The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — The mayor of Portland, Ore., said Wednesday anyone planning violence or espousing hatred at a weekend protest by right-wing groups in the liberal city “are not welcome here.”
Mayor Ted Wheeler spoke at a rally with other city leaders ahead of the event Saturday, which also is expected to bring out anti-fascist protesters. Anticipating trouble, none of the city’s nearly 1,000 police officers will have the day off Saturday.
The Saturday event is being organized by a member of the Proud Boys, who have been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
Wheeler spoke at a rally with dozens of representatives from the city’s religious, police and business groups.
He decried any groups “who plan on using Portland on Aug. 17th as a platform to spread your hate.”
Other groups expected to be at Saturday event include members of the American Guard, the Three Percenters, the Oathkeepers and the Daily Stormers. American Guard is a white nationalist group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, while the Three Percenters and the Oathkeepers are extremist anti-government militias. The Daily Stormers are neo-Nazis, according to the center.
At a rally in June in Portland, masked anti-fascist members — known as antifa — beat up a conservative blogger named Andy Ngo. Video of the 30-second attack grabbed national attention.
Portland’s Rose City Antifa, the nation’s oldest active anti-fascist group, said violence against right-wing demonstrators is “exactly what should happen when the far-right attempts to invade our town.”
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana introduced a congressional resolution calling for anti-fascists to be declared domestic terrorists, and President Donald Trump echoed that theme in a tweet last month.
At the Wednesday rally, Wheeler said Portland has a history of supporting the right to assemble and free speech. “We’ve protested war, we’ve protested hate, we’ve protested racism, we’ve protested sexism,” he said.
But Wheeler said recently groups have used the “guise of free speech” to be violent.
“Violence is not a civil right,” the mayor said.
Many of today’s anti-fascists trace their activist heritage to a group that battled with neo-Nazis in Portland’s streets decades ago, and they feel this is the same struggle in a new era, said Randy Blazak, the leading expert on the history of hate groups in Oregon.
White supremacists murdered an Ethiopian man, Mulugeta Seraw, in Portland in 1988. And by the 1990s, Portland was known as Skinhead City because it was the home base of Volksfront, at the time one of the most active neo-Nazi groups in the U.S. As recently as 2007, neo-Nazis attempted to gather in Portland for a three-day skinhead festival.
“When I’m looking at what’s happening right now, for me it’s a direct line back to the 1980s: the battles between the racist skinheads and the anti-racist skinheads,” Blazak said. “It’s the latest version of this thing that’s been going on for 30 years in this city.”
Everyday Portlanders are feeling frustrated by the protests that bring their city to a standstill. A 5K race scheduled for Saturday along the waterfront was moved at the last minute to avoid any violence, and an Irish bar that’s a city institution cancelled an amateur boxing event that draws 500 spectators. Other businesses plan to close on one of the last weekends of the city’s peak tourist season.
“People are nervous, people are hesitant to go anywhere near that area, and I don’t blame them,” said Aaron Montaglione, owner of Terrapin Events, which is putting on the 5K race. “It’s affecting everyone.”
