Story and photos by Pete Shaw Over 100 people attended a Sunday night vigil for Quanice Hayes, the 17 year old Black man who was murdered by Portland Police officer Andrew Hearst. The vigil, which included people holding hands during a prayer led by Hayes’s aunt, Patricia Ruffin, occurred three days after Hayes was murdered.…
Story by Pete Shaw Let’s skip the formalities and conventions and get right to the point: Mayor Charlie Hales, Commissioner Nick Fish, and Commissioner Amanda Fritz are racists. They are dangerous racists whose recent support for the new police contract shows a complete disregard for the lives of people of color–particularly Black people–and an equally…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw A woman with two children walked down the stairs into Pioneer Square in the early evening of July 7 and began talking about how tired she was. Tired of seeing Black people gunned down by police. Tired of being scared every time her husband, sons, and grandsons walk outside.…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw Over 50 people affiliated with the Portland chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ PDX) gathered at the Justice Center on SW 3rd Avenue on Monday July 11 demanding an immediate end to police violence and calling upon white people to take action for racial justice. The event…
Story by Pete Shaw The road to obtaining political power is fraught with obstacles, including a variety of institutional forms of racism. As Frederick Douglass once noted, power concedes nothing without a demand. Democracy must be wrested from the powerful through the hard work of those struggling for justice. As advocates for justice organize communities,…
Six years have passed since the Portland police murdered Keaton Otis near the southwest corner of NE 6th and Halsey. On Thursday May 12, 2016, nearly 100 people gathered at Maranatha Church in Northeast Portland to remember Otis and his father, Fred Bryant, and to keep alive the demand for justice. A mixture of past,…
A vigil attended by over 50 people was held on January 29 at the AME Zion Church on North Vancouver Avenue to remember Aaron Campbell, the young Black man killed exactly six years earlier by Portland Police Officer Ron Frashour. A further significant aspect of the event was the opportunity to reflect upon Campbell’s death…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw Exactly one year after 12 year old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann in a public playground on November 22, 2014, 50 people gathered in Portland near the corner of SE Madison and 11th for a vigil in Rice’s memory and to demand justice…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw The late, great Townes Van Zandt once said, “Aloneness is a state of being whereas loneliness is a feeling. It’s like being broke and being poor.” Thanksgiving is a day that begins a six or so week stretch that reminds many of their aloneness more painfully than usual. So…
Story by Pete Shaw The Black Lives Matter movement, which sprang up in the wake of the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer George Zimmerman, exploded into a major ongoing human rights struggle a little over a year ago with Michael Brown’s murder by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson. The revolt has been instrumental in…
