5.11.21

June, 1989. “The New Skinhead Assault” by Christopher Phelps published in the Portland Alliance . See also his article in Against The Current, https://againstthecurrent.org/atc032/white-supremacy-on-trial/. Pretty good socialist analysis of the far-right.

July, 1989–I write “Fascist Skinheads: An Update and Analysis” for CHD. This was an early effort to get a handle on both the number of hate crimes and types of groups active in the Portland Metro area. Statistics on bias violence and intimidation were a hit-or-miss proposition; where there was even a law to collect such data there was insufficient awareness on the part of cops to collect it. As usual, community groups had to do it for ourselves. A similar project was carried out by the Lesbian Community Project, called the Homophobic Documentation Line, which took reports of homophobic violence from the community.

July 1989–the Matrix at 333 see 3rd Street becomes a base for anti-racists. The first Hon 8 x 1/2 by 14 filing cabinets are used to store info on racists and the repressive state apparatus.

August 1989–I write “Fascist Violence: Establishment Program and Response” for The Portland Free Press, a critique of weak efforts by authorities to understand, document and confront the far-right. Examples include no subpoena power for the Metropolitan Human Rights Commission and very limited funding.

August 24, 1989–Letter to my Mom after I drop out of college.

September 11, 1989–Tarso Ramos writes “Hate Crime in Portland” for the Reed College Quest wherein he manages to work in a reference to the Dukes of Hazard in an anti-racist manner. Quite the peculiar feat!

September 22-23, 1989. CHD organizes a Rock Against Racism benefit held at Pine Street Theater. “Fight Racism” posters are going up in neighborhoods. We cribbed from the great anti-fascist artist John Heartfield — Excavating the past so as to reveal the future.

This poster and t-shirt created by comrades in the Coalition for Human Dignity in Summer 1989 in Portland, Oregon is being produced and distributed there again, for obvious reasons. The original design was cribbed from the great anti-fascist artist John Heartfield. The translation from German: “Whether black or white – united in battle. We only know one race. We all know only one enemy – the exploiting class.” Please forgive us for compressing those outstretched arms and fists! All solidarity to comrades in Little Beirut!

October 2, 1989–Black student Robbie Robinson becomes first in the nation victim of a school board injunction against his enrollment at Eugene High School for gang affiliations in Portland. …

Principal Don Jackson suspended Robinson. A week later, in the first such action in the nation, the school board sought an injunction in Lane County Circuit Court to bar the student permanently from the city’s schools, not on the basis of any specific actions, but because “his mere presence at the school in clothing associated with gang membership constitutes a danger to the health and safety of students” (Jeff Wright 1989). On November 8, the injunction was granted.

Some citizens expressed concern about the constitutionality of the ruling, but members of the local chapter of the NAACP and of the Community Coalition for the Prevention of Gangs applauded the action.

All this while racist skinhead groups are flourishing.

CHD Flyer, “Past and Current Activities”

October 16, 1989–Little Beirut I

“The first Little Beirut protest took place when Vice President Quayle came to Portland to defend the Bush administration’s inaction during a failed Panamanian coup and to make it harder for victims of statutory rape to access federal funding for rape victims. Unsurprisingly, he was greeted by 150 protesters. 

“Out of respect for the office of vice president, there should have been at least 500,” Quayle reportedly joked.

Where other protests had a singular goal, these protests were over a grab bag of issues ranging from the U.S. government’s despicable policy in Latin America to abortion to the government’s despicable handling of the AIDS crisis. The crowds were a healthy mix of political protesters and good, old-fashioned anarchists. 

It was the largest protest Quayle had encountered during his first nine months in office, and the only one to disrupt his schedule as protesters blocked his way to the Hilton downtown. Over 20 protesters were arrested and a police van transporting several protesters crashed into a pickup truck on its way to the precinct—this appears to have been an honest error and not a rough ride.” —Willamette Week “Big Trouble in Little Beirut” May 4, 2016.

October 1989–PFP publishes “Behind the Scenes”. I interview the Portland FBI SAC, Danny Coulson. I focus on FBI surveillance and disruption of solidarity movements. I can’t write for shit. I won’t even include the article here.

CHD address is 333 SE 3rd, “The Matrix.”

October 25, 1989–M Treloar’s “Rock Against Racism” article in the Guardian. “The coalition, which was originally sponsored by the city of Portland, has developed into a community-based alternative to the ineffectual Metropolitan Human Relations Commission and the Coors/Honeywell-funded Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harrassment.”

Above: CDR Monitor October 1989 announces joining forces with international anti-racist groups, especially Searchlight.

November 6, 1989–CHD applies to MRG for a grant.

Above: Journalist Patrick Mazza teases out principles first articulated by Anti-Racist Action and Baldies members I met in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mazza was a keen observer of the Portland scene and his writing was unique. He’s also writing for Portland’s only Black newspaper at the time. I’m trying to apply what I learned from comrades in Minnesota and elsewhere to the situation in Portland.

