Portland groups gather, march in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

About 300 people from several different activist organizations gathered at Peninsula Park Monday, where they honored Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in a march that emptied out onto the Portland boulevard named for the slain civil rights leader.

The 6th annual Children’s March for Social Justice caused several traffic disruptions along the way but was otherwise peaceful.

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Don’t Shoot Portland, Artists for Black Lives and several other local groups organized the event, which also included representatives from the revived Poor People’s Campaign, a movement that was organized in 1968 by King and other civil rights leaders.

Marchers ended up at the Oregon Convention Center, where they listened to recordings of King’s speeches beneath a statue bearing his likeness.

Children were front and center at the march, carrying banners and chanting “Dr. King had a dream, I am the dream!" along with the adults.

Fyndi Jermany, 29, who participated in the march, thinks the children’s presence and participation is an important part of helping them become more “civically engaged,” she said. Jermany, who grew up in North and Northeast Portland, has been involved with Don’t Shoot Portland since 2018. “I feel like I was blind until then,” she said.

"There’s a lot of unspoken racism that’s still embedded inside this city and this state that many people are unaware of or complicit with,” she said.

Jermany was one of a handful of adults marching ahead of the banners and leading the chants.

“It’s very important that the children experience this,” she said.

-- Beth Nakamura

Twitter: @bethnakamura

Instagram: @bethnakamura