Speaker 1: We started this series by asking why Portland, and the
Speaker 1: most accurate answer to that question is the history lesson.
Speaker 1: We gave an episode one, but the most direct answer
Speaker 1: to why the city of Portland became the nexus of
Speaker 1: an uprising starts with a bunch of teenagers in a
Speaker 1: statue of George Washington. Our own Garrison Davis was there.
Speaker 1: Here's what he experienced. On Thursday June, I set out
Speaker 1: for a park in East Portland. The teenage activist group
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front or just the Wire Left
Speaker 1: posted on their Twitter account that something was planned for
Speaker 1: eight pm, so I made my way, expecting something interesting
Speaker 1: to happen. The previous night, the Wire Left and some
Speaker 1: New Black organizers had set up an autonomous zone style
Speaker 1: occupation in front of the Mayor's apartment in the upscale
Speaker 1: Pearl district, inspired by Seattle's Capitol Hill Occupied protest slash
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Coome morning, not enough bodies were
Speaker 1: present at the attempted autonomous zone to resist the riot
Speaker 1: police who arrived to clear the area. After the very
Speaker 1: short lived Autonomous Zone, I had wondered what the Wire
Speaker 1: Left had planned next. As eight pm approached On that Thursday,
Speaker 1: only a little over a dozen people gathered at the
Speaker 1: original meeting spot. The small group were mostly in black block.
Speaker 1: Black block is a tactic that originated with German anti
Speaker 1: globalization protesters. It involves wearing all black clothing to make
Speaker 1: it difficult to identify specific people. Shortly after I arrived,
Speaker 1: the crowd had began marching north. They decided to take
Speaker 1: the sidewalk instead of the street to due to their
Speaker 1: low numbers. In a matter of minutes, the crowd arrived
Speaker 1: at their apparent destination, the Portland German American Society, which
Speaker 1: features a large statue of George Washington out in front
Speaker 1: of the building. Activists started by draping in a man
Speaker 1: a can flag over the face of the statue and
Speaker 1: lighting into blaze. People spray painted the base and statue itself,
Speaker 1: writing genocidal colonist, slave owner and six nineteen, the year
Speaker 1: the first enslaved Africans were brought to America. Slowly more
Speaker 1: people arrived as calls for support were made out over
Speaker 1: social media. The few dozen people in attendance started attaching
Speaker 1: nylon straps to the head of the statue and began
Speaker 1: pulling back and forth. By eleven pm, the statue of
Speaker 1: George Washington had been completely torn down. The crowd quickly left,
Speaker 1: calling the night of success, and police arrived a little
Speaker 1: over half an hour later. At the time, no one
Speaker 1: could have known that this small action would trigger a
Speaker 1: series of events that would turn Portland's BLM protests into
Speaker 1: the biggest story in the entire country. Right Wing media
Speaker 1: reacted to the toppling of the George Washington statue as expected.
Speaker 1: A narrative was spun that police were letting a violent
Speaker 1: mob of ANTIFA rioters go around town destroying property without consequence.
Speaker 1: Pundits criticized protesters for erasing history. The Portland police defended
Speaker 1: their failure to stop the toppling of the statue by
Speaker 1: complaining that they had been occupied with a concurrent protest
Speaker 1: at the Justice Center fence. They stated the group blocked
Speaker 1: the street for several hours, throwing projectiles such as hot
Speaker 1: dogs at the Justice Centered doors. By this point, three
Speaker 1: weeks into the protests, dozens of Portlanders had been arrested
Speaker 1: at actions, and yet a narrative had begun to spread
Speaker 1: on right wing media that there had been no consequences
Speaker 1: for protesters engaging in destructive activity. The toppling of George
Speaker 1: Washington flipped a switch in national far right media, and
Speaker 1: suddenly Portland was a symbol of everything wrong with the left.
Speaker 1: Here's President Trump on the campaign trail two days ago.
Speaker 1: Left as radicals in Portland, Oregon ripped down a statue
Speaker 1: of George Washington and wrapped it in an American flag
Speaker 1: and set the American flag on fire. Democrat A Democrats.
Speaker 1: Everything I tell you is Democrat. And you know, we
Speaker 1: ought to do something. Mr Senators, we have two great senators.
Speaker 1: We ought to come up with legislation that if you
Speaker 1: burned the American flag, you go to jail for one year.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things wrong with that statement.
Speaker 1: First off, some of the folks who took down that
Speaker 1: statue would find being called a Democrat insulting. Also, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court has ruled that burning an American flag is
Speaker 1: a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Portland protesters toppling
Speaker 1: at George Washington statue seems to have inspired the President
Speaker 1: to suggest legislation that would ban not just the toppling
Speaker 1: of statues, which was already illegal, but flag burning and
Speaker 1: similar acts of protest. As it turned out, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: would follow through on the idea of criminalizing that sort
Speaker 1: of behavior, But why would protesters go through all the
Speaker 1: trouble of tumbling down statues in the first place. We
Speaker 1: talked with some members of the y LF, the Youth
Speaker 1: Liberation Front to get their perspective. Since the President of
Speaker 1: the United States has threatened these again literal children repeatedly.
Speaker 1: We've redubbed the audio in order to protect their identities
Speaker 1: because they represent monuments to people who are white supremacist
Speaker 1: and genocidal, and as an anarchist, I think every statue
Speaker 1: to a human should be torn down because they don't
Speaker 1: believe in idolizing anyone, but especially like people who led
Speaker 1: the way for colonization and just awful atrocities in their lifetime.
