(Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Following George Floyd s murder, protests raged in Portland, Oregon for more than 100 days. Federal law enforcement officers were sent to the city, sparking even more demonstrations. I just see that we re doing a dance, but things aren t really changing, activist Mic Crenshaw says. Now it s COVID relaxation and everybody acts like let s go back to normal, activist Demetria Hester says, No! Nobody wants to go back to normal. Without that pressure, how do you get politicians to act with the urgency that the community has demanded? history professor Elliot Young says.
Today,
On Point: Back to Portland, and understanding the origins and impact of the city s culture of protest.
After a Year of Protests, Portland Is Ready to Move On. But Where?
The demonstrations that swept the country after George Floyd’s death lived on for much of the year in Portland, a city now engaged in finger-pointing and a debate over what comes next.
Protesters gathered behind a wall of shields and umbrellas in Portland, Ore., in April.Credit.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times
June 9, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
PORTLAND, Ore. Defund the police? City leaders in Portland tried it. A unit in the fire and rescue bureau, one of the first of its kind in a major city, began this year taking some 911 calls about people in crisis, especially those who are homeless.
When Margaret Carter reflects on police, she remembers the 1970s, when officers in North Portland planted marijuana in people’s cars and arrested them. Since then, said Carter the first Black woman elected to the Oregon Legislature little has changed to restore trust between Black Portlanders and police officers. And continued police killings of Black Americans have only exacerbated these .
Portland protests against police brutality, racial injustice explored in CNN’s ‘United Shades of America’ By Kristi Turnquist, oregonlive.com
Share: Security personnel stand in a cloud of tear gas in Portland, Oregon, early Sunday, July 26, 2020, as protests continued across the United States following the death of George Floyd. (Ankur Dholakia/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
PORTLAND In 2016, the comedian and social commentator W. Kamau Bell filmed an episode of his CNN series, “United Shades of America,” in Portland. Back then, the question was, had Black Portlanders been forced to move away from their historic Portland neighborhoods after they were gentrified by supposedly “hip” and “cool” whites?