Black elected officials and faith leaders described the city of Portland, the state and nation as being at a ‘crossroad’ with authoritarianism

By Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle

When the Rev. Leroy Haynes Jr. stepped up to the pulpit at Emmanuel Church in Portland this weekend, it wasn’t to give a sermon but to share a warning.

Black faith leaders and elected city, state and federal officials joined Haynes, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, Saturday to discuss the impacts of a slate of President Donald Trump’s policies on communities of color, as well as legal attacks on civil rights legislation.

Leaders cautioned against despair, encouraged civic engagement among young voters and condemned what they described as silence among Republicans in state government on aggressive immigration enforcement tactics taken by federal officers in Oregon cities.

“We are at a crossroad as a nation, as a state and as a city. There are those, in forces, that want to turn back the clock — turn back the clock on what many have died for on the front line,” Haynes said to roughly 100 people at the Black Community Town Hall organized by the Albina Ministerial Alliance and the Interfaith Peace and Action Collaborative.

Haynes was an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, in Texas in the 1960s and worked with prominent leaders of the movement such as late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia.

“We must move from a moment to movement,” Haynes said. “If we drop the ball again, we’ll be into another Reconstruction period of losing our human rights and our civil rights.”

Several Democratic Black elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, Oregon’s first Black member of Congress; state Sen. Lew Frederick, Portland City Councilor Loretta Smith and Multnomah County Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon joined Haynes. Several members of the Portland City Council, leaders from the Portland NAACP and Secretary of State Tobias Read were among those in the crowd.

The leaders discussed Trump’s moves to cut funding for food and medical assistance, federalize the Oregon National Guard, deploy military troops to American cities and pursue aggressive immigration enforcement that has swept up American citizens and immigrants with no criminal history.

Frederick and Jones-Dixon described fear among Latino residents they represent in Portland and Multnomah County. Frederick said a Latina neighbor of his is afraid to go to school, and Jones-Dixon described residents in Gresham witnessing a chaotic Friday immigration operation targeting two individuals at an apartment complex that got so big it closed a nearby school for the day.

“When I arrived on the scene, all I saw was fear on the faces,” he said. “Then when they saw myself and others, there was hope, because they had a connection and they were able to get answers.”

The event at Emmanuel on Saturday marked Bynum’s 21st town hall this year, and she encouraged the audience not to despair but to get politically active, especially young people, and to reach out to state and local officials, especially their Republican representatives, to share concerns.

She said despite Trump’s efforts to defund agencies and rescind federal dollars from schools, medical research, clean energy programs and environmental justice initiatives, the Trump administration has more often than not been blocked and forced to reverse course by federal judges.

“While the president has a whole lot of commotion going on, what we’ve been saying is: ‘Run us our money,’” she said. “The federal government owes the state of Oregon billions of dollars. That is the focus right now in our office.”

Smith encouraged Bynum and Democrats in Congress to continue to refuse a vote on a government funding bill until Republicans negotiate to ensure the president will stop impounding congressionally approved spending, and over health care tax credits set to expire at the end of the year.

“Congresswoman, we’re with you. You’re on the front lines, and you stay out as long as you can to make sure we get the food stamps, the health care, the jobs that we need,” she said.

During a question and answer portion of the event, Mary Beth Miller, a state Republican legislative staffer and finance director for the conservative Oregon Freedom Coalition stepped up to a microphone to list a slate of issues she believed Democrats caused. Among them, she said, are high rates of mental illness and poor educational outcomes, before the crowd cajoled her to ask a question.

“Can immigration reform make this community safer and less crime? Can it open up more jobs? Can it open up more housing? Can reducing the national debt help our children and those children’s children’s children?” she said. “Can we consider that Republicans do care and have some of these answers?”

Frederick said the state’s Republican lawmakers have been silent when it comes to how federal immigration officers have conducted operations in Oregon, including wearing masks and refusing to identify themselves, staking out schools and sweeping up U.S. citizens.

“I have yet to see any Republican leader step forward and condemn the kind of things that the ICE folks have been doing,” he said. “I’m waiting for that, but until that happens, don’t tell me about how much you care.”

Alex Baumhardt has been a national radio producer focusing on education for American Public Media since 2017. She has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media, and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post. This story first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.