November 8, 1989–Letter to my mom.

November 9, 1989–Fall of the Berlin Wall. The Cold War anti-communist consensus will increasingly include neo-fascists within it.

January 4, 1990–Partial Mass Direct Action discussion document circulated in Portland, Oregon.

March 3, 1990–the ATF raid homes of activists (including mine) searching for “evidence to commit arson and arson.” Agent John Comey heads up the investigation. No charges filed. I received an anonymous warning of the raid by phone. Portland Free Press article.

From Portland Free Press event listings:

April 23, 1990–Bell Hooks at Lewis and Clark College.

April 28, 1990–Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz at L&C.

April 23-28, 1990–Ben Linder Memorial Week in Portland ; construction brigade meetings.

——

May 9, 1990–arson attempt at Lovejoy Surgicenter.

May 16, 1990–Alan Rausch’s “Police distorted incident at park; media added to it” a must read example of activist journalism from that era. Pulitzer Prize in letters to the editor should have been awarded here. Sly dig at journalists who “when in doubt call the sheriff ” and dead possums, from when Portland cops dropped them at a Black business, are devastating. We would get back at the cops only days later at Little Beirut II.

Portland Free Press article, “Newberg police Inform Convicted Felon Drew Davis of Free Press Inquiry About secret Service Papers.” Davis was a former Republican Oregon House rep. and then President of the Sun Myung Moon-connected Oregon chapter of the American Freedom Coalition. Davis was convicted of forging drug prescriptions.

May 18, 1990–CHD, the Lesbian Community Project and SHARP represented by Donna Redwing, Scott Nakagawa, and Dave Lamb, respectively, hold a press conference denouncing police harrassment of anti-racists. CHD releases “Report on the Community Defence Project on Organized neo-fascists in Portland, Oregon.” In the early days CHD would sometimes use the term “fascism” as a general descriptor. The report was a collective effort and fourteen contributors are listed. It’s an important documentation of the rancid role of the PPB in protecting boneheads and a great snapshot of CHD beginning to do action-oriented research.

May 21, 1990—Little Beirut II

“The following May, President George H.W. Bush himself came to town to help raise funds for then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Frohnmayer. Three hundred protesters greeted the well-heeled Republicans with eggs, fruit, spit and purportedly some explosive devices, along with burning American flags. The protest ended in a brawl as 75 police officers in riot gear descended on the crowd. Twenty-five were arrested.” I may be mistaken, but I think this was the protest that featured anti-racist skins, punks and other radicals, some of whom adopted Teenage mutant Ninja Turtle costumes to greet the pigs–those on the streets and those at the trough.

Mohammad Hassan (above) at PSU protesting less than five percent faculty of color at Portland State University. Check out those Apple prices!

May 24, 1990–Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney are victims of a car bomb in Oakland, California just prior to the start of Redwood Summer. Leonard Zeskind and I would later travel to Willits to meet with the two activists. We were invited to research any far-right/state involvement in the assassination attempt. We could never establish who did it, and neither could anyone else. Cointelpro? “Lord’s Avenger?” Still unanswered. RIP Judi.

June 1990–The irreverent “Class War” is being published.

July 16, 1990. Elinor Langer’s “American Neo-Nazi Movement Today” article in The Nation appears.

September, 1990–CHD releases “Organized White Supremacists in Oregon” 

September 1990, Little Beirut III

“Quayle returned in September of 1990 to help raise funds for Oregon Republican candidates and to support an education bill. (This was two years before the American public found out the incumbent vice president couldn’t spell “potato.”) As if hearing his taunt from the year before, there were twice as many protesters outside the Hilton this time. A group of 24 Reed students, including Igor Vamos of the Yes Men fame, dubbed themselves the Guerrilla Theater of the Absurd. They put on their finest suits and ties, swallowed food coloring and ipecac to vomit up red, white and blue—their plan was thwarted because their stomach acid turned the blue food coloring green. This agitprop art display was dubbed the Reverse Peristalsis Painters.

Fifty-one were arrested at this protest, including art gallery and coffee shop owner Anne Hughes, who wound up winning a $25,000 settlement from the city due to her treatment at the hands of the Portland Police Bureau. This event led to Mayor Bud Clark writing a strongly worded letter to the police department.”–WW

I attended the first three Little Beiruts, but not the fourth in 1991 as I had just moved to The Shop and was otherwise occupied. 

1990–Lenny Zeskind from the Center for Democratic Renewal and Gerry Gable from Searchlight Magazine in England are hosted at an event at Portland State University.

October, 1990–CHD publishes address of Bob Heick in Portland.

October 7, 1990–2500 people come out for the “March and Rally for Dignity and Diversity” on the day before the SPLC vs. Metzger civil suit begins. Jury came back October 22, 1988. John Trudell and Stew Albert speak, among others.

END