A woman carries a sign reading "If you are not outraged you are not paying attention" as she walks through a crowd of hundreds gathered at the Salmon Street Springs Fountain in Portland.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra / OPB
Hundreds of people in Portland peacefully gathered and then marched across two Portland bridges Friday night in solidarity with the community of Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally and march followed last week's violent white supremacist rally that left one person dead and several others wounded.
Marchers blocked off traffic as they moved through downtown Portland before moving onto the Hawthorne and then Morrison bridges. They carried signs reading, among other slogans, "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."
Hours before the solidarity march, Sgt. Jeff Niiya with the Portland Police Bureau said the bureau planned to take a "sit back and monitor" approach to the rally, with a minimal presence.
Tonight's march has concluded. Though marchers did not follow all expectations, we are grateful it was peaceful.
— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 19, 2017
Niiya said the bureau was expecting a peaceful gathering. He said organizers chose not to obtain a permit. The permit would have prompted the bureau to block streets for marchers who blocked portions of downtown traffic before completely taking over the two bridges.
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Guest speakers, most of them people of color, spoke to a crowd of mostly white people about Portland's own long, complicated history with racism, including a deadly TriMet train stabbing that happened earlier this year. Police say Jeremy Christian, a self-described neo-Nazi, stabbed three people while riding the MAX, killing two of them.
The rally and march were organized by the activist group Portland's Resistance.
Organizer Gregory McKelvey said the goal was to show solidarity with Charlottesville, stand up for the community and counter President Donald Trump's response to last weekend's events. He also said that organizers hoped to have a protest in the "least disruptive way possible."
He urged crowd members to stand up for each other.
"You should treat everyone standing up against fascism in your area as the next Heather Heyer," McKelvey said. Heyer, 32, was killed in an attack on counter-protesters after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. "Don’t wait until they’re dead," McKelvey said.