General

What is your goal?

Our goal is to mobilize the public towards racial justice reform. We are a resource for our community and energize others to join our efforts by sharing relevant and timely information about causes, policies, and people worth supporting. We want to give everyday people both an understanding and a means of contributing toward racial justice reform.

Who are you?

We are a Black-led organization made up of seven volunteers. When the group was formed, we had over 30 people on our team. By the end of 2020, the group had become the new, core group of 7. We have other volunteers at different capacities and are slowly starting to expand.

Controversy In summary:

Our group was formed in wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the nationwide outcry for justice that kicked off the summer of 2020. Given the urgency of the moment, we quickly pulled together resources and responsibilities without any established systems for how to manage them. After a couple months of extremely stressful work, our team split in two. While there were a lot of feelings on both sides, we knew this would be the best decision for all. Rumors about the split circulated unchecked, until a great deal of trust for us from the community was lost. We ceased most of our public activities to focus on building a foundation for our organization, so that the next time we led, we were ready to handle it. We continue to work, improve, and grow. There is no way to serve our purpose without transparency and accountability to our audience and community. We are constantly working towards gaining the trust of our audience back because we understand that trust must be earned and there is no way around that.

Business

Our stance

We need to be as transparent with our money as any non-profit. Money donated to our organization should be spent entirely on advancing our mission.

What happened to the money raised in 2020?

In the first two months that Rose City Justice formed, around $30k of donations quickly came in from a wide variety of donors. In addition to the funds provided by donors, there was a crowdfunding campaign (GoFundme) that brought in around $12K in donations. During the split, money received from the crowdfunding campaign was taken without our permission. A member of our group made a large investment into T-shirts to raise money for RCJ. 100% of those profits were donated.

In July, donations thinned out tremendously as rumors circulated. Word spread that we had a total of $100K in donations. We briefly published our spending in June 2020, but we removed the post due to the unorganization of our accounting and our lack of having an accurate idea of our spending. We organized our accounting and disclosed our spending in October of 2020 on our Instagram. Since then, we’ve received a handful of donations from private donors. In April of 2021, we received our first (and only) grant, which we’ve used to further drive our mission. We will release our financial statements after the end of 2021.

Are you disclosing your finances moving forward?

Moving forward, we will disclose our finances to the non-profit standards to be transparent with ourselves, our communities, supporters, and beyond.

In 2021, we are using the money to support the marches, digital content we are producing, and community popups. Funds go to videographers, graphic designers, supplies, rentals, speakers, content creators, and overhead. As of writing we have implemented a payment structure for our leadership team, on a project-by-project basis.

Leadership

Are you a Black-led organization? How diverse and inclusive is your team?

We are a Black-led organization. We give preference and opportunity to people of color first, if we have an option. We are happy to let people of all backgrounds and demographics work with us.

Our leadership has always been primarily Black. We have had Asian, Latina, Middle Eastern, White, and other leaders from different backgrounds as well. The leaders of our organization all hold full-time job positions at different companies. That means that at times, certain members have had more availability to get work done. While our team continued to grow, some members felt that non-Black people should not be given any power in our Black-led organization, as it confuses work with privilege. We have and continue to use our platform to promote people and their work, a vast majority of whom are Black. Occasionally, work being done behind the scenes was done by non-Black people.

We’ve shown our faces to our communities to let them know who we are and what our demographics are. Internally, we’ve discussed what it means to be Black-led, hired an equity trainer, and held group discussions to ensure we are elevating Black voices. We took all previous accusations of not elevating Black voices to our Black leaders and let them decide how to proceed. Additionally, we have intentionally sought out excellent Black leaders as we continue to grow our team.

Youth Leadership

Our stance

Young leaders deserve to be empowered. They should have their own seat at the table of any organization, much like our very own.

What happened to the young leaders who worked with you in 2020?

During the height of our action in the summer of 2020, young leaders joined our efforts. At the time, our main organizers struggled to allow these young leaders to join the main organizing team. At the end of our 2020 marches, the young leaders were left to pull together an event that should have had the full support of our organization. When our group split, the young leaders left feeling unheard and disregarded for their work. We have since reached out to these young leaders and apologized for our actions.

As we reflect back on that time and look to the future of this organization, we recognize that young organizers should be supported and given the same respect we show others in the movement. We encourage youth leaders to speak out and fight for what they believe in because we know that they are our future. We welcome young leaders with open arms and we have enough room for them at our leadership table.

Sexual Assault Allegations

How does Rose City Justice handle sexual assault allegations?

Accusations of abuse are serious and should be treated as such. RCJ does not take these things lightly and does not defend the wrong actions of any individuals, whether they are within the organization or not. Allegations of abuse are serious and need to be treated with the utmost seriousness and speed. We will continue to hold anyone on our team personally accountable for accusations, speedily.

Politics

What is your stance on other forms of protest beyond peaceful protesting?

All forms of protest have their place. While we believe that non-violent protest is the most effective, we know that others might not agree. We allow those people to protest in the way they see fit. It is not our place to tell others how to protest. It is our right to protest the way we want. For us, that includes maintaining a standard of behavior at our events.

What is your stance on guns at protest?

In the current climate, even non-violent protests are at risk of violence. Security at a public demonstration is extremely important. The security professionals we work with at our events recommend they remain armed, however, we seek to make our events as family-friendly as possible. We recognize that having armed security threatens the family-friendly element of our events, and we’re working with our security partners to agree on a beneficial solution that keeps our attendees comfortable and safe.

Do you work with the police?

We do not work with the police in any fashion. In 2020, rumors circulated that we worked with police as we shut down highways and bridges, without interference by the police. That is not the case. We have not worked with the police and we will continue to work for police reform without any input from the police.

Do you want to reform or abolish the police?

We do not support the current system of policing. We believe that it should be replaced with a model that supports the actual needs of the community it serves.

Do you have any party affiliations?

We support policies and candidates that believe in moving the needle towards racial and social equity.

2021 Activities and Moving Forward

What have you done in the past year?

We were founded in the opportunity to organize massive, non-violent protests. Over the last year, we have developed a strong foundation for our group, so that we have systems in place as we bring together the people of Portland to fight for racial justice. As we’ve built, we’ve shared our platform with other groups and activists to spread the word about their work. In 2021, we organized a vigil for Breonna Taylor and a March for George Floyd. We have a number of other really exciting projects in the works, including a video documentary series, networking events, an interview series, facebook group, pro bono equity training, and more.