Speaker 1: President Trump's fury over the George Washington action through the
Speaker 1: Youth Liberation Front into the national spotlight. But that statue
Speaker 1: was not actually the first to fall in Portland, and
Speaker 1: it would not be the last, though the wire Left
Speaker 1: would become synonymous with a more radical, militant segment of
Speaker 1: the protests acting under the cover of night. The first
Speaker 1: statue to come down in Portland was actually at Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson High School. One of the only remaining majority black
Speaker 1: schools in the state. On the afternoon of June fourteenth,
Speaker 1: as a large peaceful march led by Rose City Justice
Speaker 1: departed from Jefferson, the statue of the school's namesake was
Speaker 1: torn from its pedestal by a small enthusiastic group in
Speaker 1: broad daylight. Picking up the rest of the story is
Speaker 1: my colleague and partner in getting horribly tear gassed A
Speaker 1: Laine Kinchen. Toppling statues of historical slaveholders became a nationwide
Speaker 1: trend during the first three weeks of the George Floyd protests.
Speaker 1: By the time the George Washington statue at the Portland
Speaker 1: German American Association came down, eighteen other statues had fallen
Speaker 1: to crowds across the country. In the weeks that followed,
Speaker 1: at least seventeen more statues would meet the same fate,
Speaker 1: and many more would be quietly relocated for their own protection,
Speaker 1: just as the wire left vandal Is. Some of the
Speaker 1: Washington statue fits into a larger context of statue toppling,
Speaker 1: the while of themselves are only one part of Portland's
Speaker 1: activist ecosystem, Originally emerging from a loose coalition of anti
Speaker 1: racist and anti Trump high school groups. Here are two
Speaker 1: while of members talking about the genesis of the group
Speaker 1: in nineteen the comrades who started it made a lot
Speaker 1: of connections with the Occupy ICE and started running things
Speaker 1: running the social media. I think it was really born.
Speaker 1: It came out of like really sporadic school protests, just
Speaker 1: like whatever was happening, and it was something that people
Speaker 1: felt was really important. Back then, the group slowly moved
Speaker 1: towards like anti fascism and you liberation, trying to interest
Speaker 1: agism as well in those spaces, and I think it
Speaker 1: definitely went that direction completely. June. Yeah, that was like
Speaker 1: a big anti fascist and fascist rally in Portland, and
Speaker 1: I definitely think that kind of sparked a turning point
Speaker 1: where I think like the organization really blossomed from there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we started off as like a very liberal group, like
Speaker 1: one of those many boring student activist groups that just
Speaker 1: like PARTICE, spated in walkouts. But then we started to
Speaker 1: take a more radical turn. Like our first protest that
Speaker 1: I was involved with was for gun control rally and
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's really cringe looking back, because now we're
Speaker 1: all like insurrectionary anarchists. Oh. I think it definitely moved
Speaker 1: from that into a more radical stance after June twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and then came on the seventeenth, which was another big
Speaker 1: rally in Portland. That um where he I mean like
Speaker 1: a good amount of focus was placed on us all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Yeah, and I think it kind of
Speaker 1: just continued after that. Jacob bu Eros, the founder of
Speaker 1: Direct Action Alliance, says he first encountered what would eventually
Speaker 1: become the wire Left in March of seventeen while organizing
Speaker 1: to counter a far right demonstration in the wealthy suburb
Speaker 1: of Lake Oswego. It would be you know, Rose City Antifa,
Speaker 1: Direct Action Alliance tm w Y, a left which I
Speaker 1: think had back then it was still called Oregonians Against
Speaker 1: Trump or something like that. But um, that's when we
Speaker 1: first started organizing together to confront the right wing. Was
Speaker 1: during that time in March of seventeen through May of seventeen,
Speaker 1: and then after that it was discoordinated effort. Jacob says
Speaker 1: the Direct Action Alliance was formed out of a sense
Speaker 1: of desperation in late Yeah, after the election, I just
Speaker 1: didn't want to keep wasting my time in politics, and
Speaker 1: I felt this really big sense of urgency. And around
Speaker 1: that time was when they started attacking people um at
Speaker 1: Standing Rock, and both of my kids are our citizens
Speaker 1: of the Cherokee Nation. My partners the citizen of the
Speaker 1: Cherokee Nation, and they were they were all really upset
Speaker 1: about it, and I was really upset about it. Jacob
Speaker 1: had been an activist for a while previous to this point,
Speaker 1: and he was already familiar with Portland organizers who had
Speaker 1: risen to prominence with the first Black Lives Matter protests.
Speaker 1: In These include Danielle James and the founder of Don't
Speaker 1: Shoot Portland, Teresa Raefford. We each have our own individual
Speaker 1: thing that we really focus on, except for in the
Speaker 1: Direct Action Alliance, we kind of just do everything. Most
Speaker 1: groups have their own thing that they focus on. But
Speaker 1: we're all the same people helping each other behind the scene.
Speaker 1: So when Wild Left is working focusing on something that's
Speaker 1: anti anti police, right, it's the same people who organized
Speaker 1: the large peaceful blm rallies who are working with them
Speaker 1: to support them. And so that's where the intersection is.
Speaker 1: We're all one big family here in Portland. It's not
Speaker 1: a it's not like in other cities. Where we actually
Speaker 1: have to build alliance sause people have been active in
Speaker 1: the city for so long and have been seeing the
Speaker 1: same faces for so long. I'd say it all goes
Speaker 1: back to Terressa Rayford. She's the one. She's the one
Speaker 1: who took it from even when the when the Occupy
Speaker 1: movement happened and kind of molded that energy into something
Speaker 1: where Portland became an activist scene. Again. This this city
Speaker 1: wasn't wasn't very active. It kind of lost its edge
Speaker 1: until Terressa Rayford came along and started pushing people to
Speaker 1: come out, to show up to fight back. When Kwanis
Speaker 1: Hayes was killed, was out there calling everyone to come
Speaker 1: out do something about it. And I'd say that she was.
