By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
At 10 a.m. every Saturday for four years a collection of Yachats-area residents grab homemade signs and stand along U.S. Highway 101 in the center of town to ask people to become more racially aware.
They wave to people who honk as they drive past, or smile at others who give them a different type of salute. Sometimes they chat with visitors or residents who stop to ask what they’re doing.
“It’s important to hear everyone,” Morgan Brodie said Saturday as she stood along the highway for the fourth straight year.
The demonstration started spontaneously on May 30, 2020, following the killing of George Floyd, an African American, by police in Minneapolis. It has continued for an hour each Saturday since.
That’s 208 consecutive Saturdays — during the brightest days of summer or the darkest mornings of winter. The fewest number of people has been nine; the largest 72, says Johnni Prince, who with husband Dave Cowden helps organize the informal group
The low-key event – people simply holding signs along the highway — appears to be the longest-running group protest in Oregon and likely the Northwest.
While the demonstration started spontaneously to protest Floyd’s killing, the group is spreading its efforts into other endeavors. It created a group called Yachatians for Social Justice, sponsored a well-regarded conference on racial equality and understanding last year, is part of a soon-to-be nonprofit community collaborative, and next month is helping bring the director of Oregon Black Pioneers to town to speak.
“We’re trying to increase our awareness and effectiveness and just not stand out here,” said Brodie, who is also helping with the collaborative. “This is just the witnessing piece … now we want to be more of a presence in the community.”
But the weekly presence along the highway is important, she said.
“We don’t want to forget this happened to someone and it continues to happen to people …” Brodie said.
Jim and Maggie Paul were regular protestors the first year, then less so the second. Last week they rummaged through their garage, found their original signs – and a few others on other political or justice topics — and returned on the fourth anniversary of the protests Saturday.
“It’s important,” Maggie Paul said. “We wanted to show our support.”
The regular Saturday group – Prince has dubbed them the “Dirty Dozen” – had no idea their quiet protests would last for four years or how long it will keep going.
“It’s not that people forget or don’t care,” she said. “But people tend to move on to the next issue.”
“Four years is a lot,” Cowden said Saturday. “But I don’t even know what an end date looks like.”
And so they will keep showing up every Saturday morning. At 10 o’clock. Rain or shine.
Bless you, and thank you for your dedication serving “Social Justice” in a non-violent action. Yes, people need reminders, especially if they, through their privilege, believe it doesn’t matter to them. We are all connected, and what happened to George Floyd has and can happen to any of us. With love and appreciation, Katrina
Bravo!
Love you folks so much! Through wind, rain, sleet, all the weather that Yachats can throw at you, you just keep showing up. Thanks so much for caring and sticking with it every Saturday.