Speaker 1: As the sun began to tuck away for winter, so
Speaker 1: did many Portlanders who had spent the summer out protesting.
Speaker 1: As the days grew shorter, a shrunken but dedicated group
Speaker 1: of activists continued to pound the streets in their call
Speaker 1: for justice. The early days of the protests had been
Speaker 1: fueled in part by the massive lockdown and the layoffs
Speaker 1: that came with it. As the pandemic wore on, economic
Speaker 1: collapse contributed to street activism in new ways. Portland has
Speaker 1: been in a housing state of emergency since two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: as it was declared by former Mayor Charlie Hales and
Speaker 1: extended by his successors in the City Council again in
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen for two more years. For a long time,
Speaker 1: thousands of Portland's had lived one paycheck away from homelessness,
Speaker 1: and in thousands more found themselves on the edge of
Speaker 1: a cliff. To stave off disaster, a pandemic eviction moratorium
Speaker 1: was adopted by local all makers. It included no forgiveness
Speaker 1: or grace period from mr rent. This meant that while
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get kicked out of your home for missing rent,
Speaker 1: all that unpaid rent still stacked up. At the time
Speaker 1: of recording, eighty nine thousand households in Oregon are subject
Speaker 1: to eviction when the state's moratorium expires, owing more than
Speaker 1: three hundred and seventy eight million dollars in collective back rent. Now,
Speaker 1: evicting all of those people would cost the state three
Speaker 1: billion dollars, eight times more than the total back rent owed.
Speaker 1: Near the end of the whole situation wound up coming
Speaker 1: to a head in the battle over a single property.
Speaker 1: The Red House on North Mississippi Avenue. Coming up next
Speaker 1: is a lane Portland has spent the last decade basking
Speaker 1: in its image is a liberal playground of bird stickers
Speaker 1: and local war foodies. However, this hides the concerted destruction
Speaker 1: by developers and city planners of Portland's black community in
Speaker 1: the Albina District. During that same time, the area was
Speaker 1: redlined for blacks, with local government working in concert real
Speaker 1: estate agents and banks to guarantee black people virtually had
Speaker 1: no options to live outside the neighborhood. Following the Vanport
Speaker 1: floods of nineteen forty eight, local lawmakers and real estate
Speaker 1: interests coordinated to ensure that thousands of black individuals and
Speaker 1: families suddenly without a home, could look nowhere else but
Speaker 1: a small section of inner North and Northeast Portland if
Speaker 1: they were to live within city limits. The mostly European
Speaker 1: immigrant populated neighborhood flipped almost overnight, with many other residents
Speaker 1: quickly fleeing the area to avoid living near black people.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the flood, close to seventy percent of the
Speaker 1: state's black population lived in the Albina district. Consequently, the
Speaker 1: neighborhood has been the nucleus to much of the city's
Speaker 1: black community for generations. The Portland Police Bureau conducted years
Speaker 1: of targeted harassment aimed at the Albina community. Years of
Speaker 1: blite systemic disinvestment and policing have led to a mass
Speaker 1: exodus of Blacks from the central Albina core. Many left
Speaker 1: to the fringes of the city in search of lower rents.
Speaker 1: As North Northeast Portland suddenly became prime real estate, quickly,
Speaker 1: the place so many called home was eroding before their eyes.
Speaker 1: Here are the snack Mamas on the gentrification of Albina
Speaker 1: and some history of North Northeast Portland. Yeah, it's hard
Speaker 1: to Portland. It's turned Like I said, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to watch the change. Sometimes I get really angry and
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard to watch this upsetting. But everything
Speaker 1: looks all nice and fancy, but nobody knows how it
Speaker 1: got that way. Emmanuel Hospital, I mean, fucking break, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like, yeah, it's nice to have
Speaker 1: a hospital there, it really is. I mean, but you
Speaker 1: could have cleared the fucking freeway and stuff. You're right there.
Speaker 1: I mean, get Motor Center out of there and put
Speaker 1: a hospital right there. Like I don't even remember what
Speaker 1: was there before Motor Center was, but I'm sure quarter
Speaker 1: they changed. Figure it out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But you're tearing families out of homes who lived there.
Speaker 1: For I was like my my son's grandmother. She lived
Speaker 1: on thirty three and Prescott, right there on the corner.
Speaker 1: She's like in her late nineties. It came in pretty
Speaker 1: much soil that house from up underneath her, and they're
Speaker 1: always the box with all moved into like a hotel
Speaker 1: like apartment thing. And died shortly after that. And it's like,
Speaker 1: as this upsetting, you want to drive by and see
Speaker 1: and I'm like, God, damn, I don't drun my car
Speaker 1: to that house, you know, but is upsetting the way
Speaker 1: they do things and the way they you know, re
Speaker 1: home people in the you know, the wounds run deep.
Speaker 1: In the last decade, homeownership for black Portlanders has fallen,
Speaker 1: not risen. Perhaps more striking is their representation in the
Speaker 1: houseless population. About seven point two percent of Multnomah County's
Speaker 1: population is black, but according to their most recent point
Speaker 1: in time count, which was released in pre COVID Times,
Speaker 1: it showed that black Portlander's accounted for more than sixteen
Speaker 1: percent of the houseless in the area. A policy adopted
Speaker 1: by the City of Portland, designed to give residents with
Speaker 1: historic ties to inner North and Northeast helps illustrate how
Speaker 1: deep the need is. The policy gives first DIBs at
Speaker 1: select new apartments being developed by the Housing Bureau, assists
Speaker 1: existing homeowners in the area with maintenance and foster's homeownership opportunities.
Speaker 1: When applicating for the first round of units opened up,
Speaker 1: in thousands applied to live in the handful of units.
