Report back and accountability letter from PDX event on 1/27/23 at the Oregon Convention center from anonymous ag’s who helped organize.
On 1/27/23 an event demanding Justice for Tyre Nichols (recently murdered by Memphis police) was planned at 7PM at the Oregon convention center, the event kicked off around 7:30PM with a crowd of nearly 150 people mostly all in black bloc. At the same time this event started there was a second event planned at the Burnside Skatepark led by Dre Miller, past member of J.U.I.C.E.
Prior to getting a job in city government alongside elected officials like Jo Ann Hardesty, in 2021 Dre and his security detail (mainly people involved with Rose City Justice) tried to lead a reproductive rights march he showed up to with Jo Ann Hardesty. At the reproductive rights march in 2021 there was a similar situation where Dre and his security team hit and pointed guns at people in bloc. On top of all of this there have been multiple instances where dre has exchanged routes, phone numbers and names with Portland police before and during events.
Around 7:20 the crowd at the Oregon convention center grouped up and discussed if they wanted to take the original route or to go and attempt to swoop dre and the libs and take a bigger crowd into downtown, the majority of outspoken people agreed they wanted to go to burnside and make one big event. Unfortunately this did not work.
The crowd of black bloc left the convention center at roughly 7:30 and carried loud chants and momentum down MLK Jr blvd toward the burnside skatepark. at one point the crowd went under the burnside bridge and had lit flares, the echo of the crowd from under the bridge was tremendous and it was clear this crowd was ready to take action. Momentum had picked up and the energy was palpable.
After making 2 turns and arriving at the skatepark the crowd showed up and was considerably louder and larger than the second event, when the crowd of bloc attempted to march through the group dre and other speakers got on the megaphone and told everyone to shut up, stop marching and to listen to the speakers.
Only about 25 of the original bloc crowd made it to the other side and was trying to keep going, multiple attempts were made to get the crowd to keep marching including a mortar being thrown on top of the Rose city transportation building. When the group of bloc realized they weren’t gonna be able to get the crowd to keep going and Mac Smiff began to speak they tried to go back through the crowd and gather folks to go back the way they came.
The group of bloc than was about 40 people and they marched to where corkers were set up at the end of the street, along the way the crowd chanted “Mac Smiff hits women”, this began to divide the crowd and upset people like dre and his guards as they were protecting a known abuser and allowing him to speak. Dre and several of his security folks rushed over to the bloc and began to get physical, telling people in bloc to expose their faces and identify themselves.
Dre rushed at someone in bloc and became physical appearing to try and remove the persons balaclava, at this point someone in the crowd took action by throwing a mortar at Dre’s feet and getting that person away safely. This upset Dre and his group at which point Dre and 2 guards grabbed their guns and told the group of bloc to “leave or get shot”. Several groups left and another group was chased out and threatened for nearly 3 blocks by the guards.
We want to address where we went wrong, to start the crowd never should have gone to the burnside skatepark. There was already a plan for a seperate march and to stay away from that group but we listened to others and decided to take the chance of swooping the lib crowd (this was a devastating mistake). Once arriving the crowd was overtaken by Dre and we lost our momentum, Dre and other guards attacked several black, indigenous and bipoc folks in bloc including yelling at least 2 black people in bloc to watch their privilege while pointing guns at them.
Their was also good that came from this march, the crowd at the convention center was big and the most bloc we have seen together in a while. We don’t want to take away from that momentum we just want to correct our wrongs which was going to the second event, the crowd at the convention center easily could have taken the street and marched into the Lloyd district or across the bridge into downtown.
The crowd also could have waited another 30 minutes or so as most bloc marches in pdx in the past have waited an hour after meet time to march as people will tend to show up once they hear good numbers are there. The crowd was fired up and ready to hit the street 30 minutes after meeting but waiting even 15 minutes longer could have given us the extra 20-30 people to make everyone feel good about just doing our own thing.
submitted anonymously