Anti-racist protesters blocked an entrance to the I-105 highway in Eugene in a demonstration against police brutality and white supremacist violence. The protester staged a die-in to mark the seventh straight day of actions.
Thursday night’s protest in Eugene, as most of the protests preceding it, was peaceful. Around 6 p.m., people began to gather at Eugene’s federal courthouse. There, they held banners and signs with anti-racist slogans and distributed free food and water. Passing cars honked in shows of solidarity with the protesters.
An organizer asked people to gather at the courthouse stairs for speeches just after 6:30. The floor opened for any Black, Indigenous or Person of Color to assume the megaphone and speak their mind. Some told personal stories of experiencing racism, while others beseeched white people to be anti-racist not only when at a protest but throughout their daily lives. Another read from the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program.
“If you keep coming out, thank you for being here. If this is your first time out, thank you for being here. We’re going to win this if people keep coming out,” one speaker said to the crowd.
Protests have erupted nationwide as a response to police brutality which disproportionately affects Black people. The first of a recent spate of protests began after police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in Minneapolis, by kneeling on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. Many of the protests also mention the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black medical worker in Louisville, Kentucky.
In Portland, Gov. Kate Brown met with the Portland NAACP president and other leaders at the “Investing in Black Lives: A Path Toward Healing” forum, according to The Oregonian. The governor vowed to review police training practices, though didn’t promise reforms.
After an hour of speeches, the crowd rose and began their march through Eugene. Bicyclists and motorcycle cops rode in front of the protest and blocked traffic, but the body of the procession was led by two rows of BIPOC marching with linked arms.
Organizers asked BIPOC to be let to the front after Wednesday night’s protests ended in pleas for white demonstrators to “shut the fuck up and allow the voices of Black people to be heard.”
The group marched several miles, including along Seventh Avenue, eventually coming to a stop at the highway on-ramp at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Washington Street.
There, the group staged a die-in. Protesters silently laid face down on the ground with their hands behind their backs for 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the same length of time Chauvin had Floyd pinned under his knee.
The silence was only broken once by a motorist shouting that they were just trying to get home. An organizer took up the megaphone to say the motorist “still didn’t get it,” and that Floyd had wanted to go home too.
After the die-in, the group moved to a nearby parking lot for more speeches, including one by a Black transgender man who reminded the crowd that June is Pride month and that the Gay Liberation Movement was started by a riot against police oppression at the Stonewall Inn in 1969.
At least two more protests are scheduled for Friday. At 3 p.m. at the intersection of Willamette Street and Broadway, attendees will be making pro-Black lives matter artwork and asking to hang them in the windows of the surrounding businesses. Demonstrators will later gather at the federal courthouse at 6 p.m.
