[Editor's Note: The following article is part of BlackOut: A Five-Year Retrospective on Portland’s Racial Justice Movement, a joint publication from Donovan Scribes and the Portland Mercury. Written exclusively by Black Portlanders, the purpose of BlackOut is to remember and reflect on the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, and the 100+ days of protests in Portland that same year. You can find BlackOut in print at more than 500 locales citywide, inserted inside the Mercury's Food Issue. You can read all the BlackOut articles here.]
An admirable journalist and younger friend recently asked me a provocative question: What did I remember and imagine would be different after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020? It took me a moment to process the question and determine how I could answer it in 2025, just a few months before the anniversary of that tragic, though too familiar day.
2020 was such a crazy year as we were introduced early to what so many around the world experience on a daily, minute to minute basis: the scourge of an out-of-control deadly viral disease spreading like wildfire, that was harming and dragging so many in its wake, that upended life as we knew it, that overwhelmed families, homes, government services, health systems, that forced us into shutdowns of workplaces, schools, day care centers, gathering spaces, travel plans and made us all transient remote workers, and parents.
2020 was THAT year. The murder of another Black person, this time a Black man whose crime – besides his race – was allegedly using a counterfeit bill to pay for items in a corner store. Amid our many fears in a pandemic called COVID-19, we turned our attention to a heinous crime played out in broad daylight, on a street corner in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25th.
A white police officer again chose to be judge, jury and executioner to end another man’s life because he felt he had that right – in America. Kneeling over George Floyd, a Black man now lying prone on a street corner, immobilized by the officer and his colleagues, Derek Chauvin placed his knee on George’s throat and pressed hard enough for nearly 9 minutes to crush breath from his body. The recording of this vicious action showed a cocky, unapologetic cop staring into the camera’s lens in an act of depraved indifference; defiant and unrepentant while George struggled, whimpered “I can’t breathe, and cried out to his mother with his last breaths.
No, none of us moved on that day. Not the young Black woman who was startled into action and pulled out her cellphone to record all that was happening just feet in front of her and, as a result, became an unassuming heroine. She gave me and the rest of the world an authentic, up close, live video of a diabolical act of murder in real time. No matter how often murder of my people plays out, it’s always the first time for me. I was on hyper alert and fight mode, and every one white was suspected and in danger if they crossed me.
To this day, I can’t forget the horror, the revulsion, the anger that exploded from my chest on May 25, 2020; my desire to hit back, to punch, to find my way into the streets to join hands, raise fists and march forward to find justice – for George Floyd, his family, and my Black community.
I believe that response and willingness to act out stems from knowing that my touted city of Portland and, by extension, Oregon has its own sordid and troublesome history of police encounters with Black residents that turn dangerous and often deadly, and are excused and explained away by police leadership, City officials, the press.
No, this wasn’t the first time that a Black person was gunned down, killed for specious reasons by those wearing blue, those allowed to legally carry clubs and other weapons of mass destruction. Those given free rein to walk through our communities with limited to no responses to their brutality. The list of Black men, women, and children from Eleanor Bumpers, 66, to Ruth Whitfield, 86, to Sandra Bland, 28, to Breonna Taylor, 26, to Rayshard Brooks, 21, to Quwan Charles, 15, and so many more who have fallen to bullets fired by predominately white law enforcement into our cars, while sitting or lying down in our homes, while walking or jogging or running, as a sport not an escape, is very long, often hidden from plain sight and never ending.
But George Floyd’s murder in broad daylight had lots of witnesses – those present in the streets outside the corner store – and the millions who watched and rewatched the video – saying, ‘no more, no more; that’s it. While so many killings of my people by police have been silent with few witnesses, covered up, justified, and reinterpreted by police chiefs, the press and city officials, George Floyd’s killing made it a different murder, so visible and visceral that it sparked a new sustained movement for justice. The early 2000’s version of the 1960’s.
I, a seasoned racial justice warrior, watched the footage, the press conferences, the apologies and the rebukes in an endless loop screaming at the top of my lungs. I still see the tears and rage of May 25, 2020 bubble up and boil over into streets inside and outside of America’s borders in mass mobilizations against all of the racially-influenced institutions and systems that limit access, information, assistance and equal outcomes for Black, Brown and other people of color, low-income people, youth, elders, disabled, LGBTQ+, those of us often made invisible, erased. I couldn’t sit idle while there was real work to be done.
"To this day, I can’t forget the horror, the revulsion, the anger that exploded from my chest on May 25, 2020."