Speaker 1: More complexes have been built since and dozens more served
Speaker 1: for the home repair and ownership opportunities. But every time
Speaker 1: applications open, the systems are flooded with people just hoping
Speaker 1: to make the waitlist. However, for people that qualify, some
Speaker 1: feel like the program does not go far enough to
Speaker 1: remediate the damage that was done to the community. The
Speaker 1: neck mom must continue. Why even that program has problems
Speaker 1: since it limits the ownership rights of the family that
Speaker 1: it helps to return. Yeah, I entered into this program
Speaker 1: for the Bulama County did UM for people who lived
Speaker 1: in North Portland and we're kind of pushed out, so
Speaker 1: I entered that program. I'm just like, this is fucking
Speaker 1: complete bullshit. You're asking people who have been kicked out
Speaker 1: of their homes because of you guys have great fucking
Speaker 1: credit to get into this program and to um be
Speaker 1: able to buy a home on their own ship. But
Speaker 1: yet you own the land, they can own the home.
Speaker 1: Like fuck, go funk yourself. Yeah that's what it is.
Speaker 1: They own the people. Yeah, you can't. You can't do ship.
Speaker 1: They own that land. You own the home, mind you
Speaker 1: when you they get a piece of that money when
Speaker 1: you sell your home because they helped you get into there.
Speaker 1: And you know, yeah, so you can't do any work
Speaker 1: on the land or or tear the house down and building.
Speaker 1: You can't do whatever you want to do. That's their
Speaker 1: fucking land, you know, and you're just owning the home
Speaker 1: on it. So it's not actually nothing people get back
Speaker 1: absolutely and so and so, like you have choices between um,
Speaker 1: all these little houses or our little buildings or town
Speaker 1: homes or whatever. Like. There was nothing that was over
Speaker 1: like three two bedrooms, I think two or three bedrooms
Speaker 1: on any of those lists, because I've got a family
Speaker 1: of five, you know, I'm just like, fuck, like, none
Speaker 1: that should share for me, Like, what's what's the deal?
Speaker 1: Can I build on it? No? You can't build anything
Speaker 1: else on it? What the fuck? You know? Find out there?
Speaker 1: That's their property, just on the building for that point being,
Speaker 1: you know. And and um, yeah, I'm just like, but
Speaker 1: all these properties are certain properties, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: just what they own that you get to live on. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, this is fucking bullshit, dude. You know.
Speaker 1: I never made it to my second appointment. I was like,
Speaker 1: look out of here. Local activist Regina Rage also spoke
Speaker 1: on the ongoing gentrification in Portland in specific relation to
Speaker 1: a certain red painted house on Mississippi Avenue that was
Speaker 1: owned by the same black family for more than fifty years.
Speaker 1: That house would become one of the main focal points
Speaker 1: in Portland protests. Yeah, Mississippi Street is located in a
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Portland that was previously in all black neighborhood
Speaker 1: and is at the very moment being gentrified and developed.
Speaker 1: And UM, black families are being four out into East
Speaker 1: Portland and Southeast Portland because of this gentrification and so
Speaker 1: like for me specifically, UM, I like remember the lot
Speaker 1: that we're all occupying, and it's been empty my entire life,
Speaker 1: and now because of this protest, they want to develop
Speaker 1: it into something else. They're gonna donate it and then
Speaker 1: they're gonna put higher rises on top of it, condos,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, the neighborhood looks vastly different from when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. I don't recognize it. Sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: driving and I just really don't recognize it. And um,
Speaker 1: that's what makes it important to the community is this
Speaker 1: is one of the last black families in this neighborhood
Speaker 1: and they are doing everything they can to remain this neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And previously they were displaced from Vamport as well, another
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Portland's that was destroyed. UM, and all of
Speaker 1: it is tied to white supremacy. In what we're fighting against,
Speaker 1: we crooked. Here's Donovan Smith. The Red House All Mississippi
Speaker 1: has belonged to the Kinney family for over sixty five years.
Speaker 1: William and Pauline Kenney sold their house to their son,
Speaker 1: William Jr. And his wife in their financial Dominoes began
Speaker 1: when the owner's son got into a car accident on
Speaker 1: a suspended license as of teen in two thousand two.
Speaker 1: The driver of the car died, the passenger was injured,
Speaker 1: and William the third was ultimately convicted of a felony.
Speaker 1: To cover legal fees, the Kinney family took out a
Speaker 1: balloon loan against the house the Sun and William X.
Speaker 1: Nice was sinced to five years first and juvenile detention
Speaker 1: before being transitioned to the state prison at eighteen. Over time,
Speaker 1: due to interests and expenses piling up, as well as
Speaker 1: inadequate legal representation, the Kinney family home, now one of
Speaker 1: the last black owned homes on North Mississippi, ended up
Speaker 1: in foreclosure because the foreclosure process started prior to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: In September, or judge ruled that the eviction of the
Speaker 1: Kenneys could proceed despite the eviction moratorium. That month, the
Speaker 1: Montnoma County Sharfs stormed into the Reddit House with rifles
Speaker 1: and evicted four members of the family. After the initial eviction,
Speaker 1: some Portlanders began gathering around the Red House to support
Speaker 1: the Kennies. They decried the forced eviction, especially amist economic
Speaker 1: crisis and the pandemic. Some even camped outside the property,
Speaker 1: and then on December five, the Portland Police Bureau and
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's arrived yet again to clear out residents, campers
Speaker 1: and render the home on Mississippi Avenue uninhabited Alsas are
Speaker 1: An independent Portland journalists was on the on when the
Speaker 1: tide turned against the police eviction team. Red House. Wow,
Speaker 1: where to be kids? Um? You know, Red Houses is
Speaker 1: like such a wild story in so many ways. Um,
Speaker 1: that morning, oh my god, it was like not even
Speaker 1: nine thirty in the morning, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: holy sh it, Like everyone just went like full Paris
Speaker 1: on p PP. It was not even ten o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. I was like, what am I witnessing right now?
