Photo Essay Portland BLM Protest

Black Lives Matter flag being flown.
The camp set up at Lownsdale Square across from the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Court Building
The calm before the storm.
One of the younger protestors whose been there for weeks. He’s showing us the pins from gas grenades he’s collected.
Hundreds of people start to show up. Near ten thousand would be there at night.
A mother brings her kids. There were a lot more children than I thought there would be.
On the way to hear the BLM speakers.
The Wall of Vets form up.
The Wall of Vets march in
I had so many action photos that turned out blurry because I was always on the move. This is a young protestor of color getting his eyes flushed by the medics. He was gassed bad.
Much of Downtown Portland is boarded up..
I’m sad to see the property destruction and graffiti myself, but I’m even more upset at the senseless death of Black people across the country.
You want to see courage? Here it is.
This was after the first time we were gassed.

By Sean Davis

Sean Davis is the author of The Wax Bullet War, a Purple Heart Iraq War veteran, and the winner of the Legionnaire of the Year Award from the American Legion in 2015 and the recipient of the Emily Gottfried Emerging Leader, Human Rights award for 2016. His stories, essays, and articles have appeared in the the Ted Talk Book The Misfit’s Manifesto (Simon and Schuster), Forest Avenue Press anthology City of Weird, Sixty Minutes, Story Corps, Flaunt Magazine, The Big Smoke, Human the movie, and much more.

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