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Don’t Shoot founder committed to arts and education, not running for City Council

'Don't Shoot Portland' Executive Director Teressa Raiford at the Portland Art Museum, July 16, 2022 (KOIN)

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Self-proclaimed anarchist Teressa Raiford is no longer interested in running for any positions in the City of Portland’s government. The activist is, on the other hand, interested in continuing her advocacy through nonprofit Don’t Shoot PDX — which has spent years on the frontlines fighting for social justice in its namesake city.

In 2016, Raiford founded Don’t Shoot PDX as an organization that would further the social justice movement through arts and education, rather than just protests that weren’t accessible for all who wanted to participate.

However, Raiford’s activism didn’t start with the organization. Her efforts to fight for social justice and against gun violence at least started with her nephew, who she says was killed in 2010.

“At that time, I wanted to understand whether safety nets that are supposed to be in place for victims that are vulnerable to gun violence — why those safety nets didn’t effectively preserve lives or stop the violence,” she said.

As a mourning aunt, Raiford worked to give resources directly to the communities who needed them most while experiencing gun violence at disproportionate rates. About 13 years later, she believes those affected communities have developed their own models of communication and mutual aid assistance, which was always an intention of Don’t Shoot PDX.

But Raiford and her organization’s endeavors to make life better for marginalized people has proven to be a marathon, not a sprint.

2020 was a distinctive year for Portland protests, with a long string of demonstrations occurring following George Floyd’s murder. Many protesters seemed to march in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and in opposition to police brutality, yet Raiford thinks some of them were there solely for appearances and not to make any tangible differences for people of color.

“I felt that a lot of what was happening, and the people that were showing up and carrying the message, was performative,” she said. “That blurs the lines of social justice because you’re feeling like you have allies in the movement for change, but you literally have bodies that are there to provide space for whatever co-opting might happen.”

Raiford went on to cite a recent Los Angeles Times article, which she said accredited Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler for being on activists’ side in 2020, despite her organization suing the city for the Portland Police Bureau’s use of force during protests.

Executive Director Raiford launched her own campaign for mayor in 2020. Though she placed third in the primary election behind Wheeler and Sarah Iannarone, her supporters launched a campaign to encourage people to write her name on the November ballot anyway.

Fast forward to 2023, Raiford still wants to see qualified people who look like her in the elected positions that provide support and services directly to vulnerable communities. But she herself will not campaign to be one of those people.

Archives for Black Lives closing reception panel flyer (courtesy of Raiford)

“As a Black woman in Oregon that has been vetted outside of the status quo, there was a determined effect to silence me and to humiliate me during this last run, and I would never put myself or my family or my community through that type of humiliation again,” Raiford said. “You can’t consistently do this type of work and be who you are as a person, and so I’m kind of recommitting myself to the liberated archives work, to the community education and development of curriculum and things like that, because I felt closer institutional changes that can be made.”

Don’t Shoot Portland has stayed true to its roots as an arts and education organization, with its Archives For Black Lives installation that will soon close at the University of Oregon’s Knight Library. Raiford is one of three people who will speak at the exhibit’s closing reception panel on Friday, Feb. 24.

According to the activist, a similar installation was just placed in the UO Portland library. She says that developing community archives and preserving local history are two important components of social change.