Speaker 1: I'd say she's at the core of it. I mean
Speaker 1: most of the people who I've met, who I've coordinated with,
Speaker 1: who I've worked with, all of those groups that I
Speaker 1: just mentioned to you, I met all of them that
Speaker 1: Don't Shoot Portland rallies. Way back before Trump was president,
Speaker 1: Rayford had originally formed Don't Shoot PDX in response to
Speaker 1: the killing of Michael Brown and Ferguson, but the failed
Speaker 1: PPB shooting of teenager Quanice Hayes in February seventeen, gave
Speaker 1: a new local urgency to calls for police accountability and
Speaker 1: came in the midst of an upswing of far right
Speaker 1: mobilizations targeting Portland. Every city has certain defining moments, traumas
Speaker 1: which galvanized the community, spur the creation of new coalitions,
Speaker 1: and give rise to new organizing strategies. One of those
Speaker 1: defining moments for Portland came in May of tw seventeen,
Speaker 1: when a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian murdered two people
Speaker 1: on a max light rail train. The day before the killings,
Speaker 1: Christian assaulted another Orlander, Dmitria Hester. Here she recounts her experience. Okay,
Speaker 1: so three years ago, Um, Jeremy Joseph Christian um attacked me.
Speaker 1: He's a white known supremacist that's here in organists that
Speaker 1: the police knew about. Everybody's the the mayor knew about.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody just knew about him because he had
Speaker 1: set the tone at every march and staying and stating
Speaker 1: how much he hates, you know, the races, anyone that
Speaker 1: wasn't black, and wasn't that wasn't white, and wanted to
Speaker 1: harm or kill anyone that wasn't you know those descents
Speaker 1: of that descent of being white and Christian. So um,
Speaker 1: he verbally attacks me for three stops on the MAX
Speaker 1: and May two thousand, two thousand's seven teen front and center,
Speaker 1: often with a bullhorn in hand. Dmitria became one of
Speaker 1: the most recognizable voices of Portland's protests. The man she's describing,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Christian, was a regular attendee of far right rallies
Speaker 1: in the Portland area. That night, Dimitria fended off Christian
Speaker 1: with pepper spray. Police responded, but Christian was not detained
Speaker 1: and he got away to kill the people. The next
Speaker 1: day on that same green line. He was looking for
Speaker 1: me because I mased him the night before. He encountered
Speaker 1: to um one African American lady and one lady who
Speaker 1: had to have Geva Bevon and um she wasn't. He
Speaker 1: thought she was Muslimed, So he verbally started attaching these
Speaker 1: little girls under eighteen, and three men came into their rescuing.
Speaker 1: Was defending them and tried to de escalate the problem,
Speaker 1: but he stabbed two of wom and killed them, and
Speaker 1: uh stabbed a third and tried to kill him. So
Speaker 1: the police um got the call not to even use
Speaker 1: uh force when they were got the call that he
Speaker 1: did this on the max. This just shows you how
Speaker 1: the police play a part and um everything he did
Speaker 1: and the reason why he got away with what he did.
Speaker 1: And then so when they actually um caught him, he
Speaker 1: was still wielding the knife that he killed people with. UM.
Speaker 1: He threatened four people on his way to when they
Speaker 1: detained him. And the only reason they detained him again
Speaker 1: was because the public was following him. And UM, they
Speaker 1: didn't even shoot him with rubber bullis or cheered gasim
Speaker 1: or anything. With a knife in his hand and threatening
Speaker 1: the police, he was able to throw the knife on
Speaker 1: the police car, still drinking his wine that he had
Speaker 1: in another Gatoray bottle. UM, and they detain him. And
Speaker 1: after they detain him, he bragged about what he did.
Speaker 1: Ricky John Best and Tallesia Namchaimchi died in the attack.
Speaker 1: The third man, Micah Fletcher, survived. A Few weeks before
Speaker 1: the murders, Christian had attended a right wing free speech
Speaker 1: event in the Montevilla neighborhood of Portland. The rally aimed
Speaker 1: to build on the momentum of the Lake Oswego event.
Speaker 1: In March. Micah Fletcher, the only survivor of the stabbings,
Speaker 1: had been in Montevilla as well, counter protesting alongside Direct
Speaker 1: Action Alliance, Rose City, ANTIFA and what would eventually become
Speaker 1: the y LF. In some ways, Portland is a very
Speaker 1: small town. After the murders, far right rallies in Portland continued.
Speaker 1: Anti fascist counter protests were large and spirited at first,
Speaker 1: but as Effie Bound describes, that didn't last. And in
Speaker 1: a year since that we had seen UM the counter
Speaker 1: demonstrations dwindle to just basically a small um Black Blocks
Speaker 1: that was based that was showing up to counter that UM.
Speaker 1: And on June it had turned into a really really
Speaker 1: violent UM events where a lot of folks on our
Speaker 1: side got pretty seriously hurt and um some of them
Speaker 1: had to go to the hospital and sustained school fractures.
