The Portland suburb of Gresham, Oregon, has sent ripples through the community by flying a Black Lives Matter flag over city hall.
Two groups of protesters squared off Wednesday after mayoral candidate Joe Demers organized a “Keep Gresham Sound—Take the BLM Flag Down” rally to protest the flag, which was raised July 15 on a flagpole below the Oregon state flag following a unanimous vote of the city council.
“The decision to put the flag up is something that should have involved the entire community,” Mr. Demers said in a report in TheOutlook.
The rally drew about 100 counter-protesters wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts and carrying signs with messages like, “BLM is only divisive if you disagree that BLM,” with one organizer calling the objections to the flag “a form of racism.”
The flap failed to deter the city council, which voted Tuesday to extend the flying of the flag from the end of July to the end of August.
“The phrase Black Lives Matter does not imply that other lives do not matter,” said the city in a July 15 statement. “Instead, it calls attention to the reality that the simple presumption that every life matters too frequently fails to be applied to Black and brown lives. In raising the flag, the City hopes to provide a space for civil conversations about the issues of race and inequity.”
The Multnomah County Republicans said in a Tuesday statement that the city council was “either clueless or committed to overthrowing the Constitution.”
“We as Republicans, the party of Lincoln, obviously have no objections to promoting messages of racial equality,” said party chairman James Buchal, “but these City Councilors are tarnishing the City of Gresham by flying the flag of a radical Marxist organization hostile to all fundamental American values.”
Located immediately east of Portland, Gresham has a population of about 110,000 and has been ranked as the fourth-largest city in Oregon.
At least one other jurisdiction, Ann Arbor, Michigan, has raised a generic Black Lives Matter flag over city hall, but Mr. Buchal pointed out that the black flag with white lettering and yellow stripes being flown in Gresham bears the logo of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and is available on the group’s website.
The BLM Global Network has been accused of promoting a Marxist agenda: Among its goals are to defund the police and “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement,” while co-founder Patrisse Cullors said in 2015 that she and co-founder Alicia Garza were “trained Marxists.”
The group, founded in 2013 after the death of Trayvon Martin, has also been vocal about the presidential race. Last month, Ms. Cullors told CNN that “our goal is to get Trump out” and that “he should resign now.”
The council’s vote to fly the flag came as city hall grapples with a shake-up tinged with racial tension. The mayor, city manager and police chief announced their retirements last month, while the assistant city manager, who is Black, said in a June 8 letter obtained by TheOutlook that he received a “dismal” reception and attributed it to subtle racism.
Earlier this week, the council appointed community volunteer Vincent Jones-Dixon, who is Black, to fill the vacancy left after a councilor assumed the mayor’s job.
The city council also voted last month to fly the Juneteenth flag throughout the month of June.
“As our community, nation and world grapple with the racial injustices laid bare by the tragic death of George Floyd and so many others, Council felt it important to stand behind the simple notion that Black lives matter,” said the city’s statement.