Speaker 1: This is wild? But I think that's fucking huge because
Speaker 1: you know, for almost two hundred days we've seen people
Speaker 1: we've you know, we've seen activists and protesters play nothing
Speaker 1: but defense, and even the defense is very like it's
Speaker 1: usually very childish and comical, you know, which is what's
Speaker 1: so fucking powerful. You know. They throw bouncy balls and
Speaker 1: water balloons filled with glitter at the cops, and the
Speaker 1: cops's reaction is just like, you know, it's absurd. UM.
Speaker 1: So seeing that kind and even even the morning of
Speaker 1: Red House, that was still defense, but it was a
Speaker 1: different kind of defense. It was hands on, aggressive, don't
Speaker 1: funk with us kind of defense. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: the first time I've seen anything like that. UM. And
Speaker 1: the fact that it was done for that reason, I
Speaker 1: think also just goes to show like what the community
Speaker 1: is about. UM. Seeing people care that much, it was incredible. Um.
Speaker 1: There were people literally fighting the cops, and I think
Speaker 1: this is one of the few like literally fighting the
Speaker 1: up um to defend a family that was you know,
Speaker 1: they were trying to force out of their home. And UM,
Speaker 1: I think you know, in general Red House, but like
Speaker 1: even like leading up to Red House, there's been UM,
Speaker 1: I think there's been a lot more attention and a
Speaker 1: lot more care and focus on houselessness activist Regina Rage
Speaker 1: also witnessed the December raid. I was there at five.
Speaker 1: They called me at four, and I got there right
Speaker 1: after in the morning, Yes, in the morning. UM. Initially
Speaker 1: it was just me there, UM. And then I think
Speaker 1: by the time daylight hit and Coyn was there, there
Speaker 1: was maybe like fifty people, all like crunched in like
Speaker 1: this one tiny side yard that the only place we
Speaker 1: were allowed to be at. And at that point I
Speaker 1: noticed that white people were allowed to stand in that
Speaker 1: alleyway and I wasn't. Every time I stepped in the alleyway,
Speaker 1: they the police charged at me and threatened to arrest me.
Speaker 1: And UM, I started yelling about how like they were
Speaker 1: blatantly allowing these white people to walk back and forth
Speaker 1: in this alleyway, but I wasn't, and other people started yelling,
Speaker 1: and then soon we were all just standing in the
Speaker 1: street and the police we're rushing us. UM. At one
Speaker 1: point they massed us all and UM forced us all
Speaker 1: back onto the side yard, and then we rushed again.
Speaker 1: A couple of people got arrested, and they at one
Speaker 1: point decided to pull back, and the sheriff's let first,
Speaker 1: and as they started to lead I started running down
Speaker 1: the hill towards the cop cars, and everybody else followed
Speaker 1: and it escalated from there. Under a hell of water bottles, rocks, paint, balloons,
Speaker 1: and other random projectiles, police retreated from the area. The
Speaker 1: cops initially arrived around five am and were completely gone
Speaker 1: by ten thirty. In the five hours they were present,
Speaker 1: at least seven people were arrested, and the hasty retreat
Speaker 1: several police cars were damaged, some by projectiles and one
Speaker 1: due to an officer crashing his own cruise there into
Speaker 1: another car. Regina describes what happened next. Um, the police
Speaker 1: finally left. UM, we're chased off whatever. UM, and we
Speaker 1: just took down the fence and started building them immediately. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the police had destroyed all of what we had
Speaker 1: built that red house. It was like a weather proof
Speaker 1: um living space for those individuals who were staying there,
Speaker 1: as well as like an event space. It was like
Speaker 1: very very very nice, and UM they destroyed it. And UM,
Speaker 1: so we took basically all the broken materials that they
Speaker 1: created for us and used those to build barricades. And UM.
Speaker 1: When the barricades were up, we UM, we organized watch
Speaker 1: and UM began calling for supplies to be brought in.
Speaker 1: Like what happened. I do want to add what happened
Speaker 1: with that barricade was just like organic and organic response
Speaker 1: to being attacked by an enemy who literally does not
Speaker 1: give a funk about your life. Like Regina and I
Speaker 1: are both single mothers, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: they're out there gassing single mom at Lista recounts the
Speaker 1: mood after the cops were pushed out of the area.
Speaker 1: Everyone was just kind of like on edge, like it
Speaker 1: was a huge celebration, but everybody was like that they're
Speaker 1: coming back and with forced they just got their asses
Speaker 1: handed to them. There's absolutely no way they're just gonna
Speaker 1: you know, they're just gonna leave. So everyone everyone was
Speaker 1: ready and everyone was waiting, and within minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: barricades started to go up. Um, but they weren't even then,
Speaker 1: Like they weren't just like barricades. Um. Were you at
Speaker 1: a pekaz or any of the like the really really
Speaker 1: barricaded Knights and you know, those nights were fucking sick.
Speaker 1: But a lot of barricades like like they were really
Speaker 1: cool and they were they served their purpose. But Red House,
Speaker 1: I'm talking like reinforced barricades and blockades like there were
Speaker 1: powered tools, there was concrete being laid out, like you know,
Speaker 1: anything you could think of. Um, And I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of that comes from practice and um.
