter, we’d engrave those too.
If you go down there today, you’ll see around 800 names engraved around the base. Those are the people who helped make that statue happen.
I’ll never forget there was a woman from the beauty and barbershop. I told her about the statue and said if she could give two dollars, we’d put her name on it. She said, “Paul, you know I’m on welfare. I don’t have much.”
I told her, “Two dollars is fine.”
She said, “I can give you three.”
She handed me three dollars. I gave her a receipt, and her name went on that statue just like everybody else’s.
That’s how we built it. Went around asking everybody.
Dom: That’s smooth though. You gave everyone a piece of the authorship.
Paul: It sounds easy huh, but it wasn’t easy. I was up early doing interviews, talking to reporters, meeting people everywhere I could. Sometimes Channel 12 would call me at four in the morning to film updates while the sculptor was still working on the statue.
After those news segments aired, people would come into the shop and say, “Mr. Knauls, I want to give something to the Dr. King statue.” Twenty dollars here, ten dollars there. I’d write a receipt and tell them to print their name exactly how they wanted it engraved. Before long, we had the money. Big organizations too, hospitals, businesses, corporations. Some gave ten thousand dollars. But it all started the same way. By asking people personally.
Dom: That sounds like why people call you the Mayor of Northeast Portland. Every time I hear about places like Geneva’s Shear Perfection or the Cotton Club, they sound like more than just businesses. More like spaces where people could really be themselves.
Paul: That’s exactly what they were meant to be.
I had one rule: if you started a fight, you were banned for life. Not just from one place, from all of them. At one time I owned four businesses in Portland. So if you came out at night, chances were you’d end up at one of my places. Maybe you’d get a haircut during the day, eat at the restaurant, then come to the club later.
We got to know people from every walk of life.
And if someone caused trouble, I’d tell them: “Tommy, you can’t come in here anymore. And you’re banned from other places too.” Some folks still hold grudges about that. But I had to keep the spots safe. People needed to know they could come there and relax.
It really was like family.
Even now, when I go out somewhere, wherever, people in their fifties come up to me and say, “You influenced my life when I was young.” Some of them played music at the Cotton Club when they were kids.
On Sundays we had jam sessions. Eleven- or twelve-year-old musicians would come in and play with professionals. Imagine going back to school the next day after performing on a real stage with a live band.
That kind of experience stays with them.
Dom: And they weren’t just playing with other kids?
Paul: Oh no. No, they were playing with professionals.
That’s how it worked back then. It was part of what we called the Chitlin’ Circuit, where Black performers toured clubs across the country because they couldn’t perform in the white venues.
We had incredible artists come through the Cotton Club. People who are in the Hall of Fame now. Legends came through. Singers, bands, everybody.
It was a great time.
Dom: What do you think made the Cotton Club different?
Paul: Me.
I greeted every guest at the door in a tuxedo. No woman ever had to walk in and find a table by herself. I would seat her, introduce her to people, and make sure she felt comfortable.
If someone sat down next to a stranger, I’d say, “Melba, this is Sammy. Sammy, this is Melba.” Now they knew each other.
It made the whole room feel familiar.
I also hosted the shows myself. Sometimes groups would show up wanting to perform. One time a group of kids came in — six of them — calling themselves the Three Little Souls. They were incredible. I told their manager, “If you cut it down to three, I can put them to work.”
They came back six weeks later as a trio. The place was packed every night.
Eventually they moved on to bigger stages in Hollywood and television. But they got their start performing in that club.
Those were great times.
Dom: How did you meet Geneva?
Paul: There was a Black-owned bank in Portland called American State Bank. A man named Rufus Booker was the president or owner. I had just moved to town and went in to make a deposit.
A guy there says, “Paul Knauls, I want you to meet a lady. This is Geneva, a lady barber, you’re going to need you a barber.”
I had only been in Portland about two weeks. So he introduced me to her, I handed her my card and I says, “I just bought the Cotton Club. I’ll sign my name on this and when you come in, give this to the bartender and your first drink is on me.” That was it.
