OFF PAGE ONE
A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2020
Freedom:
Continued from Page A1
with groups like the Proud
Boys, an extremist group that
has been labeled a hate group
by the Southern Poverty Law
Center and whose mem-
bers describe themselves as
“Western chauvinists.”
Gibson currently faces
felony charges for inciting
a riot for his role in a Port-
land street fight in May 2019
between Patriot Prayer mem-
bers and members of the
anti-fascist community that
resulted in a woman being
knocked unconscious and
sent to the hospital with an
alleged vertebrae fracture.
Joshua Linn is a teacher
at Rocky Heights Elemen-
tary School in Hermiston and
attended the beginning of the
May 30 rally after he said a
co-worker texted him about
its connections to white
supremacist groups.
After standing and watch-
ing a few speakers from the
back, Linn said he found
most of them interesting and
didn’t see any associations
with white supremacy.
“It doesn’t seem like a
white supremacist rally to
me,” he said.
Gibson was joined by
local speakers like HollyJo
Beers, the local lead for the
Three Percenters who is also
running for Umatilla County
commissioner. Beers didn’t
use the rally as an explicit
campaigning event but
focused her time on the stage
to discuss the Constitution
and how she believes current
restrictions are threatening
the freedoms secured within
it.
“We were pleased with the
turnout and the people were
dynamic speakers,” Beers
said after the rally. “None of
it was racist, none of it was
non-inclusive.”
About three blocks away
from the “Hermiston Free-
dom Rally,” a protest labeled
“Essential not Sacrificial”
started at the same time.
By noon, protesters all
wearing surgical or cloth
masks were taping post-
ers to about 20 vehicles sit-
ting in the parking lot at the
corner of North First Place
and Locust Avenue. Signs
included “Thank you farm
workers!” and “We are wear-
ing masks for you, not us!”
One vehicle sported a “Black
Lives Matter” sign.
Organizer Diedre Tor-
res said before the parade of
vehicles departed that she
was going to take them on
a route through town that
avoided the other rally.
“I’m just trying to concen-
trate on what we’re doing,”
she said.
Luz Reyes said she was
participating because she
has friends who are farm-
workers and she is concerned
about their safety. She said
she wanted to make a state-
ment for safe working con-
ditions, living wages and job
security.
“Being
an
essential
worker, especially in an
unsafe environment, espe-
cially not knowing what
workload to expect, can be
difficult,” she said.
Hermiston city council-
ors Manuel Gutierrez and
Roy Barron were present
at the Essential not Sacri-
ficial event. Gutierrez said
he wanted to show his sup-
port for essential workers in
Hermiston and their desires
to stay safe from COVID-19.
“I don’t want to bring the
disease to my family,” he
said, noting that he is also of
a high-risk age.
The essential workers pro-
test avoided any direct con-
frontation with the “Hermis-
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Protestors gather on the sidewalk at Roy Raley Park to
protest against racism and police violence. The protest
quickly drew around 150 participants waving signs and
chanting.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson speaks during the “Hermiston Freedom Rally” on Saturday,
May 30, 2020. Gibson was one of about a dozen speakers during the event, which lasted about
three hours.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Protestors kneel on the sidewalk at Roy Ralely Park and
chant “Say his name – George Floyd” in a call and response.
The protest quickly drew around 150 participants waving
signs and chanting.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Rallygoers filled Festival Street in downtown Hermiston during the “Hermiston Freedom
Rally” on Saturday, May 30, 2020. The rally drew in excess of 100 people and sparked a counter
protest elsewhere in town.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
An open carry activist patrols the edges of the “Hermiston
Freedom Rally” on Saturday, May 30, 2020. The event took
place on the festival street in downtown Hermiston.
ton Freedom Rally,” though
others opted not to stay away.
During a few of the speak-
ers on May 30, a young black
man stood holding a bright
green sign with an expletive
message written in sharpie
directed at President Donald
Trump, while rallygoers tried
to block it from view using
American flags.
Hodges said he was asked
to make the man leave the
rally but that he wanted to
welcome those who opposed
them.
“Perfect, that’s what it
should be,” Hodges said.
“Stand up for your beliefs,
while we stand for ours.”
Other speakers included
Rob Lovett, president of the
Greater Hermiston Area Tea
Party, Rob Taylor, a Sec-
ond Amendment activist
from Coos County, Jonathan
Lopez, former candidate for
Umatilla County Commis-
sioner, and Mark Hodges,
Colin’s father and former
head coach of the Hermiston
High School football team.
“I think they did a good
job of assembling peo-
ple with different points of
view,” said Steven Cranston,
who attended the rally with
his family and said he wasn’t
concerned about the risks of
COVID-19.
While the rally was
explicitly advertised as apo-
litical, it also featured tables
and petitions for the new-
est initiative to recall Gov.
Kate Brown, a movement
that multiple speakers voiced
support for at the event.
Some speakers delved
into topics like abortion and
vaccinations, while others
directly accused Democratic
leaders of deliberately imple-
menting the “lockdown” to
harm the people. During his
speech, Mark Hodges called
public health officials doing
contact tracing “murderous
mercenaries.”
Though he said he’d pre-
fer to foster an environment
more akin to an “academic
forum” rather than the “pep
rally” atmosphere that devel-
oped, Colin Hodges felt the
speakers stayed on track.
“They were more just so
about freedom and about the
government sort of encroach-
ing on those freedoms and
what we should do about
it,” he said. “I think that was
pretty consistent.”
He also led the rally
though prayer both to start
and conclude the rally and
made faith and religion a
central tenet of the rally’s
message.
After organizing and
coordinating his first rally,
Hodges said he’s determined
to do more and has targeted
July Fourth as the next poten-
tial date for another rally in
the area.
———
News editor Jade McDow-
ell contributed to this report.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Protestors march toward downtown Pendleton from
Roy Raley Park on Monday, June 1, 2020. The protest,
which centered against racism and police violence, drew
approximately 150 protestors.
George Floyd:
Continued from Page A1
least one man shouted the
N-word at a group of teen-
agers standing on one of the
corners.
The protest remained
peaceful as it stretched past
its previously planned hour-
long time slot, however, and
at one point two officers
from the Hermiston Police
Department arrived and
handed out water bottles to
protesters.
Isis Ilias brought her
8-year-old daughter, Abi
Gutierrez, to the protest, and
said her daughter kept ask-
ing her questions.
“It’s a good way for her
to learn ... She is going to
learn something,” she said.
“I don’t know what she’ll
learn, but it will be some-
thing that she will not learn
at home.”
Ilias said she was headed
to Pendleton’s protest next.
There, a crowd of a
roughly 150 people held
signs similar signs to the
Hermiston group. Their
chants rotated between
“Police reform now,”
“Black Lives Matter,” and
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“Say his name: George
Floyd.”
But for the roughly 150
people who gathered at Roy
Raley Park to protest the
death of Floyd and other
instances of black people
dying at the hands of police,
there was a consistent thrum
throughout the crowd: “No
justice, no peace.”
For black protesters,
the event was personal, a
chance to act on the pain and
fear that comes from each
fatal encounter between
law enforcement and black
people.
Kadedra
Hackler
brought a homemade Black
Lives Matter poster with
other notes on the mar-
gins, like, “It could’ve been
my dad, uncles, cousins,
friends, mom, sister, niece,
coworker (or) ME.”
Hackler noted that there
weren’t many African
Americans in Pendleton —
the U.S. Census estimates
2.2% as of 2018 — so she
was heartened that so many
people showed up.
The U.S. Census esti-
mates Hermiston residents
who fall under the category
of black or African Amer-
ican alone at 0.4% as of
2019.