Speaker 1: You know, you learn what you do wrong by you know,
Speaker 1: testing things out. But I think the biggest change was,
Speaker 1: like it was the passionate. Hours after the barricades went up,
Speaker 1: narrowly re elected Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler made a series
Speaker 1: of tweets decrying the eviction blockade and mischaracterizing the eviction
Speaker 1: defense as a so called autonomous zone. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm authorizing the Portland Police to use all lawful means
Speaker 1: to in the illegal occupation on North Mississippi Avenue and
Speaker 1: to hold those violating our community laws accountable. There will
Speaker 1: be no autonomous zone in Portland end quote. Nervous anticipation
Speaker 1: loomed over everyone the first night inside the barricades. Behind
Speaker 1: the multiple layers of reinforced barricades and impromptu call troops,
Speaker 1: people anxiously waited to see if the police would show
Speaker 1: up that first night, but slowly morning came and the
Speaker 1: coast was clear. Over the next few days, the infrastructure
Speaker 1: grew barricades grew more sophisticated. The Jankee caltrots made of
Speaker 1: screws and garden hoses were replaced with wealthy rebar the
Speaker 1: food donation area turned into a whole kitchen, and more
Speaker 1: and more tents for put up in the streets around
Speaker 1: the Red House. But as time went on and police
Speaker 1: didn't show familiar problems of roles regarding people acting as security.
Speaker 1: Here's Regina and UM. I think that white people in
Speaker 1: this movement often come into it with all white savior
Speaker 1: complex and take up a lot of space and actually
Speaker 1: alienate the black people that this movement is about. And
Speaker 1: that's what happened during the barricade. There were a ton
Speaker 1: of white cis gendered people running around UM, behaving crazily,
Speaker 1: UM acting like cops. To be honest, Multiple people, some
Speaker 1: of them children, were physically assaulted, put in chokehole, shot
Speaker 1: at with paintballs, and kicked out of the Red House
Speaker 1: eviction defense area for not having permission to use paint
Speaker 1: by large men acting as self appointed security team. Problems
Speaker 1: with the protest security occurred in Portland before, the most
Speaker 1: notable being the truck driver assault, but smaller incidents took
Speaker 1: place throughout the summer and fall. Armed men running around
Speaker 1: in tactical gear, trying to intimidate people into obedience and
Speaker 1: in some cases using physical force has the same fundamental issue.
Speaker 1: People critique police for the same problem of armed security
Speaker 1: essentially acting as cop is part of what got a
Speaker 1: black teenager in Seattle's Capitol Hill occupied protests are child killed.
Speaker 1: One phrase spray painting near the Red House was killed
Speaker 1: the cop in your head, reflecting the protesters dissatisfaction with
Speaker 1: this dynamic. When a group of people are attacking children
Speaker 1: over graffiti, that's basically a mini police force. Unaccountable armed
Speaker 1: men and tactical gear. Part of police abolition is can
Speaker 1: running policing dynamics found throughout your life, even at anti
Speaker 1: police protests. The kill the cop in your head graffiti
Speaker 1: at Red House was soon buffed and covered over by
Speaker 1: a fellow activists within the blockade. For most within the barricades,
Speaker 1: there wasn't much conflict to speak of. The time at
Speaker 1: the eviction blockade was mostly spent sitting around a campfire
Speaker 1: and watching over the forty five intus for incoming police.
Speaker 1: The neighbors who lived near the Red House. The biggest
Speaker 1: change was a slight inconvenience to parking. Many locals were
Speaker 1: very sympathetic to the cause, putting up signs and supported
Speaker 1: the Kennys and the Red House, and some even show
Speaker 1: support in other ways. People were actually very supportive. UM.
Speaker 1: Neighbors were bringing us food and supplies, they were coming
Speaker 1: to hang out with us, they were bringing us coffee. UM.
Speaker 1: There were very few individuals in the neighborhood who actually
Speaker 1: felt threatened by any of us, But unfortunately those are
Speaker 1: the people who got to the media first. But I
Speaker 1: think that if we UM were able to talk to
Speaker 1: everyone who was involved, I think that they would say
Speaker 1: that they were proud of what we did. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the ones who the few and far between ones who
Speaker 1: were like against it were they were just very loud,
Speaker 1: quite privileged people with time on their hands, you know,
Speaker 1: which often times, as we know, can have the ear
Speaker 1: of the powers that be. Once the barricades went up
Speaker 1: in seven lockdown beeped up media both locally and naturally
Speaker 1: couldn't resist the Red House story. What had been one
Speaker 1: families years long battle in the courts was now suddenly
Speaker 1: catching the headlines CNN and TMZ and YEP, even Fox.
Speaker 1: A local activist named Koa Crespan, who had been working
Speaker 1: with Regina to organize with the Kennies laun should Go
Speaker 1: fund me. It set out to raise a quarter million
Speaker 1: dollars for the Kennies as a bargaining chip to get
Speaker 1: to developer Roman o Zarouga to the table. When national
Speaker 1: media began constantly reporting on the house, donation shot up
Speaker 1: coming from all corners of the country as sympathetic viewers
Speaker 1: and readers and to stop the Kennies from losing their home.
Speaker 1: A slight twist came when the Oregon Public Broadcasting Guard
Speaker 1: op BE released an article revealing that the Kenney family
Speaker 1: in fact had a place to stay after the raid.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was another family member who yep on
Speaker 1: their own home. The headline family at the center of
Speaker 1: the Red House protests old second Portlands home, detailing the
Speaker 1: fact that the home had been kept in the family
Speaker 1: for generations, disperst similar headlines locally and Nashally. They're trying
Speaker 1: to say the Kinney family lied about like not having
Speaker 1: anywhere to go, and when I get kicked out, I
Speaker 1: have gotten kicked out of places that I've been staying
Speaker 1: at and have had nowhere but my grandmother's house to go,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what happened to the Kinney family. The
Speaker 1: police removed them from their home at gunpoint, and they
Speaker 1: had nowhere else but their grandma's house to go, so
Speaker 1: they went to say there, and the media tried to
Speaker 1: say that they had a second house. And as if
Speaker 1: an entire family with multiple generations all has to live
Speaker 1: in the same house, that is some racist ship. Was
Speaker 1: super racist to say that a black family has to
Speaker 1: all live in the same fucking house. O. P. B
Speaker 1: ran an apology articles shortly thereafter, apologizing for their mischaracterization
Speaker 1: of the Kinneys plate. Some support had dwindled, but through
Speaker 1: it all, support for the Red House grew, and so
Speaker 1: did the fundraiser. The go fund me raised well over
Speaker 1: the quarter million dollars and needed to secure the house.