Speaker 1: And there was that video of um, you know, etan
Speaker 1: Ordine or Rufio, um, you know, knocking out somebody, and
Speaker 1: UM that kind of you know became the viral Proud
Speaker 1: Boy sensation. It did, and really kind of um you know,
Speaker 1: did a lot for recruitment for them UM, and so
Speaker 1: we decided that what we needed in Portland was UM,
Speaker 1: a strong organizing effort to get as many people as
Speaker 1: possible to show up to oppose them when they have
Speaker 1: these rallies. FEE is part of a group called pop mop,
Speaker 1: short for Popular Mobilization. Their goal is to use innovative
Speaker 1: and community friendly organizing tactics to foster a big tent
Speaker 1: approach to anti fascism. We planned pretty closely with Rosity,
Speaker 1: Antifa and d s a UM. Pretty much all of
Speaker 1: our events that we've had have been in partnership with
Speaker 1: at least those two organizations, and then for various events,
Speaker 1: we've had coalitions of up to thirty, you know, plus
Speaker 1: organizations at various times have signed onto different actions that
Speaker 1: we've had, involving groups like Jobs with Justice and UM
Speaker 1: like the Buddhist Piece Fellowship and UH Queer Liberation Front,
Speaker 1: UH UH Symbiosis and UH Portland's Assembly. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of different organization since pop mob has countered far right
Speaker 1: events with online fundraisers, hundreds of free vegan milkshakes, and
Speaker 1: anti fascist dance parties. When the George Floyd protests began,
Speaker 1: they took on a different role. So one thing is
Speaker 1: that we've always had a very very narrow mission as
Speaker 1: an organization, and we've been really intentional about UM trying
Speaker 1: to stick within the scope of that mission, which is
Speaker 1: inspiring people to show up and oppose the far right
Speaker 1: and UM. So UM, we didn't feel like we were
Speaker 1: in a position, UM where we should be leading anything.
Speaker 1: So we instead UM agreed as a group that we
Speaker 1: wanted to operate in a support role only. And UM.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we've done over the last
Speaker 1: a couple of years is kind of really built up
Speaker 1: on a social media presence and UM have you know,
Speaker 1: had a lot of UM but like enough, there's some
Speaker 1: really talented people within our groups that do a lot
Speaker 1: of great media work and UM, and so we had
Speaker 1: basically just wanted to use our platform to boost the
Speaker 1: organizing the other groups were doing on the ground. Don't
Speaker 1: Shoot would organize rallies throughout the summer. Marches called by
Speaker 1: the Direct Action Alliance would repeatedly target police infrastructure. But
Speaker 1: as new groups sprung up and led marches of thousands,
Speaker 1: Portland also had a robust support network of activist groups
Speaker 1: looking for ways to help. Longtime Portland activist Gregory McKelvey
Speaker 1: describes the transition to new leadership and groups springing up
Speaker 1: in There were people who were new brand, knew that
Speaker 1: we're called to the moment because of the murder of
Speaker 1: George Floyd. And I think that it is really imperative
Speaker 1: that those people become the leaders. Also think it's imperative
Speaker 1: that the people who were previous leaders take a step
Speaker 1: back and allow those people to be the new leaders. Right, um,
Speaker 1: And but I think that we cannot keep reinventing the
Speaker 1: wheel every time that protest movement comes up. So what
Speaker 1: needs to happen is the previous leaders of every protest
Speaker 1: movement that happens need to mentor and try and um
Speaker 1: teach the lessons that they learned to the new generation
Speaker 1: that is called to a current moment. The stabbing would
Speaker 1: put all eyes on Portland, though no outlets reporting on
Speaker 1: the incident knew about Demitria's encounter the day before. Months later,
Speaker 1: she would link with activist group Don't Shoot Portland and
Speaker 1: other organizations to tell her story. Thank You, Thank Good
Speaker 1: would prevail over evil. For three years, we our community,
Speaker 1: the victims, have been waking up hoping to see so
Speaker 1: closer to the end of the senseless travesty. Today it's
Speaker 1: chinally here would a twill unanimous votes from the people
Speaker 1: of our community. Let's get community to thank you for
Speaker 1: the beautiful, amazing, resilient support. Through this, we have changed
Speaker 1: the narrative. They came hard and strong towards represent our community,
Speaker 1: ready intelligience, our heroes, and will forever be looked at
Speaker 1: as hero We're confind until everyone like Jeremy Christians it's
Speaker 1: all the street is. They are not welcome here. We
Speaker 1: look back until we are creative. Well. She'd continue to
Speaker 1: work with Don't Shoot, which had grown to become the
Speaker 1: largest Black Lives Matter organization in the state throughout the
Speaker 1: litigation of her case. In June, well into the Portland uprisings,
Speaker 1: Jeremy Christian was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole.
Speaker 1: At the sentencing hearing, Demitria offered her own indictment of
Speaker 1: not only Christian, but the entire law enforcement system for
Speaker 1: facilitating people like him, before offering some searing last words
Speaker 1: for her attacker. Need people feel colored. That's our community,
Speaker 1: can't all. We need our community and always to do
Speaker 1: what has been for our community. Not people get are
Speaker 1: looking how the popularity and these know we're wants to
Speaker 1: stop me from using our debts to capitalize and make
Speaker 1: a profit at the We will not let you get
Speaker 1: these people in office. You are not welcome here and
Speaker 1: to the Westaer Derek and Christian. Your mom should have
Speaker 1: flat too. You are a waste of bread. Oh can
Speaker 1: you die? You go to hill. I hope you write, yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: what do I tell you? Can water? Fine? The exchange
Speaker 1: would become fuel for Demetrius Chance in the streets. Next
Speaker 1: is my colleague Beatrix. Beatrix is a reporter who worked
Speaker 1: at me on the ground in Portland. One time I
Speaker 1: watched her get shot in the head with a grenade
Speaker 1: by a federal agent. She's fine, she had a good helmet.
Speaker 1: She's going to take you through what happened next, starting
Speaker 1: with the story of Portland's largest new activist group. As
Speaker 1: thousands of newly activated Portlanders looked for meaningful ways to
Speaker 1: latch onto the movement, butting in their own backyard, one
Speaker 1: organization quickly sprung up as one of the loudest in
Speaker 1: the crowd, Rose City Justice. Almost overnight, Rose City Justice
Speaker 1: or r c J, was leading marches throughout the city
Speaker 1: educating about Portland's past its black community, gentrification and police brutality.