Black Lives Matter mobilized hundreds of thousands in the streets with clear and strategic demands for police accountability, reframing law enforcement to ensure equal justice in our communities, more resident participation in local policing, the deployment of financial resources to the neediest communities, to realize real, concrete long-lasting fixes.
There was also a strong sense of hope in the air as thousands took to the streets every day and night. There was excitement and intention including among those of us who have been at this ‘thing called justice’ for a long time. The demands and action items put forth nationally were real demands and action items here in Portland, too: for police accountability, stronger community voice, seats at the decision-making tables governing our lives, safe communities.
I believed that, surely, the sheer volume of our voices, the strength of our positions, the partnerships created in the streets, and the strategies being unveiled would lead to different conversations and real outcomes.
In 2020, our Portland NAACP branch, with a bright, courageous history in the Civil Rights movement, was rocked by the alleged and known scandalous behavior of a president who was intimidating, disrespectful to women and young people, overriding others trying to speak at branch meetings, and choosing a singular decision-maker style A one-year investigation into this leader yielded a jaw-dropping expose by a local newspaper and pushed our branch into the center of attention in Portland and beyond. Though a number of us became new, visible leaders to reclaim the branch, when George Floyd was murdered, we quickly paused our activities to bear witness and participate in the George Floyd protests in ‘sustained, street activism,’ a branch in our little City of Roses.
I watched as politicians sprang forward with gutless proclamations of solidarity with Black communities; though many of us believed those ‘statements’ of alignment with the principles of justice were probably written by BIPOC staff or borrowed from others, posted on websites. I realized those performative displays with no teeth or intent, just hand wringing and temporary expressions of change, locking of arms and singing Kumbaya. No evidence they could or would make a difference. Nothing much changed.
Yes, Mayor Wheeler brought to town a supposedly new era police chief, a Black woman, a first, but who proved to be a more traditional tough on crime accomplice. Yes, there was the appointment of a police-community review board that did lots of meetings but was hand-tied from any real actions or decision-making. There was the City and Mayor’s continual skirting of responsibility for their failure to hold the PPB accountable for creating and demonstrating progress in developing training and new protocols to eliminate excessive use of force, especially against those deemed to be suffering mental health issues, the findings of the federal Department of Justice against the PPB. As a result, though long running sanctions were issued, and are still in place in 2025, nothing much has changed.
Surely, a mayor who professed he wanted to see change – at least at campaign stops– could prove himself bolder, more courageous and less beholden to the downtown suits, by using more than rhetoric to unblock the path forward.
But, nah, nothing like that happened. So, here I sit a few months before the fifth-year anniversary of the killing of George Floyd by a depraved, indifferent American police officer. I sit with the realization that little has changed, that more stays the same.
Yet, there are glimpses from within my community that reclamation and restoration is possible – in response to housing scarcity, economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in our government a community-based development organization is preparing to open its first affordable housing apartment in the heart of what is Portland’s historic Albina neighborhood, with plans over the next decade to provide over 1000 new apartments and homes for Black Portlanders who want to return to their ‘hood.’ Yes, there are Black led investments in public schools, community gathering spaces, safe, engaged neighborhoods, opportunities for side-by-side intergenerational and multigenerational living environments.
Yes, there is an uprising in creativity and culture with storytelling and filmmaking capturing our regular and extraordinary lives, offering future dreams and to our youth.
Yes, the Portland City Council has been reshaped from four councilors and a mayor to 12 City Council members, a Mayor and City Administrator, to deliver more inclusive representation for all Portlanders, including those long-ignored and neglected following pushouts from inner city neighborhoods to the far borders of our city. However, it’s too new to tell, so I must wait and see.
These moments remind me of the enduring faith, hope and resilience all around me, grounded in Black love and community. These were the values that I found embedded in the Black Lives Matter movement, and our willingness to not let the old guard power brokers and influencers dictate what can and will be our lives in this city, ON our communities.
Despite the current slide by the newly elected president of the United States, a professed wannabe dictator and king, I believe many of us can and must continue to resist, to stand up, speak out, be in solidarity, act as co-conspirators in the fight for real racial, social justice.
George Floyd’s fifth-year death anniversary arrives on May 25, 2025, and presents another opportunity to march forward, to reflect, recapture and remember that we are fighting for real long-lasting justice, especially for those who look like me. It is our right and legacy.
George Floyd, Rest in Peace.
Sharon Gary-Smith, former president of the Portland NAACP, a long-time racial and social justice freedom fighter and women rights activist. She is an unapologetic proud Albina Portland daughter, sister, mother, and community leader.
