An estimated 30,000 people marched through Portland's Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Saturday. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
PORTLAND and SALEM — Tens of thousands of Oregonians turned out to protest Saturday as part of a national wave of rallies against President Donald Trump and his administration.
The third coordinated national day of No Kings protests drew Oregonians with signs and plenty to say to Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park and Salem’s Oregon State Capitol Mall, both springtime destinations for cherry blossom viewing. Across the state, Oregonians gathered on street corners and in parks to make their voices heard.
An estimated 30,000 people — down from the 40,000 who turned out in Portland for the second No Kings protest in October — were in the Tom McCall park along the Willamette River. More protests, not affiliated with No Kings, are expected later in the evening near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility south of downtown.
Matthew Gottula, 37, donned an inflatable frog costume to join about a dozen other members of the “frog brigade” in Portland. The frog costumes, which gained nationwide attention after Portlanders wore them to protest at the city’s ICE facility, are a tool for “tactical frivolity” and to puncture the idea that Portland is a war-torn city, Gottula said.
“We’re not,” Gottula said. “We are a lovely, wonderful people. We care about our neighbors. And we know how to have a good time and be joyful, but also make a point that we do not accept what’s happening at a federal level.”
Grace Mitchell, a 56-year old legal assistant, rode a motorized scooter to protest in Portland and carried a sign that said “All of my outrage can’t fit on this sign.”
“The way our education is being treated, the money that’s being taken away from science and programs, those are all things that really hurt me,” she said.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, both Democrats, spoke to the crowd gathered in Salem.
“I never thought in a million years we would have an authoritarian this close to turning us into an enduring strongman state,” Merkley said.
The Salem crowd included nearly 20 members of the Bennette family, many of whom walked almost three miles from Lancaster Drive NE to the Capitol Mall to make their voices heard.
“It’s really turned into a family affair,” Wende Bennette-Kirkland said. “We need to end the policing of our First Amendment rights, and we also need to fight for equality for all of our neighbors.”
Bennette-Kirkland toted a sign calling to end Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for more political spending, while sister Elizabeth carried a sign depicting a pig styled to look like Trump.
An estimated 4,000 people joined a No Kings protest Saturday in downtown Corvallis, according to local organizers.
Demonstrators there listened to a musical performance from the newly formed Corvallis Resistance Singers and participated in a parade that included a marching band and a giant puppet of President Donald Trump in handcuffs.
“It’s important now more than ever to continue resisting and to continue fighting for human rights,” Benton County resident Konnie May said. “It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the intensity and craziness of everything that happens day after day, week after week.”
In Cannon Beach, the northwest coastal city of about 1,500 known for its sandy beach and Haystack Rock, a crowd including a person in an inflatable axolotl costume gathered to protest.
Capital Chronicle editor-in-chief Julia Shumway, reporter Mia Maldonado and Aubrey Lee, a staff writer for The Collegian student newspaper at Willamette University, contributed reporting.
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