Speaker 1: Led by a black truck an enthusiastic chance, these marches
Speaker 1: amassed upwards of ten thousand people at times. Jedi was
Speaker 1: part of another organization that formed in the wake of
Speaker 1: Floyd's death. His group, Portland's Civil Rights Collective, began informally
Speaker 1: through a chance meet up on the first night of
Speaker 1: the Portland uprisings. Their goal at first making cops hate
Speaker 1: their jobs. Every night, he and the PCRC team would
Speaker 1: take to the streets, warring with cops downtown in an
Speaker 1: attempt to drain police resources. Their fight would unknowingly lead
Speaker 1: them to our c J So the first um me
Speaker 1: and Kinsey, you know, Kinsey Smith. Um, I met her
Speaker 1: that night and we had just like linked up and
Speaker 1: just so happened to just find ourselves leading. I mean,
Speaker 1: like eighty random people that were down just around battling
Speaker 1: the cops all night. We just kind of fell into
Speaker 1: that role because I mean there's very few black people
Speaker 1: to begin with, even downtown anyway. So um, we were
Speaker 1: like the only ones that we could really see in
Speaker 1: our vicinity that we're able to like. Um, I hate
Speaker 1: the word leader, but just like lead the allies around
Speaker 1: UM and trying to keep them safe. And so that
Speaker 1: night we got we exchanged numbers with like eighty different
Speaker 1: people that we had in that group. Well really I
Speaker 1: took everybody's number and put it all on the signal
Speaker 1: group chat, and we just kept going out every single night.
Speaker 1: And then eventually, uh, maybe like five or six days,
Speaker 1: maybe a week passes in a Kinsey had came up
Speaker 1: with a name, and she named it Port the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Collective, And so we did our things for like
Speaker 1: a week or two, and then we linked up with
Speaker 1: ros City Justice. Once the merge happened, they began taking
Speaker 1: to the streets in a very different way. No longer
Speaker 1: were they standing toe to toe with cops every night.
Speaker 1: Now they were marching in the streets. Sometimes. Jedi said,
Speaker 1: it felt like they were going nowhere. Man. It's that's
Speaker 1: a it's interesting because it's not how I would have
Speaker 1: probably imagined it because Rosity Justice at the time was
Speaker 1: not they were really going out at night. I feel
Speaker 1: like they were doing like the early date or late evening,
Speaker 1: but still daytime marches because it was still light out UM.
Speaker 1: And then things were like calmed down, like you know,
Speaker 1: once it got dark, uh PCRC, we were like out
Speaker 1: out on the ground every night all night, uh, just
Speaker 1: battling the police basically. UM. And so when we linked
Speaker 1: up with r c J, because they they had like
Speaker 1: a much larger following at at the time, and they
Speaker 1: also had a larger social media presence that was like
Speaker 1: twice the size as of ours. In a way, seems
Speaker 1: like we defaulted to their style of of resistance basically,
Speaker 1: which was just like doing these Now when I think
Speaker 1: about people called them the long marches to nowhere, which
Speaker 1: is really true in retrospect, that's kind of what what's happening.
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that we still made an impact
Speaker 1: on uh a lot of the community that we would
Speaker 1: roll around, a lot of the neighborhoods that we we'd
Speaker 1: roll around, Like it was nice to see like families
Speaker 1: come out of their houses and like actually joined the
Speaker 1: marches sometimes, or you know, just seeing their kids on
Speaker 1: the porch with holding up their signs and stuff and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But when I think about how
Speaker 1: I literally never ever saw the police that any of
Speaker 1: these marches, it it makes me wonder like just the
Speaker 1: effectiveness of it all. If the police didn't give a
Speaker 1: funk about what we're doing then was it really helping?
Speaker 1: But I don't I don't think that's a fair assessment
Speaker 1: of exactly like how we impacted the community. Nonetheless, like
Speaker 1: it kind of just it evolved into basically us doing
Speaker 1: marches every day, trying to basically trying to activate people
Speaker 1: to come out. It's kind of I guess how I
Speaker 1: would look at it, um, but that's kind of what
Speaker 1: it turned into. It can It went from us going
Speaker 1: out every night, battling the police too, gathering like hundreds
Speaker 1: and thousands of people actually uh to go on these
Speaker 1: long marches while r c J led massive actions the
Speaker 1: so called peaceful protests favored by the likes of Wheeler,
Speaker 1: events at the Sacred Fence continued to draw the ire
Speaker 1: of City Hall and the police. Some protesters even started
Speaker 1: to wonder if there was really any point in getting
Speaker 1: tear gassed at the same location every night. Divisions began
Speaker 1: to mount between our CJ's education leaning resistance during the
Speaker 1: day and the more lively and more volatile standoffs with
Speaker 1: cops at the fence at night. Rifts formed between the
Speaker 1: peaceful crowd and what you might call the direct action crowd.
Speaker 1: Activist and live streamer Max Smith said he's purposefully not
Speaker 1: tied to any one organization, but as the so called
Speaker 1: fence wars raged on, he too found himself questioning how
Speaker 1: this was furthering the cause for black lives A fight
Speaker 1: and fence that was what we were here for. You know.
Speaker 1: The fence was like some ship that kind of it
Speaker 1: was like ed to call the Grand thet autos aside mission,
Speaker 1: like this isn't this has nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be doing right now, but we have
Speaker 1: to complete this to get back in the game, you know.
