AWOL Magazine
PORTLAND I One summer, two causes, thousands of Oregonians; how civil unrest and wildfires shook this West Coast city. Written by McKenzie Beard Art by Rojeen Azadi and Caroline Lougee Photos by Cory Elia
Summer in Portland, Oregon, is traditionally filled with weekend family camping trips, Shakespeare in the park and artisan food truck grub — but 2020 ushered in a wave of civic activism for the city’s residents that monopolized the season. While loud displays of advocacy have been a hallmark for decades, Portlanders faced unprecedented challenges when their community was caught in the crosshairs of two critical issues in just one summer: police brutality and climate change.
‘Do You Think I’m Afraid to be Arrested?’ Cozca Itzpapalotl, a local activist, gripped her iPhone and hit record as five men clad in riot gear approached her. A firework exploded overhead as the police officers moved to tackle Itzpapalotl to the ground, and a baton struck her directly in the face. The demonstrators around her ducked underneath makeshift shields fashioned out of garbage can lids and pool noodles to protect themselves from the cascading sparks. Projectiles flew, teargas burned and rubber bullets from federal agents’ guns pelted Black Lives Matter protesters outside of the Portland 02
federal courthouse building. The demonstrators roared: “This is what democracy looks like!”
demonstrations in the summer of 2020, making it the largest organized protest in U.S. history.
On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis Police arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after convenience store employees alleged that he purchased a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Security footage reveals the horrors that ensued while Floyd was held in police custody.
Portland remains one of the whitest cities in America, with 77.1% of residents being caucasion according to the U.S. Census, as a result of the state’s deeply racist history. In part, this is due to the state’s original constitution in 1859 that explicitly forbade Black people from living in its borders, making it the only state in the union that did so. But Itzpapalotl said that mainstream media’s tendency to portray the majority of Portland Black Lives Matter activists as white is a narrative she disputes.
In eight minutes and 46 seconds, a white police officer murdered a Black man in America — a frequent cautionary tale and an outcome of what protesters say is systemic racism and white supremacy embedded into U.S. police forces. Itzpapalotl estimated that since she joined the Black Lives Matter demonstrations on May 27, she has only missed 10 days of protesting. That’s approximately 150 days of nearly uninterrupted civic activism in the streets of Portland. But Itzpapalotl wasn’t alone. Floyd’s untimely death, among others, ignited protests against police brutality across the country and around the world that drew crowds larger than ever seen. Polls from Civis Analytics, a data science firm that works with businesses and Democratic campaigns, estimate that between 15 million and 26 million people participated in the
“By saying that, the media is erasing all of the Black, Chicano, Latinx and Indigenous activists that are doing work in our communities,” said Itzpapalotl. But what started as peaceful marches quickly dissolved into chaos, and attention shifted to Portland as riots in the city’s notoriously white and liberal streets were met with federal force. Cory Elia, a multimedia journalist based in Portland, has been covering the protests since they began in early June. Elia said that during the first month of uninterrupted Black Lives Matter demonstrations, most standoffs were between civilian protesters and officers with the Portland Police Bureau.