Speaker 1: The developer was ready to approach the bargaining table with
Speaker 1: the assistance of the city, Roman and the Kinneys began
Speaker 1: discussions about transferring ownership back into the hands of the family.
Speaker 1: This was a mark of celebration for some who had
Speaker 1: been occupying the house since September, as conversations with Roman
Speaker 1: trucked on the city. After days of threatening police force
Speaker 1: against the house, promised the barrel with back off if
Speaker 1: barricades came down. The Kinneys obliged, to the dismay of
Speaker 1: some activists, many white, who wanted to flex the strength
Speaker 1: of the people. But for Regina, she says, the occupation
Speaker 1: was never about the walls. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: people who we didn't even know, who had never been
Speaker 1: to the Red House, who had opinions on what we
Speaker 1: should have done and like who we are now, um,
Speaker 1: because we didn't keep those barricades up, um, But it
Speaker 1: was never about the barricades. It was, it is and
Speaker 1: will always be about what is best for the Kidney
Speaker 1: family and what they want. And um we did lose
Speaker 1: like support slowly and slowly after the barricades um came down,
Speaker 1: people stopped coming and UM their individuals living at the
Speaker 1: Red House right now who still need support from this
Speaker 1: community and are not getting it because the cops aren't
Speaker 1: an imminent threat anymore At the moment, it does seem
Speaker 1: the eviction blockade was successful in applying enough pressure to
Speaker 1: open up options for the Kidneys to keep their home,
Speaker 1: holding down a few blocks of a neighborhood, while raising
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be a perfectly
Speaker 1: replicable strategy, but it does show the type of things
Speaker 1: that can happen when community comes together to stand up
Speaker 1: against a perceived injustice. Here's Coy on the potential impact
Speaker 1: of the Red House story in the future. And I
Speaker 1: hope it happens all around the country, and I hope
Speaker 1: people are inspired by it and that they go speaking
Speaker 1: out evictions to do the ship with then to lift
Speaker 1: up this work. Um, this isn't like the first ever
Speaker 1: time and neighborhood has risen up to defend an eviction.
Speaker 1: This would happen even as far back as the thirties.
Speaker 1: Communities would come together to fight um the police when
Speaker 1: they came to drag people out of their homes. Right,
Speaker 1: I think like we've all seen have I don't know,
Speaker 1: we've probably all seen that pick of like it's from
Speaker 1: like the thirties, like range of reference, where it's like
Speaker 1: neighborhood men and they're all white, like on top of
Speaker 1: a sheriff stopping them from evicting a widow, you know,
Speaker 1: like a handful of people continue to occupy the Red House.
Speaker 1: Negotiations have continued since December, but all parties have been
Speaker 1: pretty tight looked about the status of the talks up
Speaker 1: until now. Red Houses not marked the end of protests
Speaker 1: in Portland. More than anything, it's galvanized a large amount
Speaker 1: of mutual aid directed around evictions and houselessness. During the
Speaker 1: same period, as Red House activists keeping multi week watch
Speaker 1: over a houseless encampment at a local park that was
Speaker 1: under threat of sweep by the city. As winner is
Speaker 1: set in the mayor is support to roll back eviction
Speaker 1: protections as well as protections against camp suites. Facing freezing
Speaker 1: temperatures and the mounting pandemic, activists have mobilized to get
Speaker 1: gear and supplies, as well as helping with defense work
Speaker 1: to prevent more evictions and displacement. Activists argue that sweeps
Speaker 1: and evictions are unconscionable during a pandemic, and that money
Speaker 1: funding the evictions could be used to make sure that
Speaker 1: people are housed. Dmitria Hester speaks about the continuing mutual aid. No,
Speaker 1: I am surprising because our community know us the need,
Speaker 1: they know it's an needs, so they started all this
Speaker 1: group so that that we can help the need in
Speaker 1: our community. I mean, people are still getting evicted, They're
Speaker 1: still not being able to pay their bills. They're still
Speaker 1: not getting food from our government. So we have to
Speaker 1: depend on each other to give us what we need,
Speaker 1: you know, to be successful, to keep going on because
Speaker 1: I don't see a future of our government giving us
Speaker 1: or doing anything to help us. So we still have
Speaker 1: to continue this fight. Plus we're pushing it to the
Speaker 1: to the White House. I was there when Um when
Speaker 1: Biden one, we marched our march with the Black Panthers
Speaker 1: to the White House, saying to for aid, tell the
Speaker 1: tell the world who we hate, the Republicans, the Democrats,
Speaker 1: the whole damn bunch. Another ongoing movie in that this
Speaker 1: game renewed interests in the summer protests, the Patrick kim
Speaker 1: And marches that happened twice a week. Leetha Winston has
Speaker 1: been marching the streets of Portlands at times alone, the
Speaker 1: search for justice for her son Patrick Kimmons. For years,
Speaker 1: Leath has pleaded for local officials to reopen his case
Speaker 1: satur he was shot and killed by Portland police in lateen.
Speaker 1: The calls were met with little action. That was until
Speaker 1: the George Floyd uprisings. These protests gave rise to an
Speaker 1: immended version of the slogan Black lives Matter, with many
Speaker 1: beginning to claim that all black lives matter. While this
Speaker 1: phrase was created and part to give more visibility to
Speaker 1: black LGBTQ people were experiencing some of the worst harms
Speaker 1: in the community, it also grew to buck at the
Speaker 1: idea that those worth honoring or remembering need to somehow
Speaker 1: be perfect victims, black and unarmed with no criminal background.