Speaker 1: And it was really weird, and I think at that
Speaker 1: moment I really realized that the distraction was intentional and
Speaker 1: that this was all getting just diverted to become like
Speaker 1: a like a Trump campaign at you know, He's gonna
Speaker 1: come through and support these police unions and this is
Speaker 1: his big commercial for it. So it was a very uh.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was a frustrating part of the
Speaker 1: protest because a it was really a dangerous and people
Speaker 1: were really getting hurt and kidnapped and all that kind
Speaker 1: of weird stuff. And then on top of that, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the fight that I wanted to you know, to
Speaker 1: be fighting, but it was. But it's the fight that
Speaker 1: brings out a lot of people. So a very contrasting
Speaker 1: and confusing time for sure. Gregory also found frustration with
Speaker 1: some of the unclear goals of the protests as they developed.
Speaker 1: I think this is a big part of the story
Speaker 1: that I think is not being told, or that the
Speaker 1: harder further left UM has failed to really reckon with
Speaker 1: UM in an effective way. So UM one, I'm still
Speaker 1: I'm sure if any of the protests have an incredibly
Speaker 1: coherent goal. Um, for some it's abolish the police, for
Speaker 1: some it's defund the police. For some of those things
Speaker 1: mean the same thing. And then I also think there
Speaker 1: are a ton of Portlanders, actually most Portlanders, after working
Speaker 1: in politics for so long, who don't support either of
Speaker 1: those things. I mean, we hold all of those things. UM.
Speaker 1: They're not popular. UM, They're incredibly popular on the left,
Speaker 1: and if you were at the protest, you would think
Speaker 1: that these are unanimous things. They're not. UM. So I
Speaker 1: think there was an incredible opportunity for us when those
Speaker 1: massive protests were happening to get a lot of change,
Speaker 1: not just the common sense reforms that I think would
Speaker 1: make you know. People on the hard left just call
Speaker 1: me a liberal. As divisions grew, trouble loomed for our
Speaker 1: c J. In addition to the sometimes fierce arguments over tactics,
Speaker 1: many Portlanders criticized r c J leadership for including a
Speaker 1: former military police officer. There were also claims of financial mismanagement,
Speaker 1: particularly once leaders from our CJ posted about attending a
Speaker 1: luxurious three day retreat. As tensions rose, activists trew lines
Speaker 1: in the sand and began retreating to their respective corners
Speaker 1: from it, people started, I guess people weren't really moving
Speaker 1: on principle, and people weren't moving slow enough because a
Speaker 1: lot of people were really new to to like organizing
Speaker 1: and protesting. People just wanted to like get their way in.
Speaker 1: They wanted things to go their way basically, and when
Speaker 1: you have too many cooks in the kitchen, you know
Speaker 1: the recipe is gonna get sucked up eventually, especially when
Speaker 1: everybody wants their recipe to work. I mean I personally
Speaker 1: left because I was with PCRC and the split was
Speaker 1: basically all the original r c J members and all
Speaker 1: the original PCRC members are splitting down the middle, and
Speaker 1: we're going our separate ways because we had initially combined forces.
Speaker 1: R c J didn't formally disband after the falling out,
Speaker 1: but things got noticeably quieter for the group after June.
Speaker 1: During the height of the r c J Days, their
Speaker 1: marches had drawn thousands multiple times a week, but by
Speaker 1: late June they were mostly boosting other groups actions via Instagram.
Speaker 1: Many of the organizers involved with the group went on
Speaker 1: to form their own organizations that continue to play key
Speaker 1: roles in the movement today. Youth let orgs like Friday's
Speaker 1: for Freedom and Black Youth Movement immediately began staging community
Speaker 1: focused neighborhood events throughout the city. Another group, calling itself
Speaker 1: Justice Unity, Integrity, Community Equality or Juice PDX, would go
Speaker 1: on to host several rallies later in the summer. Despite
Speaker 1: the split, organizers remember parts of the r c J
Speaker 1: Days fondly. Jedi says the mass marches of June helped
Speaker 1: feed an undeniable sense of momentum. The amount of people
Speaker 1: that will come out and also like just some of
Speaker 1: the education that we're giving to the crowd was I
Speaker 1: think really amazing, man, and it'smissed um because during those marches,
Speaker 1: like I would create like little speeches to give to
Speaker 1: the crowd, and so with Chrissy UM, and so would
Speaker 1: see be like some of the other organizers, we get
Speaker 1: on the mic and like have like oh, we'd also
Speaker 1: like give the crowd homework sometimes, so like we'd be like,
Speaker 1: all right, we want you all to read like the
Speaker 1: Willie Lynch letters. And then like two days March, like
Speaker 1: literally the next day or the day where we like
Speaker 1: asked the crowd, all right, so raise your hand if
Speaker 1: you read that, you know. So Um, those were really
Speaker 1: nice moments because like you'd see some people literally raise
Speaker 1: their hand and obviously you know, some people probably have him,
Speaker 1: but like some people literally did their homework. So it
Speaker 1: was nice to see that. And also just like i'd say,
Speaker 1: like a high points, just we've never seen mass mobilization
Speaker 1: like that ever happened important I will I've never seen
Speaker 1: that before. Uh, for for an extended period of time,
Speaker 1: like seeing thousands of people come out every single day,
Speaker 1: um to basically wake up their neighborhoods. That seemed like
Speaker 1: that was really powerful for for all of us too,
Speaker 1: to feel like we were kind of shifting the you know,
Speaker 1: the we're causing like a paradigm shift in our community.
