Blacks are about only 6% of the city's population, with roots in an influx to the region during World War II to work in the region's armaments industry, filtering into the city after their settlement washed away in 1948. It is the largest city in a state with a Klan operation that infiltrated its politics for much of the 20th century. Even before this spring's protests erupted after the murder of George Floyd May 25, Portland's progressive tendencies were apparent in the Black Lives Matter signs that dotted the lawns in the northeast section of the city, once known largely as a Black enclave, now gentrified with newcomers. Yet their own official religious leader, Archbishop Alexander Sample, would prefer that they stay home. The Trump administration has said that the federal officers are needed to protect federal property.Įvery night, police and protestors clash outside the Senator Mark Hatfield Federal Building downtown, named for a deceased Oregon politician who was elected during a different era, on an unlikely platform of near-pacifism and Republicanism.Īnd, in the most secular part of the country, religious Christians, most of them white and a portion being Catholic, have played instrumental roles in this year's protests. Kate Brown likened more to a pitch for law-and-order voters in Iowa and Ohio than to meet any security need. Throughout late spring and this summer, Black Lives Matter protestors have engaged with police and, lately, with mysterious and controversial federal agents, sent to the city by President Donald Trump in a move that Oregon Gov. Portland, the whitest of large American cities, is now the unlikely epicenter of a struggle going on for more than 60 consecutive nights. ![]() ![]() It points attention to the city's reputation as a place young adults flock to for an engaging social scene, where incessantly rainy winters emerge into bright woodsy green vistas of summer, and with a work ethic that allows for the joke that the city is the place where 27-year-olds go to retire. "Keep Portland Weird" is an unofficial motto for Oregon's largest city.
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