Speaker 1: When news of Kimmon's case broke, details were scammed. He
Speaker 1: got into a confrontation with two men, shooting and wounding
Speaker 1: both of them. Police showed up shortly thereafter, and he
Speaker 1: was shot and killed. It was later revealed by the
Speaker 1: autopsy that of the twelve bullets police fired at twenty
Speaker 1: seven year old Kimmen and I entered his body. It
Speaker 1: also showed that some of those shots had gone through
Speaker 1: his back. After a judge ruled out there was no
Speaker 1: wrong doing by the police. The Barrel release footage at
Speaker 1: the early morning standoff. Organizer Jedi Levy explains the scene
Speaker 1: here basically like there was like a minor like argument
Speaker 1: or scuffle or whatever, and Patrick started running and um,
Speaker 1: he didn't know that he was running towards the police,
Speaker 1: but he was running towards the police and then went
Speaker 1: to turn into like in between some cars, and the
Speaker 1: cops started shooting him and all the shots went into
Speaker 1: his back. So, um, yeah, they shot him in the
Speaker 1: back and killed him. And uh, the cops were not charged.
Speaker 1: It was basically rule justifiable homicide and um it wasn't though,
Speaker 1: because they shot him in his back. So during the trial,
Speaker 1: the rookie cop who fired the fatal shots described himself
Speaker 1: as doing what he was taught to neutralize the threat.
Speaker 1: It was enough to vindicate him in the courts, but
Speaker 1: not in eyes Salita. She's been leading regular marches throughout
Speaker 1: the city since, sometimes with the crowd, other times just
Speaker 1: alone with a megaphone to many for the case to
Speaker 1: be reopened. Once the Portland protests began, her fight gained
Speaker 1: new light. Organizers like Jedi have helped grow the fleet
Speaker 1: of protesters marching alongside kim AND's mother. He talks about
Speaker 1: his involvement in the marches here. She did it for
Speaker 1: well over a year with virtually no help, um except
Speaker 1: for one person named Jay, and he still comes to
Speaker 1: this very day like he's the only person that actually
Speaker 1: stuck with her throughout this entire time. But Um, so
Speaker 1: she's basically just trying to spread awareness and like talk
Speaker 1: to Ted Wheeler. It worked. An emotional face to face
Speaker 1: between her and the mayor was finally scheduled. Ted Wheeler
Speaker 1: was super sad and was like, I can't believe I
Speaker 1: haven't done more about this. I'm really really sorry. He's
Speaker 1: told her that she's like the wrongest speaker, like one
Speaker 1: of the strongest speakers she's he's ever seen, and he
Speaker 1: was brought to tears. Snigger was literally crying in the
Speaker 1: Mayor's office. Um, so that was great And what she's
Speaker 1: trying to what basically, we're just continuing to put the
Speaker 1: pressure on, uh, the police officers when we go out
Speaker 1: and um, really we just want this the next meeting
Speaker 1: to to come up because the next meeting they're gonna
Speaker 1: sit down and actually review the tapes together. So um,
Speaker 1: that is what's being done right now. Um, and just
Speaker 1: keeping our fingers crossed that happened sooner sooner than later. Still,
Speaker 1: the case has a mem reopened. Letha continues to march
Speaker 1: around the city demanding justice for our son efectually known
Speaker 1: as Pat Pat. The marches have continued with increased numbers
Speaker 1: through all the fall and into winter. During the autumn,
Speaker 1: face with increased attacks from our right extremists who would
Speaker 1: attack lead this marches with signs and flags declaring that
Speaker 1: they backed the Blue. Organizers and activists began using the
Speaker 1: slogan back the Black for their weekly protests that continued
Speaker 1: hate and aggression that these peaceful marches have seen reflected
Speaker 1: the growing vitriol that was coming from the far right
Speaker 1: as we moved into the election, and finally, the January
Speaker 1: violence that rocked the nation. In Washington, d C. On
Speaker 1: January six, thousands of Trump supporters rushed to Capitol Building
Speaker 1: and a last ditch attempt to stop the certification of
Speaker 1: the presidential election results. The violent attempt to take over
Speaker 1: forced Congress to evacuate, left five dead, including two police officers,
Speaker 1: and drew the ties between law enforcement, Republican congress people,
Speaker 1: and far right militants to the forefront of national awareness.
Speaker 1: In December, a stop to steal rally in Salem, Oregan
Speaker 1: had similarly breached the state capital, though the group hadn't
Speaker 1: reached the chambers of legislature. CCTV footage later showed that
Speaker 1: the breach in Salem began with the Republican legislator opening
Speaker 1: the doors to admit the mob. On the sixth January,
Speaker 1: a small far right group assembled again and clash with
Speaker 1: left wing demonstrators. The group again included both mainstream Republican
Speaker 1: politician and extremist figures, including one of the white supremacists
Speaker 1: convicted in the nine murder of Ethiopian grad student Mulla
Speaker 1: get Us. A raw in Portland compared to the nation's capital,
Speaker 1: the Salem rally was limited. No major breaches of the
Speaker 1: capital in Salem occurred. By three pm, the crowded dispersed.
Speaker 1: Despite the shakeup, Biden assumed office just over a week later.
Speaker 1: On his first day in office, Biden signed executive order
Speaker 1: halting ICE deportations for a hundred days, as the administration
Speaker 1: attempted to overhaul many of Trump's deportation policies. That same day,
Speaker 1: protesters in Portland gathered at the local ICE headquarters. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to temporate into de deportations. They wanted a
Speaker 1: complete disbanding the nine eleven era agency, who split up
Speaker 1: scores of families, held small children in cages, and acted
Speaker 1: in strong concert with the FBI since its inception. This
Speaker 1: night ended with six arrests and without the stating of
Speaker 1: tear gas. Days later another it was a different story,
Speaker 1: as Feds and Right gear matt protesters with cuffs, force
Speaker 1: and classet gas. The headquarters had, however, become a fixture
Speaker 1: in the protests, with federal agents regularly deploints c S
Speaker 1: gas against him. But situated next to the facility was
Speaker 1: a school k through a public charter, Cottonwood School of
Speaker 1: Civics and Science School regularly was engulfed in tear gas.
