When walking even a half mile from the protests your eyes begin to water, the smell of RoundUp creeps up your nose, your throat inches, then burns. Chants billow towards you: “Whose streets…. our streets.“
Goggles soon become a necessity. Two masks help shield your throat from the invisible, sharp air, and as the first sounds of a mortar erupts, ski helmets begin to emerge from neighboring backpacks. A couple hundred feet from the crowd a group of kids spray paint the face of a pig and write some profanity about their mayor, Ted Wheeler.
Then, “The Wall of Mothers,” dressed in yellow, linking arms around the outside of the protest—many are armed with baking soda water in spray bottles (a nice remedy to neutralize burning eyes when exposed to tear gas) and some have shields to protect from rubber bullets. To the left is a cooler of water bottles, volunteers are passing them out to passing protesters, and in the distance the smoke from Riot Ribs mixes into the tear-gas-stained air.
Welcome to the pinpoint of American news and politics: Portland’s Federal Courthouse.
For 57 days thousands have gathered to protest the killing of George Floyd and the recent deployment of federal troops into Portland. These are photos from Night 57, taken on July 25, 2020 by Source intern Kyle Switzer.
This article appears in Jul 22-29, 2020.
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The “Stable Genius” is getting exactly what he wants. He put the FEDS in there to create a show, a reality show, to posture himself as the “Law & Order” guy to appease his racist base for reelection time. Please, let’s encourage the people engaging in this war zone he created late at night to begin to be more peaceful. We are at war with Covid-19 taking the lives of tens of thousands of fellow Americans and he could care less. The peaceful protests and white people stepping up along side people of color is helping to bring about change. We need more white leaders, especially white men, advocating for change for “freedom and justice for all”. We don’t need anymore fuel for this president because he is making it appear that ALL of Portland is under siege for media coverage and to create fear across our nation. He will start placing more FEDS in more Democratic and Liberal cities as well to create this fear and to fuel anger across our nation. Please don’t give into his negativity and crazy behaviors. Trump reminds me of Hitler. We need to stay composed and united in our marches and rallies for equity and not resort to violence. When we start acting crazy with him and the FEDS, it is not helping to create the positive change that we so desperately need.