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Why Portland Is So ‘Antifa’
Oregon’s history of radical resistance is directly linked to its racist roots
In the first episode of the HBO series Lovecraft Country, the three main characters find themselves in a sundown town—a community where Black people could find themselves arrested, or even killed, if they were found to be outside past sundown. The phrase trended on Twitter, where many white people revealed that they were learning of the existence of sundown towns for the first time. It also prompted many Black Twitter users to share their stories of sundown towns, and even make a collaborative map of confirmed or suspected places where it was deemed unsafe, either in the past or present, for Black people to be outside after dark. While many of these towns are concentrated in the American south, there are even more in the northeast and the Rust Belt. What might come as a surprise to some is how many are clustered along the west coast corridor, especially in Oregon.
The history of Oregon is extremely racist—even by American standards. From the time of the first white settlers, violence against the region’s Indigenous population was common. When Oregon became a US state in 1859, it was the only state to expressly forbid Black…