I didn’t see her again for months.
About four months later she walked in holding that card. The bartender came back and asked, “Paul, what is this? Is this good?”
I said, “Yeah, that’s the lady barber. She’s gonna be my barber. So give her a free drink.”
That’s how we met. After that we started seeing each other.
After the club closed on Saturday nights we’d go over to the Hoyt Hotel for breakfast. They’d bring the steak out to the table and you’d point to the one you wanted, they’d cook it in the back. Steak and eggs, hash browns.
Those were good days. Eventually we got married. She had worked at Cash & Max’s barbershop for years, about 28 years total.
I already had the Cotton Club and Paul’s Cocktails then. After we married, we bought another business called Geneva’s Restaurant Lounge.
Dom: And the barbershop?
Paul: That came later.
Back when Union Avenue was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, I told myself, “We need a business on Martin Luther King. That’s going to be the hotspot.”
So I bought an empty lot thinking I’d build a barbershop there. Then two weeks later I saw a donut shop for sale, a Mitchell Donut House. So I bought that building instead.
I spent a whole year converting that donut shop into a beauty shop. Plumbing, electrical and I did it all myself. I learned those trades back in high school.
Finally, Geneva decided to move in there.
I asked her what she wanted to call it. She said, “Geneva’s Shear Perfections.” We opened it up in June 1990 and stayed open for thirty years. I finally closed it in May of 2020 when COVID hit. By then I was ninety years old.
Dom: It’s pretty dope you and Geneva got to build together and really collaborate. When you and Geneva were building all those businesses, were you collaborating on everything? Or did each of you have your own thing?
Paul Knauls: We each had our thing but together. Geneva ran the barbershop, and I ran the clubs.
But I always tell people, if Geneva hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here. She put up with me working, I worked eighteen hours a day for thirty years. Most of the time when I came home at four in the morning, she was already asleep. And when I woke up, she was already gone to work. Sometimes the only time I saw her was if I stopped by the shop during the day. She’d get off around six, come by the club for a cocktail, say hello, and I’d still be working.
We did that for thirty years.
But we had a little trick. Every three months we’d disappear for three days, Saturday night through Tuesday morning. We’d go to The Benson Hotel, get us a suite, relax, and then go right back to work another three months. Seven days a week. Eighteen hours a day.
Dom: For thirty years?
Paul: Eighteen hours a day. Thirty years. So it was, it was on, she understood me. We didnt need anymore kids either. We had a house full of kids between us too. She had three, I had one.
Dom: Wait, how’d yall do all that?
Paul: So I still had responsibilities. For about twenty years I knew exactly where I’d be every afternoon at 3:30. I was picking kids up from school. If they had a good week, Friday, we’d go to McDonald’s for Happy Meals. But first I’d check with the teacher. If they didn’t behave, straight to the shop.
We had a little room with the laundry, a little laundry room. I had them read for twenty minutes every day in there. I’d hand them USA Today. I would make them read the section about what was happening in each state capital. Start at Anchorage.
They hated that twenty minutes. They thought it was three hours. But that’s how they learned. Just gimme twenty minutes every day.
Dom: They basically grew up in the barbershop, huh.
Paul: Oh yeah. They grew up there.
Dom: That’s funny, because that’s actually something we’re trying to bring back right now. At King, we’re building a small barbershop inside the school. The idea is to teach kids how to cut hair, but also bring people from the community in to talk with them and spend time there.
Paul: Oh, that’s great. Who are you working with to get the barbershop?
Dom: Tarrance Atkins, you know Tarrance over at Influential?
Paul: Yes.
Dom: We also reached out to Champions.
Paul: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say.
Dom: We’re going to walk the kids over. Basically, we kind of created a barbershop inside the school as a space for community, conversation, and possibilities. The kids will come in twice a week to talk and be heard, and spend time with mentors and community members who show them different futures are possible. Hopefully it’ll become a different way to respond when kids get in trouble too, bringing them into community instead of pushing them out.
