Abbreviation | MU4BL |
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Nickname | Moms United |
Location |
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Moms United for Black Lives (also known as Moms United, or MU4BL) is an activist group based in Portland, Oregon, with branches in other U.S. cities, including New York and San Diego. The group was a fixture at the George Floyd protests in Portland; they wore yellow shirts, helmets, goggles, and gas masks, and they lead hundreds of people in chants as they marched to the federal courthouse. [1] [2] [ clarification needed ]
Moms United was founded and is led by a collective of Black women, including Don't Shoot Portland’s founder Teressa Raiford and activists Demetria Hester and Danialle James. The group was created after controversy erupted in Portland's Wall of Moms protest group, where the leader was accused of being anti-Black. Thousands of women left Wall of Moms to join Moms United for Black Lives. [3] [4] [5]
“We want reparations written into law. We want people to understand that Black lives do matter. We want Teressa Raiford as mayor. And we want to defund the police.” explained MU4BL founder Demetria Hester. [3] The MU4BL network aims to provide support, aid, and assistance to communities around the U.S. The key focus of Moms United for Black Lives is to address the problems of Portland's Black communities and “listen to Black women," according to Teressa Raiford. [3] [4]
Edward Tevis Wheeler is an American politician who has served as the mayor of Portland, Oregon since 2017. He was Oregon State Treasurer from 2010 to 2016.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people, and promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. It started following the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd, among others. The movement and its related organizations typically advocate for various policy changes considered to be related to black liberation. While there are specific organizations that label themselves simply as "Black Lives Matter," such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the overall movement is a decentralized network of people and organizations with no formal hierarchy. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" itself remains untrademarked by any group. Despite being characterized by some as a violent movement, the overwhelming majority of its public demonstrations have been peaceful.
Don't Shoot Portland, also called Don't Shoot PDX, is a Portland, Oregon-based accountability group formed by Black Lives Matter supporter Teressa Raiford to scrutinize actions of the Portland Police Bureau.
Antifa is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use nonviolent direct action, incivility, and violence to achieve their aims. Most antifa political activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing. However, some who identify as antifa also use tactics involving digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage. Members of antifa aim to combat far-right extremists, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Andy Cuong Ngo is an American right-wing journalist, author, and social media influencer known for covering and video-recording demonstrators. He is the editor-at-large of The Post Millennial, a Canadian conservative news website. A regular guest on Fox News, Ngo has published columns in the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.
On May 19, 2020 and November 3, 2020, elections were held in Portland, Oregon, to elect the mayor.
Robert Evans is an American author, journalist, and podcast host who has reported on global conflicts and online extremism. A former editor at the humor website Cracked.com, Evans now writes for the investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat while working on several podcasts, including Behind the Bastards, Behind the Police, Behind the Insurrections, It Could Happen Here, The Women's War, and Worst Year Ever. In 2021 he published his first novel, After The Revolution, in a serialized podcast.
The George Floyd protests were a series of police brutality protests that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of international reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, during an arrest. Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis Police Department officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. In June 2021 Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison with possibility of supervised release after 15 years for second-degree murder.
Starting in May 2020, protests following the murder of George Floyd were held in the city of Portland, Oregon, concurrent with protests in other cities in the United States and around the world. By July 2020, many of the protests, which had been held every day since May 28, drew more than 1,000 participants. Protests continued into August, September, and October 2020, often drawing hundreds.
This is a list of George Floyd protests in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Teressa Raiford is an American activist and politician in Portland, Oregon. She founded the local Black-led non-profit Don't Shoot Portland.
The Wall of Moms is a group primarily made up of women who identify as mothers, who have demonstrated in George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon, as well as other groups in U.S. cities including Chicago, Seattle, and Tampa, Florida. The group's first protest was attended by approximately 40 women; hundreds to thousands have participated since then.
A wave of civil unrest in the United States, initially triggered by the murder of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020, led to protests and riots against systemic racism in the United States, such as in the form of police violence and other forms of violence. Since then, numerous other incidents of police brutality have drawn continued attention and unrest in various parts of the country.
On August 29, 2020, Aaron Danielson, an American supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, was shot and killed after participating in a caravan which drove through Portland, Oregon, displaying banners and signs supporting President Donald Trump, and clashing with participants in the local George Floyd protests.
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement were created in Portland, Oregon, United States, during local protests over the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans. Oregon Arts Watch contextualized the artistic works, stating that a "whitewashed pre-COVID lens" on American life, which obscured systemic racism, had been "cracked", and describing artists' response to racial violence being brought into the public eye was a "marathon, not a sprint".
Michael Schmidt is an American attorney and prosecutor. He has served as the Multnomah County District Attorney since August 2020. Originally set to begin his term on January 1, 2021, Governor Kate Brown appointed him to the job early, in August of 2020, to replace Rod Underhill, who retired in July.
Fahiym Acuay, better known as Mac Smiff, is a journalist and activist in Portland, Oregon, United States. He is the editor of We Out Here, a regional hip hop online magazine. He is a well known figure in the Black Lives Matter movement, especially for his calls to defund the Portland Police Bureau. Smiff received attention during the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd. His work has been published in The Oregonian, the Portland Mercury, and Vortex Music Magazine.
Demetria Hester is a Black activist, speaker, and hate crime survivor based in Portland, Oregon. She is a frequent organizer of and speaker at Portland's George Floyd protests, Black Lives Matter rallies, and vigils for victims of police violence.
A mural of George Floyd was painted by Emma Berger outside Portland, Oregon's Apple Pioneer Place, on June 1, 2020, a week after his murder, against the background of the ongoing protests against police brutality. She expanded the mural to show Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and phrases associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. The work was vandalized in August, and repaired by the artist. It was covered by Apple Inc. in December for preservation, then removed in January 2021 to be donated to Don't Shoot PDX.