In 1970, the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University shot and killed four students during a peace rally protesting President Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. This sparked a nationwide student strike. Over four million students protested, closing hundreds of schools. In an act of non-violent civil disobedience at Portland State University, more than a hundred students and faculty defied an order to disperse and were violently attacked by riot police, leaving 31 injured. The next day 4,000 marched in protest to City Hall.

On April 4, 1981, the Black United Front organized a March Against Racism. The Portland march, drawing 1,500 protesters, coincided with similar marches in 37 cities across the US. It occurred less than a month after an incident in which Portland police officers threw dead opossums in front of a Black-owned restaurant in the Albina area. Historically, opossums and raccoons were often eaten by enslaved people, and so were used symbolically by White hate groups in death threats against Blacks. The following year, voters approved the first-ever citizens’ committee to review police actions in Portland.

Mulugeta Seraw, a 28-year-old Ethiopian immigrant, was beaten to death by three Portland skinheads in 1988. One of them was convicted of first-degree murder, and two were convicted of manslaughter and assault. Seraw’s relatives also brought a civil case against Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance, and his son John, who were convicted of inciting the murder. A then-record $12.5 million judgement was entered against them.

The controversial Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, located about 12 miles north of St. Helens, Oregon, opened in 1975 and faced regular protests and sit-ins from the anti-nuclear movement. Protests continued through the end of the decade, until the movement shifted from direct action to the ballot box — but three ballot measures to close the plant were defeated. However, following safety concerns and continuing costs for maintenance and repair, it was decommissioned and closed permanently in 1993. The 499-foot-high concrete cooling tower was demolished in 2006.

Ballot Measure 9, an anti-gay amendment proposed to Oregon voters in 1992 by the conservative group, Oregon Citizen’s Alliance (OCA), failed at the ballot box. It would have prohibited anti-discrimination laws regarding sexual orientation. Same-sex marriage became legal on May 19, 2014, when US District Court Judge Michael McShane overturned Oregon’s previous constitutional ban.

Occupy Portland began in downtown Portland on October 6, 2011, to protest worldwide economic inequality and corporate influence on democracy. It was inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement that had begun in New York City a few weeks earlier. Members of Portland’s Jewish community, in solidarity with the protesters, constructed a sukkah in a downtown Portland park during the Sukkot holiday.

An estimated 70,000-100,000 people flooded Portland’s waterfront for the worldwide Women’s March on Donald Trump’s first day as president, despite a soaking rain. Held in support of gender equality, civil rights, and other issues, it was one of the largest public demonstrations in Oregon history. The gathering, held on a Saturday, included many members of Oregon’s Jewish community, some of whom walked more than six miles to uphold the sanctity of Shabbat.

In January of 2017, US Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), US Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined hundreds of protestors at Portland International Airport. They joined thousands of others across the nation to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump’s discriminatory executive order that halted immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries into the US.

The police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 shocked people around the country into a long-delayed reckoning for equal justice under the law. The Black Lives Matter movement arose to protest racism, discrimination, and police violence. In Portland, the streets around the Justice Center filled with demonstrators. While the majority of the protesters were peaceful, many engaged in heated confrontations with law enforcement and counter-protesters. Portland police and federal officers responded with tear gas and other weapons.

A 2022 survey found that Oregon youth ranked climate disruption as number one in importance among 18 different issues, tied only with mental health. One young respondent summed it up this way: “I think many elected officials put climate change on the back burner. I also think they underestimate the power of youth backing and voice.”
For individuals and communities across the world, climate disruption poses a serious risk to the fundamental rights to life, health, food, and an adequate standard of living.

Access to safe and secure housing is one of the most basic human rights. In Oregon, housing insecurity and social dislocation due to the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic have led to a large increase in people sleeping outdoors. Some parts of the state have seen a 50% rise in houselessness since 2017. On her first day in office, Governor Kotek declared a state of emergency, noting, “Imagine an Oregon where no one has to live in a tent on the sidewalk. That’s an Oregon worth fighting for.”

Street Roots is a homeless advocacy group that publishes a weekly social justice newspaper sold by people experiencing homelessness and poverty. Each week, vendors purchase copies of the newspaper for 25 cents each, then sell them on the streets of Portland for one dollar, keeping the profits. More than 800 vendors sell the newspaper during the course of a year. This award-winning newspaper focuses on social and environmental justice issues. Its success confirms the need to promote and protect the First Amendment rights to freedom of opinion and expression, including freedom of the media.

In 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned the long-standing constitutional right to abortion. The ruling abandoned nearly 50 years of precedent and has paved the way for individual states to ban abortion, even in cases where the life of the person carrying a fetus is endangered. In Oregon, laws protecting a pregnant person’s right to choose to have an abortion did not change. Oregonians nonetheless showed up to protest the Supreme Court decision.

Barriers to voting equality still exist in Oregon; approximately 12,000 people are currently denied the right to vote, leading to the disproportionate disenfranchisement of low-income, Black, Indigenous, and Latino people. Organizations such as Next Up work to expand voting rights in Oregon through advocacy efforts and by engaging thousands of high school and college students in peer-to-peer voter registration and civic education in their classrooms.

Darcelle XV was the stage name of Walter Willard Cole, a Portland drag queen, entertainer, and cabaret owner, whose career spanned 56 years. A fierce gay-rights activist, in 1974 Darcelle helped fund Oregon’s first LGBT umbrella group, dedicated to civil rights for lesbians and gay men. In the 1990s Darcelle raised money for the AIDS epidemic. He was the first Portlander to be inducted into the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, site of the 1969 riots that launched the gay rights movement.