Speaker 1: Dr Juni per seminists immediately sprung into action, collecting soil
Speaker 1: samples across the school campus and Coldness playground to assess
Speaker 1: its impacts. While that research continues, Cottonwood didn't wait for
Speaker 1: their answer. They wanted an immediate into the use of
Speaker 1: tear gas by federal agents. Now the agency hasn't issued
Speaker 1: any formal response, but it's almost certain that activists will
Speaker 1: continue atturning to the building and call for an to
Speaker 1: ice as weeks roll along with four years of Biden
Speaker 1: and Harris at the Helm. Their election was a welcome
Speaker 1: reprieve from Trump's heavy handed brand of racist politics, but
Speaker 1: not an end to the fight against systems of oppression.
Speaker 1: The simultaneous re election of Mayor Ted Wheeler was a
Speaker 1: mark of dread for many of who have been on
Speaker 1: the ground. He eaked out a win, earning more boats
Speaker 1: and on ballot challengers Sarah i anneron but less than
Speaker 1: her in total. Writings, many which are presumed to have
Speaker 1: went to Don't Shoot Portland founder to Resta Raeford, who
Speaker 1: community members launched a writing campaign for after the long
Speaker 1: time BLM leader lost her bid for Portland's top seat
Speaker 1: in the primaries. The results revealed a divide even in
Speaker 1: Portland politics. Despite the split, it also marked the most racially,
Speaker 1: gender and sexually diverse council in the city's history. The
Speaker 1: new council assumed office to January. Negotiations began between the
Speaker 1: city and police union that same month, and this time,
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, the public got a glintse
Speaker 1: behind the curtain after monster protests that put their barrel
Speaker 1: on headlines across the world. All lives were on these
Speaker 1: powerful van cards of the profession. In the negotiations, tensions
Speaker 1: remained high as union heads railed against new measures of oversight,
Speaker 1: discipline and limits on overtime expenditures. While the barrel had
Speaker 1: said they want racial and social justice, changes in the
Speaker 1: police force. Many of the proposed changes have been met
Speaker 1: with critique and resistance. Their current contract with the city
Speaker 1: expired June this year. As negotiations continue, it remains to
Speaker 1: be seen what changes will come between the Barrel and
Speaker 1: the city. The past year has been marked by a
Speaker 1: number of police involved violence, despite the growing cause for justice.
Speaker 1: In Vancouver, Washington, a bridge away from Portland, two young
Speaker 1: black men, Kevin Peterson Jr. And Genoa Davis, have been
Speaker 1: killed by officers, with them just a couple of months
Speaker 1: of each other. And the college town of Eugene, Oregon,
Speaker 1: Chen Shariff was shot after police responded to an alleged
Speaker 1: domestic violence report. Shariff did survive meanwhile and miss the backdrop,
Speaker 1: but the pandemic the streets of Portlands are seeing thirty
Speaker 1: year highs and gun violence economic downturn is leaving the
Speaker 1: city on edge. White supremacis of all stripes have been emboldened,
Speaker 1: while cries for justice for black lives have reached feverish
Speaker 1: new highs. The international cameras are gone now. Protests continue,
Speaker 1: but in marketly smaller numbers. That nine minute fuse of
Speaker 1: George Floyd's murder had lit a fire under the country.
Speaker 1: You know what surface was a renewed urgency to transform
Speaker 1: a system that has devalued black lives, not as an
Speaker 1: exception but a fundamental tool and tradition of the society.
Speaker 1: As the streets have quieted, the urgency for chain still
Speaker 1: remains for those that have been a part of these uprisings.
Speaker 1: As the resistance begins to take a new face, the
Speaker 1: question remains, what's next. I don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: I don't think people are just gonna get tired and
Speaker 1: go away. This is like people have had enough of
Speaker 1: this police brutality and in the racism that you know,
Speaker 1: influence just police brutality. I don't see it going away.
Speaker 1: I mean I see it ebbing and flowing, like you know,
Speaker 1: just it's almost natural for any energy to do that.
Speaker 1: So we go, you know, we go up with big
Speaker 1: turnouts and go down with low turnouts, or up with
Speaker 1: really good morale, and then you know, down in the
Speaker 1: dumb later. It's just so I think it's going to
Speaker 1: keep following that, some kind of evan flow of change.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's going to go away. I
Speaker 1: don't see how would you go away when the police
Speaker 1: are continuing to kill unarmed black people. They're continue their
Speaker 1: continuing to do it. I think it's really telling that
Speaker 1: as far as I know, not one single Portland police
Speaker 1: after has been um disciplined for their actions. And they
Speaker 1: have done something extremely terrible, things that should be disciplined,
Speaker 1: things that go against their training, things that go against
Speaker 1: their own policies and procedures, and these things are caught
Speaker 1: on video, so there's no excuse at why they have
Speaker 1: not been disciplined. People just like become the changes, become
Speaker 1: the normative, like the way get pushed out into the
Speaker 1: big c of water, BIGFC and and that's what it is,
Speaker 1: you know. I think, like I look at Ferguson, uh
Speaker 1: so that movement you know, kind of faded away or whatever.
