James Gordon was one of more than 1,000 people who attended Friday’s demonstration at the Oregon Convention Center calling for racial justice on the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream speech.”
This wasn’t his first protest.
Gordon, who is Black and served in Vietnam, grew up in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1965, when he was 15, Gordon marched in the voting rights protests from Selma to his hometown. He remembers the day his parents first voted.
Now a resident of Vancouver, Gordon heard on the news that protests would be happening across the country Friday to mark the anniversary. He knew he had to come out.
“People make change,” he said. “The young people especially. It was young people then, it’s young people now.”
Friday’s demonstrations, organized by Portland’s NAACP chapter and the Black youth organization Fridays 4 Freedom, began with a rally at the Martin Luther King Jr. statue at the Oregon Convention Center. The event ended on the grounds of Southeast Portland’s Revolution Hall and was overwhelmingly peaceful.
For Gordon, it was humbling to be out with young people protesting, just like he had. But he also said it’s disappointing to see that, in some ways, little has changed.
“It looked like things were going to get better,” he said. “But this administration is trying to push everything in a direction that this country don’t need to go.”
Protesters have now been taking to the streets of Portland for 93 consecutive days. They began in May when George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
Protesters on Friday marched through the streets chanting the names of Black Americans killed by police officers. Among the names was Jacob Blake, a man now paralyzed after being shot by police Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
When 4-year-old Madeleine Dehart heard the chants for Blake, she looked up at her mom, Rachel Dehart, and asked her who the man was. Her mother explained the story as her daughter listened in silence.
Dehart said that although it’s difficult to teach her daughter about stories of police killings of Black Americans, she thinks it’s essential.
“We need to teach them about it sometime,” she said. “At least she’ll know about this stuff a whole lot younger than I did.”
Also attending Friday’s demonstrations was Oregon Democrat U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden. The senator said that when he woke up Friday morning and heard Donald Trump’s words from the Republican National Convention about Portland, he felt compelled to join the march.
Trump has called Portland protesters a “beehive of terrorists” and said the Republican Party condemns “rioting, looting, arson, and violence” seen in Portland and other democratic-led cities.
“Last night, what Donald Trump said about Portland does not resemble what I woke up to this morning,” Wyden said. “If you look at his words and actions, all he has done is inflame the tension and make it tougher to achieve the twin goal of fighting institutional racism and making it clear that you’re not going to accept violence from anybody, no matter where they are on the political spectrum.”
Demonstrations will continue Friday evening at North Park Blocks in downtown Portland with live music and community leaders speaking on defunding and abolishing the police.
-- Bryce Dole; bdole@oregonian.com; 541-660-9844; @DoleBryce