Story and photos by Pete Shaw Standing in solidarity with Seattle’s Garfield High School teachers and all instructors in the Seattle Public Schools who have refused to administer Washington’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Test, a crowd of 30 Portland Public Schools (PPS) students and about 5 parents gathered in front of PPS headquarters on February…
Category: Pete Shaw
Houseless, Immigrant & Worker’s Rights Rally Showcases MLK Legacy
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Photos and story by Pete Shaw By the end of his life, Martin Luther King had come to the conclusion that the gains of the Civil Rights Era were nothing if they were not part of a larger human rights movement, one that brought together all the disparate struggles for justice. On January 19, over…
Sheriff Staton’s Loyalty to ICE Leaves Local Groups Cold
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Story by Pete Shaw Activists Coming Together For Justice and Dignity (ACT) has issued a response challenging Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton’s December 20, 2012 statement claiming that he has no discretion in deciding whether or not to comply with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds. Speaking for the local faith groups and member organizations that…
Community Home Defenders Sit In to Persuade Sheriff to Step Up
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Story and photos by Pete Shaw “Some of us take risks. We’re asking you to take risks,” said John Schweibert to Multnomah County Sheriff Daniel Staton, during a sit in at the Sheriff’s office staged by Schweibert and four other community home defenders on January 24. Though Staton expressed his support for homeowners, he said…
GM Worker Willing to Die Seeking Labor Justice
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By Pete Shaw If Jorge Parra lives to see the Portland Auto Show being held from January 24th through the 27th, he will have passed his 65th day on a hunger strike in support of the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of General Motors-Colmotores (ASOTRECOL). Appearing at press conferences outside the North American International…
Sheriff Ousts Family, Spends Tax Dollars To Maintain Their Houselessness
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Story and photos by Pete Shaw On the morning of January 16, soon after Ron Austin had gone to work, Debbie Austin and her two children awoke to the sound of the Multnomah County Sheriffs and Portland Police banging on their door. At the demand of Fannie Mae, the police forces entered the Austins’ home…
Bob Dylan’s Latest Album to Bring More Jobs, or How to Distract from the Truth About Coal Exports
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Story and photos by Pete Shaw Over 800 people packed themselves into the Abridge ballroom of the Ambridge Event Center on NE Martin Luther King Boulevard on Thursday December 6th for the last of three Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) hearings prior to DEQ determining whether it will issue a draft permit to Ambre…
Threat to ILWU Rallying Point for All Workers
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Story and photos by Pete Shaw The contract being offered to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) by the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association (PNGHA) has little effect on wages, but seeks vast changes to workplace rules, particularly those dealing with hiring and safety. Though the contract signing deadline of November 28 has been…
The Power Is With The People
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Story and photos by Pete Shaw Sindy Avila is a member of the Oregon Dream Activists, a group working to advance immigrant rights and the rights of all people of color. Speaking at a forum about creating community control and putting radical politics into practice in communities of color, she noted that as the Dream…
Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon?
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Story by Pete Shaw “When is history not history?” asks Walidah Imarisha, at a recent Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon? presentation sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Conversation Project. Imarisha, a Portland State University and Oregon State University instructor, poses the question to our group after we have spent 90 minutes examining, wrestling…
