Rose City Justice cancels march to ‘practice what we preach’

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The group leading the large Black Lives Matter marches that usually take place on Portland’s eastside abruptly canceled Wednesday night’s rally, citing behavior organizers “consider unacceptable, including silencing, neglecting feedback from our communities, especially our marginalized communities.”

Rose City Justice is a Black-led organization that has organized rallies and marches with hundreds, even thousands in attendance. However, tension has been building between the civil rights collective and those who protest nightly outside the Justice Center in downtown Portland.

While RCJ avoids characterizing the factions as peaceful vs. violent, its protests usually go undisturbed by police and don’t result in property damage like what Portlanders have become accustomed to downtown. That has led to criticism from protesters who frequent the Justice Center. They question why RCJ appears to keep crowds away from downtown.

RCJ announced the cancellation of Wednesday’s march on Instagram, saying in part, “We understand that there are marginalized black and black queer voices that have been actively silenced and that won’t be something we stand for.” The group says it is taking time to “re-gather ourselves” and plans to issue a statement Thursday morning. Organizers invited people to contact them with comments and questions.

“As a civil rights collective, we know that all voices need to be heard and this is the opportunity for us to practice what we preach,” the post read.

View this post on Instagram

First, we apologize for how long it took us to be accountable for our actions. Instead of being proactive, we were being reactive. There has been behavior displayed that we consider unacceptable, including silencing, neglecting feedback from our communities, especially our marginalized communities. We understand that there are marginalized black and black queer voices that have been actively silenced and that won’t be something we stand for. We are actively working on fixing this and because of this, we will be cancelling our march tonight. Please allow us the time tonight to re-gather ourselves as we address and begin to dismantle the systems in place that allowed this to happen. We will be issuing a statement tomorrow morning at 10am. As a civil rights collective, we know that all voices need to be heard and this is the opportunity for us to practice what we preach. If you feel that there is something you would like us to be accountable for, let us know in our DMs, comments, or email us rosecityjustice@Gmail.com so we can begin to address these issues tomorrow. Please send us your questions, we want to answer them.

A post shared by Rose City Justice (@rosecityjustice) on Jun 24, 2020 at 5:11pm PDT

Some protesters didn’t get the memo in time, and showed up to Revolution Hall anyway.

Sandy 7th grader Dahlia McKay was heading to the Portland protests for the first time and said she was disappointed to learn they were canceled.

“So many people were trying to come out today and just exercise their right to protest and … just express the fact that what happened and is still happening is not okay and needs to be addressed,” McKay said.

Sophie Jarosh joins the RCJ protests three to four times a week, but was surprised to find the group missing Wednesday night. Jarosh plans to be back for the next march though, saying it’s a powerful feeling to walk alongside so many people fighting for change.

“We’re the generation that needs to change it,” Jarosh said.

Downtown protests

Wednesday night’s protest outside the Justice Center drew a crowd of a couple hundred. It remained largely uneventful though, with no clashes between protesters and police that KOIN 6 News observed.

Warning: The gallery below shows photos of graffiti, including profanities