Speaker 1: With Rose City Justice no longer organizing large scale marches
Speaker 1: on a regular basis, and the nightly crowd at the
Speaker 1: Justice Center and getting smaller each night, some activists decided
Speaker 1: a change was needed. On June, people again attempted a
Speaker 1: temporary autonomous zone, this time in North Portland in front
Speaker 1: of the Portland Police Bureaus North Precinct. Barricades were put
Speaker 1: up along the streets the precincts doors facing the occupied
Speaker 1: area were boarded shut and the main exit an entrance
Speaker 1: facing the other direction were left open so that police
Speaker 1: could vacate the premises. Police responded to this occupation faster
Speaker 1: than the one at Wheeler's apartment. For one, it was
Speaker 1: at a police precinct, so there was a police presence,
Speaker 1: and two, it had the same problem as the first
Speaker 1: attempted autonomous zone. Not enough people were present to hold
Speaker 1: down the area. After only a few hours, police came
Speaker 1: charging from around the corner, ripping apart barricades and firing
Speaker 1: off Stunn grenades and pepper balls. The crowd moved to
Speaker 1: block North and then quickly started a dumpster fire in
Speaker 1: the middle of the road. The police, you worked at
Speaker 1: dispers now ran control agents and impact unions will be
Speaker 1: you and again there your bail to the lie. There
Speaker 1: was also a second, much smaller trash can fire beside
Speaker 1: a building adjacent to the police precinct. The flames from
Speaker 1: inside the trash can caught on fire some of the
Speaker 1: plywood boards covering a window. Protesters noticed and people began yelling,
Speaker 1: this is a black owned business. Put the fire out.
Speaker 1: People scrambled to put out the small flames on the plywood,
Speaker 1: and at the same time police started shooting off tear
Speaker 1: gas and flash bangs. The next day, the police, mayor
Speaker 1: and local news companies spread the narrative that protesters locked
Speaker 1: and barricaded officers inside their precinct and then the precinct
Speaker 1: on fire. But what happened here last night, with doors
Speaker 1: being nailed shut, barred shut, with fires being set to
Speaker 1: the outside of the building with people inside, that is
Speaker 1: not transformation. What happened here isn't helping to bring about
Speaker 1: any meaningful change, reform, or an end of the historic races,
Speaker 1: and that all of us are joined together and seeking
Speaker 1: to eliminate. Last night it was plainly and simply about arson.
Speaker 1: It was about destruction, It was about endangering lives, it's
Speaker 1: blatant criminal violence, violence that is totally unacceptable. That, of course,
Speaker 1: is not what happened, But once a narrative gets spread
Speaker 1: enough through mainstream outlets, it's very difficult to correct. Throughout
Speaker 1: the next few months, Portland police would put out misleading
Speaker 1: statements and flat out lies regarding the protests, which news
Speaker 1: outlets would signal boost and treat as absolute fact. We
Speaker 1: get after the protest at the North Precinct, people still
Speaker 1: wanted to get away from the nightly dread at the
Speaker 1: Justice Center and Fence Direct Action Alliance, the Youth Liberation
Speaker 1: Front and some of the BIPOC activists who started the
Speaker 1: initial Justice Center protest organized another protest in North Portland,
Speaker 1: this time at the Police Union Building. So for a
Speaker 1: month we were just targeting downtown, right, we were just
Speaker 1: straight downtown every single day, and we we figured that
Speaker 1: we needed to diversify a little bit and start hitting
Speaker 1: other targets around town. Um going and protesting in areas
Speaker 1: like that, in neighborhood letting people participate, you know, come
Speaker 1: out into the streets with us. So that's when we
Speaker 1: decided to start marching through neighborhoods. So we did another
Speaker 1: events in Peninsula Park on June, and this time we
Speaker 1: wanted to make it a lot more community oriented, so
Speaker 1: we invited a lot of artists to come perform. Mike
Speaker 1: Crenshaw was there, um Emiliana Desapato was there, um uh
Speaker 1: c three, the Guru, all these people. It was like
Speaker 1: a concert slash alley and it was great. And we
Speaker 1: and that was the first night we targeted the Portland
Speaker 1: Police Association building and so we went out there and
Speaker 1: that's when they gassed us, and they gassed the whole neighborhood.
Speaker 1: That was the first night that they gassed an entire
Speaker 1: fucking neighborhood. When hundreds of Portlanders arrived at the Police
Speaker 1: Union building to protest, the building was already surrounded by
Speaker 1: Portland police and Oregon State troopers in riot gere. Within minutes,
Speaker 1: an unlawful assembly was declared, and soon after cops began
Speaker 1: pushing people east away from the p p A building.
Speaker 1: Do not stop now, get you get. The cops shoved
Speaker 1: and hit people with their batons while walking east for
Speaker 1: few blocks, and then began to bull rush the crowd.
Speaker 1: In a bulrush, a line of officers sprints towards the
Speaker 1: massive people, knocking over as many as possible, and then
Speaker 1: officers in the back typically come to tackle and arrest
Speaker 1: anyone on the ground. That night, officers initially used smoke grenades,
Speaker 1: flash bangs, pepper balls and rubber bullets as well. This
Speaker 1: event has been deep and unlawful. Assimily, you need to
Speaker 1: disperse to the east, killer to a lawful subject, future
Speaker 1: rest and forced to include crowd control of munitions moved
Speaker 1: to the east. After multiple bulrushes and constant volleys of munitions,
Speaker 1: protesters began throwing munitions back at the armored police, along
Speaker 1: with plastic water bottles. Police responded by declaring a riot
Speaker 1: and blanketing the neighborhood, and tear gas first be used
Speaker 1: to dispersed on the area. Tear gas had been banned
Speaker 1: in Portland since June nine. On the eight in Japman Square,
Speaker 1: Mayor Wheeler had addressed an unfriendly crowd of activists who
Speaker 1: had spent the last two weeks getting repeatedly tear gassed
Speaker 1: by Portland police. He promised to ban the use of
Speaker 1: tear gas the next day. Soon after he left, officers
Speaker 1: gas the crowd. The next day, Wheeler kept his word,
Speaker 1: sort of. The band came with a lot of holes.