So as we’ve been building this little barbershop, I’ve noticed the impact the barbershop has had here, from Deans, and Geneva’s to Jamal’s school, Champions and the Influential. It’s been how you talk about it and seeing how it played out.
And you know they keep asking, is Paul gonna come? Is Paul gonna be there? I don’t know.
Paul: Oh yeah, I’m gonna come. All I gotta do is be invited.
I volunteered at King and mentored a young man for about two and a half, maybe three years. Every Wednesday, I’d spend an hour and a half with him. We did a little of everything — reading, math, hand-eye coordination, even games like jacks. I really loved being there and volunteering.
Dom: What do you think that did? I mean, I mentor too, but I’m only 30, so the kids I work with are still kids.
Paul: Well, they’ll remember forever. You don’t know what it means to them, but they’ll remember. I see them today, and they come up to me and say, “You don’t know what that meant.” One man stopped me and said, “I was at Jefferson High School when you came and talked to us. I’ll never forget what you said.”
I told this one class, I says everybody wants a fancy car so people can look at them like they’re really something, but that’s not really anything. A car loses value. An apartment building gains value. I’d tell them, you can be driving a nice car and still sleeping in your mother’s basement. But if you buy a duplex, live in one half and rent out the other, soon you can afford another building. So I says, “if you’re driving a Range Rover and still have a landlord, you’re on the wrong road to success.”
Dom: Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve been thinking about– you can’t make any money off of paying a landlord for an apartment. That could be an issue with all of these apartments popping up that bring people back. They’re not making any equity. What do you think about those apartments?
Paul: Yeah. Those will bring in some young people. But the people that used to live here, the ones that are trying to help, they’re not gonna leave and come back here. The church is out there, the dentist is out there, the pharmacists out there. Why would they wanna pick up and come back? When they probably own their home out there now. Rather than come back here and rent, you know?
Dom: Yeah, exactly. It don’t make no sense.
Paul: So, I applaud their effort, you know? But it ain’t the same because they don’t accumulate any wealth. You see those homes that they tore down around Emanuel, all those homes are worth a minimum, minimum of a half million dollars now if they were still there.
All that wealth was taken away from the families that would’ve been there. Some would’ve probably sold, but mostly now they just rent. And now, once you got a house, you got some leverage to go borrow some money and send your kids to college.
Dom: Yeah. What would you do?
Paul: What if I was out there? Oh, I wouldn’t come back. If my church is out there, my barber shop’s out there, everything I have is out there and I gotta come back in here and try to redo everything.
Dom: I don’t blame you.
You’ve been to your spot lately? The spare room?
Paul: Yeah. As a matter of fact, not since my birthday. That’s where the after party moved.
Dom: How was that?
Paul: They called and said, “Where are you?” I said, “I’m still at the party.” They says “The after party’s at the spare room.” So I got my granddaughter to take me over there.
When I walked in, the place went crazy and Arma Sylvester started singing. “The mayor is in the house. The mayor is in the house. He’s 95. He ain’t taking no jive. The mayor is in the house”
Dom: Wow, that’s what’s up.
Paul: I went to the dance floor and I started dancing. The dance floor filled up. The song went on for about 10 minutes. I was tired by then. I had to sit down,
Dom: You was dancing? You wasn’t dancing!
Paul: Yeah. I was. Oh, I dance. You know, mostly my hand motions.
The mayor is in the house!
Domenic Toliver is an interdisciplinary artist and educator working across film, photography, performance, and socially engaged art. His practice emerges through dialogue, where responding to people, what’s said and unsaid, becomes a creative act in itself. He approaches his work as an ongoing process of questioning rather than seeking fixed answers, embracing change as both material and method. For him, life itself is a form of art: fluid, participatory, and relational.
Paul Knauls Sr. is the unofficial mayor of Northeast Portland, when asked for a bio, he simply said “Google me!”