A group of KKK members parades down the streets of Grants Pass, Ore., in the 1920s. The KKK had a strong presence across the state in the early 1900s, with Oregon Klan leaders claiming 35,000 active members in 1923.
Lloyd Smith Collection
These conversations are happening here in Oregon, too, a state that — no matter which way you cut it — has deep roots in racism.
Walidah Imarishais a writer, educator, public scholar and spoken word artist.
Pete Shaw
“[These] laws point to the fact that Oregon was founded as a racist white utopia,” said Walidah Imarisha, a Black studies educator and writer based in Oregon. “The idea was that white folks would come here and build the perfect white society.”
In 1844, when Oregon was still a territory, it passed its first Black exclusionary law. It banned slavery, but it also prohibited Black people from living in the territory for more than three years. If a Black person broke this law, the consequence was 39 lashes, every six months, until they left.
The final exclusion measure made it into the Oregon Constitution as a clause when the territory became a state 10 years later in 1859. This clause went further than the territory’s second law by also prohibiting Black people from owning property and making contracts.
“It speaks very clearly to the ways that this place was founded to center whiteness, not only at the exclusion of folks of color but at the brutalization of folks of color,” said Imarisha.
These laws were rarely enforced but they did the job they were created to do: establish Oregon as a majority white state. And it’s why Portland, the state’s most populous city, is still known as the whitest big city in the United States.
Sign in the window of a Portland restaurant circa 1943
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, CN 0034
In 1859, Oregon was the only state admitted to the Union with an Exclusion Clause in its constitution.
Oregon State Archives
Peter Burnett was the author of the first exclusion law banning blacks in Oregon Territory.
Shew, W. M., photographer. Photo Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, Orhi 13424
Oregon’s First Territorial Governor, Joseph Lane, supported slavery. In 1860, he was a candidate for vice president against Abraham Lincoln
Photo Courtesy of Library of Congress
The Portland Telegram published this images of the KKK meeting with Portland leaders in 1921. Included are the city Chief of Police, Captain of Police, the District Attorney and a sheriff
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, ba021814
“This is an ideology that is not only alive, it’s serving as the foundation for the institutions of Oregon,” said Imarisha. “Oregon is a useful case study for the rest of the nation because the only thing unique about Oregon is [it] was bold enough to write it down. The same policies, practices and ideologies that shaped Oregon, shaped the nation as a whole.”
“This movement, which is led by Black youth, is incredibly inspiring,” said Imarisha. “I just really want to say thank you to the leadership who have created this movement.”
Ultimately, Imarisha believes this movement and the conversations we’re all experiencing now can bring about profound societal changes for Black people and other people of color.
“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in liberation — now is the time to act,” said Imarisha.
Hear the full conversation with Walidah Imarisha in the audio player above.
December 25, 1914 German officer in the trenches with British soldier Just after midnight on Christmas morning, German troops at the front in World War I ceased firing their guns and artillery, and began to sing Christmas carols. At the first light of dawn, many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no man’s land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues.At first the Allied soldiers suspected it to be a trick, but they soon climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the German soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings; the fighting didn’t resume in earnest for several days, and then only at the insistence of the generals. German and British soldiers fraternize What happened that night A Film | Joyeux Noel: The Christmas Truce Of 1914 watch & listen ========================================= December 25, 1921 President Harding announced the release of Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs from prison, unconditionally commuting his 10-year sentence to time served. Debs’s full rights as a citizen, however, were not restored. He had been imprisoned for his vocal opposition to U.S. participation in World War I. Following a meeting with the president and attorney general, Debs commented, “. . . a convict for his principles is always a citizen in good standing. He is a citizen by his own inherent, God-given integrity. The only man who loses his citizenship is the man who renounces his principles and abdicates his manhood.” =============================================== December 25, 1946 The first Christmas demonstration at the White House was held by those seeking amnesty for conscientious objectors convicted of refusing to fight in World War II. =============================================== December 25, 1992 The special prosecutor responsible for investigating crimes committed in the Iran-Contra Affair, Lawrence E. Walsh, denounced the pardons granted the day before by President George H.W. Bush. Mr. Walsh charged that “the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.” Walsh said, “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public” was central to his case against Weinberger. President Bush had been vice president at the time of the arms sales to Iran for hostages, and illegal aid to the insurgent Contras in Nicaragua. Those Bush pardoned: Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense, soon to go on trial for lying to Congress; Clair E. George, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine services, who had been convicted twice of perjury; two other CIA officials, Duane Clarridge and Alan D. Fiers Jr.; Robert C. McFarlane, the former national security adviser, and Elliott Abrams, the former assistant Secretary of State for Central America, both of whom had pled guilty to withholding information from Congress.
One thing we know Trump was for sure looking forward to for his second term was getting to kill more federal death row prisoners. During the last months of his first term, he went on a full-on killing spree, with his administration carrying out 13 federal executions after a 17-year hiatus.
To put things into perspective, of the 13 prisoners executed prior to his administration, two of them were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Only 37 federal death row prisoners were executed between 1927 and 2019, so 13 in six months was quite the bloodbath.
Alas, his dreams have been dashed, for President Joe Biden has announced that he will commute the death sentences for nearly all of the prisoners on federal death row.
“Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole,” Biden said in a statement released Monday morning.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” he continued. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
It’s unlikely that this was simply meant to bust Trump’s balls and make him sad — Biden had pledged to “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example” in his 2020 campaign.
The three prisoners whose sentences will not be commuted are those who committed crimes related to terrorism and hate-motivated mass murders — Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine people and injured one in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 (his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police after the attack); and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018.
The other prisoners were given their federal death sentences for far lesser crimes, like killing prison guards or drug trafficking-related murders.
It’s certainly nice to get this news after Biden’s 1,500 commutations of federal prisoners failed to include political prisoners like Leonard Peltier or Mumia Abu-Jamal and did include the kids-for-cash judge. It’s also nice to see, considering the fact that the DNC removed opposition to the death penalty from its platform after eight years of including it. Hopefully we can get back on that one, given the fervor with which Republican governors have pursued the executions of people who were almost definitely innocent in the last few years.
Anti-death penalty advocates, including Martin Luther King III, Sister Simone Campbell, Rev. Ralph McCloud, and exoneree Herman Lindsey made a video thanking President Biden for taking this step.
“President Biden has shown our country – and the rest of the world – that the brutal and inhumane policies of our past do not belong in our future,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU said in a statement. “By commuting 37 federal death row sentences, he has paved the way for other elected officials to build on his legacy of racial justice, humanity and morality by commuting state death rows and passing legislation to abolish capital punishment.”
“Biden has commuted almost all federal death row. This is indeed a good day to do the Lord’s work,” Sister Helen Prejean wrote on Bluesky. I’m thankful to so many religious leaders and justice advocates who helped make this possible. I pray for victims’ families, knowing that wishing for death is not a healing course.”
Personally, as horrible as their crimes were, and as hard of a decision as it would have been, I still think he should have commuted the sentences of all of the prisoners, simply because — to quote a bumper sticker — I don’t believe we should kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong. Also there is evidence that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was unduly influenced by his brother and also afraid he might kill him if he didn’t go along with his plan, and that the jury was biased against him. (Which would be entirely understandable given that they were all from the Boston area, but also technically unfair.) Family members of those who were killed in the Charleston church shooting have said for years that they don’t want Roof executed, and as loathsome as he is, that ought to be taken into consideration. Two of the families who lost loved ones in the Tree of Life shooting, and the rabbi who was shot himself also asked for Bowers to get a life sentence, due to their opposition to the death penalty. One of the many injustices of the death penalty is that it puts those who oppose it in the position, occasionally, of having to ask for leniency for those who hurt them or have killed their loved ones.
But, you know, optics.
In any case, this is a great day for those of us who oppose the death penalty, and for all Americans who may not oppose it but still do not deserve to be hardened by its application.
December 22, 1944 African-American women during World War II had difficulty volunteering to serve in the war effort. Negro enlistment in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) was limited to 10% of enlistees (reflecting the black proportion of the U.S. population and known as “ten-percenters”). Only the officers were trained in integrated units but all served in racially segregated units, and lived and ate in “colored only” facilities. During the war, 6,520 black women served as WACs.Black women were completely banned from the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) until the last year of the war. Through the efforts of Director Mildred McAfee and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Secretary of the Navy (and later the first Secretary of Defense) James Forrestal pushed through their admittance. The first two black WAVES officers, Lieutenant Harriet Ida Pikens and Ensign Frances Wills, were sworn in this day. Of 80,000 WAVES, only 72 black women served.
December 22, 1969 The original Radio Free Alcatraz, a pirate radio station, broadcasted for the first time through Berkeley, California’s Pacifica radio station, KPFA. The voice of Alcatraz was Johnny Trudell, an ally of the American Indians who had occupied Alcatraz Island, the site of the former prison in San Francisco Bay. John Trudell speaks with news media representatives regarding negotiations with the federal government for title to Alcatraz Island. Trudell, known as “the voice of Alcatraz: Listen and learn more
December 22, 1993 Operation “Toys for Guns” was begun in New York City through the efforts (and $10,000) of I.M. Rainmaker, CEO of an electronics company. Conceived in cooperation with local police concerned about crime fed by too many guns and the glorification of violence, the program offered a $100 voucher redeemable at Toys ‘R’ Us for a firearm turned in to the police. How it happened
December 22, 1997 Paramilitaries associated with the ruling PRI party in Mexico massacred 45 peasants in the village of Acteal in the state of Chiapas. The federal government then occupied the territory with over 70,000 troops and expelled the humanitarian observers who were stationed in the area to monitor the treatment of the indigenous people who lived there.
I’ve sent more than 8 letters to the WH (emails + 1 snail.) I’ve made a couple of calls. The thing I haven’t done is share this video, so here it is. Calling/emailing is easy, doesn’t take much time. I will appreciate all anyone is able to do. That being said, I’m going to appreciate you whether you do anything, or nothing; I’m never going to know what you do, and don’t want to know. I am sharing this because the window is closing, but there are indications that Pres. Biden is very close to commuting federal death penalties. So anything we can do-even simple hope-will help, and push him over the edge to taking the burden of killings in the names of us all off our shoulders.
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