Q & A with Black Liberation Ride organizer Stephen Marea
Stephen Marea in June 2020.
(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
black lives matter
Celebrate Juneteenth by bike in Portland
Photos from 2020 Black Liberation Ride by Ebony Hall for BikePortland. Poster art by Jarren Smith/FINE.
A lovely discovery in my own backyard
My son stops to check out a new mural on the Going Street path between N Haight and Gantenbein.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)
Riders ‘suffer’ to raise money, awareness for “BLMtoPDXBikes’ campaign
Portlander M. Blomberg (in the back) rode the PDX Gold route last week to raise awareness of the campaign.
Portlander Devin Bailly likes to suffer. He’s known in local cycling circles as that crazy guy who loves climbing and is one of the caretakers of the three toughest bike routes in Portland: Ronde PDX, La Doyenne, and Giro PDX. Those three routes rise an average of over 7,000 feet each in only about 50 miles (trust me, that’s tough).
But Bailly knows his suffering is a choice. The death of George Floyd and rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has made him acutely aware that for too many Americans the lifelong suffering from racist actions and policies is never a choice.
To help support the movement Bailly has leveraged his social network, expert route-making skills, and passion for climbing hills into a campaign he calls “BLMtoPDXBikes”. In its first month the effort has raised over $25,000 and he’s looking for more people to get involved — whether that means hopping on a bike or hopping online to be a sponsor or donor.
Here’s how it works:
— Make a donation to a non-profit organization working to advance racial justice.
— Email the receipt(s) to BLMtoPDXbikes@gmail.com before 7/31/2020.
— Campaign sponsors will match your donation.
— BLMtoPDXBikes will email you back a receipt verifying the matching donation was made.[Read more…]
Every day she chalks ‘Black Lives Matter’ in a bike lane, and every day someone erases it
Chalk on NW 2nd Avenue bike lane in Old Town.
(Photos: Maria Cahill)
Maria Cahill has taken her fight against racism to a bike lane in Old Town. As an organizer with Irene’s Circle, a nonprofit that supports families impacted by police violence and hate crimes, it’s just one of the ways she exercises her commitment to justice.
Every day for nearly a month now, Cahill has chalked a message into the protected bike lane on NW 2nd Avenue right outside the Japanese American History Museum. Sometimes she’ll write, “All lives will matter when Black Lives Matter” and other times simply, “Black Lives Matter.”
Portlander John Russell leads free walking tours in downtown Portland. He has seen the chalked message many times — and he’s also noticed that it gets washed away each time. “Who cleans it off each day?” he wrote in a Facebook post yesterday. “A white guy who works for Portland’s Downtown Clean and Safe crew goes out of his way to clean it off. He doesn’t bother with other chalk in the neighborhood. Just this one.”[Read more…]