Speaker 1: This just happened. I can't yeah, but yeah, and this
Speaker 1: Kinst election they just elected one of the activists from
Speaker 1: their Congress. So that's like the movement like says what
Speaker 1: that's like last change and the people there has well
Speaker 1: radicalized to do so it's life. Though the movement that's
Speaker 1: tied to the Summer may stayed away. It's like unless
Speaker 1: they're going to you know, remove everybody and all of
Speaker 1: our ages, all of our renewed perspectives on life, and
Speaker 1: you can't really life right at all. I think the
Speaker 1: it's interesting, there's like two different The morale of the
Speaker 1: city as a whole is very like in Limbo, I
Speaker 1: feel like often times, but because it's like ultimately people
Speaker 1: who are protesting are ultimately doing it for the right reasons,
Speaker 1: and we get like little glimmers of like hope. But
Speaker 1: then like just today I learned the three black people
Speaker 1: that were killed in the last week throughout the United
Speaker 1: States by police unarmed, so and then you hear ship
Speaker 1: like that, and then it it just makes you wonder,
Speaker 1: like why are we even continuing to do this, Like
Speaker 1: why even keep fighting? This just keeps happening. But I
Speaker 1: think that, um, right now we live in this I
Speaker 1: feel like right now we live in this time of
Speaker 1: questions where we have a lot of questions without answers.
Speaker 1: But there are years that asked questions and there are
Speaker 1: years that answer them. I don't think we're in a
Speaker 1: in a year right now where we're gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot of answers and that's okay. I feel like we
Speaker 1: need to be okay with like sitting in the questions
Speaker 1: and going through like the mud and going through the puddle,
Speaker 1: so to speak, in order to get to where we
Speaker 1: want to go. It's gonna take time because the system
Speaker 1: has taken years to UM to build into what it
Speaker 1: is right now, and so it's just gonna take time.
Speaker 1: So I think the morale of the city limbos because
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of you know, the white Neil
Speaker 1: liberals who just want to go back to normal. But
Speaker 1: normal was killing us, so we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: And then you have our side, which is like we're
Speaker 1: feeling we're getting pulled in all kinds of directions, we're
Speaker 1: feeling inspiration, and then we're feeling discouragement because we keep
Speaker 1: seeing the same ship happened. But ultimately, UM mutual aid
Speaker 1: really is the way of the future, and I think
Speaker 1: that these mutual aid groups and networks that were forming
Speaker 1: right now are really the genesis of what it's going
Speaker 1: to look like for humanity to live in a world
Speaker 1: without dependence on the state and without needing or feeling
Speaker 1: like we the police are going to keep us safe
Speaker 1: when they've proven so many times that we don't UM.
Speaker 1: So I personally am excited about the future because I'm
Speaker 1: witnessing like the yeah, really just the genesis of what
Speaker 1: of the world that I would like to live in. UM.
Speaker 1: But obviously you know, it's the whole two steps forward,
Speaker 1: one step back thing that we that we have to
Speaker 1: do with as well. So I'm looking forward to how
Speaker 1: things are going. I'm just hoping that more people can
Speaker 1: really open their eyes to UM, how they're how being
Speaker 1: complicit to the system is literally murdering people they look
Speaker 1: like me and Donovan, and that we need to stop it.
Speaker 1: There's too many people who are still sleeping. UM. That's
Speaker 1: a big reason why I think we were doing that
Speaker 1: thing at our CJ was to wake up this side
Speaker 1: of this the river like march through the neighborhoods, wake
Speaker 1: people up, let them know that we're here, there's a
Speaker 1: ton of us, and that they need to be on
Speaker 1: our side because ultimately, when when we are free, when
Speaker 1: black people are free, everybody is going to be free,
Speaker 1: because black liberation is human liberation at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. So if we can really focus on uplifting
Speaker 1: our most marginalized and most oppressed communities and we're uplifting
Speaker 1: everybody at the same time, and the quicker that more
Speaker 1: people really understand that and are inspired enough to actually
Speaker 1: take action and be a part of the movement. Um
Speaker 1: the better. Just um yeah, um, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: things that personally we get. Uprisings were not Portland's first
Speaker 1: by any means. The city earned the name Little Bay
Speaker 1: Route after protests against the Portland Republican National Convention in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. But when the world was gripped with
Speaker 1: a pandemic that had brought most facets of normal life
Speaker 1: to a screeching halt, a spotlight was flung on the
Speaker 1: gaps between what America says it is in the realities
Speaker 1: its black citizens experienced for decades, And in the midst
Speaker 1: of all this, Portland became Little Bay Route again, or,
Speaker 1: as President Trump called it, a beehive of terrorists. To
Speaker 1: many of those on the ground, the city of Roses
Speaker 1: seemed to be seeing what might be the beginnings of
Speaker 1: a beautiful new world, straining to be born tragedy, ward
Speaker 1: with hope, and through it all blood, sweat and tear gas.
Speaker 1: Sometimes messy, but determined group of activists stood toe to
Speaker 1: toe against some of the deepest cylinders of oppression in
Speaker 1: the country to make sure the normal that we have
Speaker 1: all known is replaced. Some lobbied, some voted, some shouted
Speaker 1: down the mare. Some started nonprofits, some started wearing block.
Speaker 1: No matter what people chose, thousands decided to take action.
Speaker 1: New definitive answers emerged out of the protests, but what
Speaker 1: did emerge was a reinvigorated sense of urgency for change.
Speaker 1: The question we're now all left with is this, Will
Speaker 1: we right the historic wrongs of this nation in time
Speaker 1: to fix things before the clock runs out? Only time
Speaker 1: will tell uh? Where the grand pops who couldn't fathom
Speaker 1: the obamacist I don't hate America just to me? And
Speaker 1: she keeps the promises looking like the sixties. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: a nationwide deja who what my people post to do?
Speaker 1: Go to schools named after the clan founder were around town? Is?
Speaker 1: I don't see why we frown in? Native American students
Speaker 1: forced to learn about when o'para Sarah? How is that fair? Bro?
Speaker 1: Some Euros unsung in some monsters get monuments built for them.
Speaker 1: But it ain't be all a little bit of monster.
Speaker 1: We crook it