Speaker 1: Gas was allowed in situations where quote lives or safety
Speaker 1: of the public or the police are at risk, which
Speaker 1: was too vague to mean much. But Portland police did
Speaker 1: take longer than usual to use tear gas on the
Speaker 1: night of June. The reason why was that earlier that day,
Speaker 1: Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed into law a bill that
Speaker 1: banned the use of tear gas. The exception was if
Speaker 1: Portland police declared a riot and announced out loud that
Speaker 1: tear gas was about to be used. So, of course,
Speaker 1: the police switched tactics and made sure to declare a
Speaker 1: riot when they wanted to use tear gas. On the
Speaker 1: thirty The main justifications seemed to be the protesters were
Speaker 1: near the Union building and some of them had hucked
Speaker 1: plastic water bottles at riot lines of armored cups. The
Speaker 1: Portland police declared a riot and started gassing. In the end,
Speaker 1: neither the state nor local bands on tear gas helped
Speaker 1: the Portlanders who lived in houses and apartments along North
Speaker 1: Lombard Street. It was a balmy summer night and many
Speaker 1: of them had their windows open in the fresh air.
Speaker 1: When that air turned to poison gas, multiple residents were
Speaker 1: assaulted and even arrested while trying to flee their gas
Speaker 1: filled homes outside of Oregon. On the federal level, other
Speaker 1: events in late June would contribute to Portland becoming the
Speaker 1: most heavily tear gas city in the United States. On June,
Speaker 1: President Trump had signed Executive Order one three nine three
Speaker 1: three protecting American Monuments, memorials and statues, and federal property.
Speaker 1: As we've already explained, toppling statues had become a viral
Speaker 1: sensation at the time, but the toppling of a George
Speaker 1: Washington statue by teenage Portlanders seemed to have been the
Speaker 1: most direct inspiration for this executive order. President even referenced
Speaker 1: Portland in his press release on the matter. The order
Speaker 1: also presents its own timeline of the nationwide protests of June,
Speaker 1: saying quote, over the last five weeks, there have been
Speaker 1: sustained assaults on the life and property of civilians, law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers, government property, and revered American monuments such as
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial. Many of the rioters, arsonists, and left
Speaker 1: wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts
Speaker 1: have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies such as Marxism that
Speaker 1: call for the destruction of the United States system of government.
Speaker 1: Anarchists and left wing extremists have sought to advance a
Speaker 1: fringe ideology that paints the United States of America as
Speaker 1: fundamentally unjust, and have sought to impose that ideology on
Speaker 1: Americans through violence and mob intimidation. The order describes a massive,
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly peaceful nationwide protest movement throughout May and June is
Speaker 1: five nightmarish weeks of rampant violence and murder, but its
Speaker 1: solutions focus confusingly on the prevention of vandalism to statues.
Speaker 1: It states that quote United States law authors is a
Speaker 1: penalty of up to ten years imprisonment for the wilful
Speaker 1: injury of federal property end quote, and goes on to
Speaker 1: say state and locals law enforcement agencies that failed to
Speaker 1: protect monuments, memorials, and statues will be subject to withholding
Speaker 1: of federal support, and the federal government will ensure personnel
Speaker 1: are available across the nation to assist with the protection
Speaker 1: of federal monuments, memorials, statues, and property. Feorder is unclear
Speaker 1: on how broadly federal jurisdiction extends in the protection of statues.
Speaker 1: All in all, dozens of statues were vandalized and destroyed
Speaker 1: throughout the country in the first five weeks of the
Speaker 1: George Floyd uprisings. The vast majority of these statues were
Speaker 1: Confederate monuments in the American South. As of June twenty six,
Speaker 1: only two statues had been targeted by Portland's protests, one
Speaker 1: on the steps of a high school and the other
Speaker 1: on the private property of the Portland German American Society.
Speaker 1: Both of these were miles from any federal property. However,
Speaker 1: under the president's new executive order, Portland would become the
Speaker 1: first city to see the large scale deployment of federal troops.
Speaker 1: The Multnoma County Justice Center, the epicenter of Portland's ongoing protests,
Speaker 1: is flanked on both sides by federal buildings, the Mark O.
Speaker 1: Hatfield court House and the Edith Green Windell Wyatt Federal Building.
Speaker 1: A few blocks away, the federal landmark of Pioneer Courthouse
Speaker 1: overlooks Courthouse Square, the site of many of June's large
Speaker 1: daytime rallies, as well as many tear gas choked showdowns
Speaker 1: between nighttime protesters and PPB riot lines. When Feds were
Speaker 1: sent in, they would be deploying into the center of
Speaker 1: Portland's ongoing protests. On July one, Acting Secretary of the
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolfe, put out a statement
Speaker 1: answering the President's call, referring to the executive order he
Speaker 1: had made. The end of that statement read, as we
Speaker 1: approached the July fourth holiday, I have directed the deployment
Speaker 1: and prepositioning of rapid response teams across the country to
Speaker 1: respond to potential threats to facilities and property. While the
Speaker 1: Department respects every American's right to protest peacefully, violence and
Speaker 1: civil unrest will not be tolerated. In the next episode,
Speaker 1: we'll hear how Portland protesters and those rapid deployment teams
Speaker 1: met in Portland for the very first time on July fourth.
Speaker 1: Uh or the grand pops who couldn't fathom the obamacist
Speaker 1: hate America just to mean she keeps a promise twenty
Speaker 1: teams looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja
Speaker 1: wo what my people post to do go to schools
Speaker 1: named after the clan founder we're around town is I
Speaker 1: don't see why we're frowning Native American students forced to
Speaker 1: learn about wind o'pellah Sarah, How is that fair, bro?
Speaker 1: Some heroes 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