No Justice. No Peace.
Events today echo events from Oregon’s founding and represent the great opportunity that our community faces, and perhaps a lesson we have yet to fully absorb. Just 170 years ago, on June 3, 1850, five Cayuse tribal members were lynched in Oregon City following a trial that made only the most meager attempt at the façade of justice. The slogan we hear chanted on the streets across the world today, “No justice. No peace.” was true in 1850 and remains true today. We have much to learn as a state and country about acknowledging, listening to, and standing with our Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.
Over the past few days, the Oregon City Commission acted swiftly to pivot away from this dark chapter in its history by rallying to condemn the death of George Floyd and voicing support for the right of citizens to peacefully protest.
As we continue to ask hard questions of ourselves, we at the Trust will continue to share stories, places, and people who inspire us to keep doing better and move us closer to answers on the right side of history, answers that bring healing and access to all.
Elevating missing voices is our great opportunity. This is the opportunity of the Willamette Falls project – the opportunity to use the great stage of the End of the Oregon Trail to get on the right side of history, to use public spaces for healing. To share a fuller, richer, more complex story. Here at this special place and home of the former U.S. territorial capital, we can unite to hear and elevate the missing indigenous voices and communities who revere this place and have stewarded it since time immemorial. That’s what better looks like.
This is why today we say that we are inspired by protesters highlighting human rights issues that have gone unresolved in our country and in our very City for centuries, and their call for us to do better. As in 1850, Oregon City residents and government officials must echo the nationwide call, turning out and stepping up forcefully to establish Oregon City as a place that welcomes all people.
Oregon City can do this. We can do this.
- Andrew and Alexis
