Gregory McKelvey, a 23-year-old law student, is one of the leaders of Portland’s Resistance, the city’s anti-Trump go-to for protests, marches, and liberal advocacy formed immediately after the presidential election. The group has been planning a massive march scheduled to start at 3:30 pm on Friday at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Thousands are expected to attend.
MERCURY: What goes into planning one of these marches?
McKELVEY: We’ve been having people wear different bandanas on their arms. Red bandanas would be the medics, which you need to have because people could get pepper-sprayed or hurt, and it’s obviously hard to get an ambulance through there if something bad happened to anybody. We have something like 20 medics ready for J20, and we’re training more. We have people wearing yellow for security—not like they beat you up if you do something, but just to keep the lines of the march going in the right way, blocking off streets, and that kind of stuff. And we wear white for the organizers, who can basically answer questions. And really even more than the roles the people will play, it just makes the march feel safer when they know that certain people have roles and somewhat of a uniform. It makes the event go smoother, which we’ve learned through experience.
This march has been planned for a while, and the ones immediately after the election were pretty spontaneous. How different will Friday be?
After the election, we wanted to make sure there was direction—other than things just going to chaos—not just for the marches, but what we’re marching for. If we just come out there and don’t change any policies, then it was all for nothing. That said, everything was put together day-of for all the marches, but people were going to be in the streets regardless. But for this march, there’s a lot of planning going into it, the same as our march that was the day of the Electoral College [vote]. It definitely goes smoother, but we never know what the police response will be. It’s also the first march under Ted Wheeler, so we don’t know how he’s going to be responding.”