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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Revolutionary Spirit Echoes in March Through Albina

Members of the Tigray community in Oregon also spoke and walked alongside the marchers.

Reclaim the Dream March (Blake Benard)
By Blake Benard

Events honoring the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. stretched across the city Jan. 16, but only one shut down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It was the Reclaim the Dream march, organized each year by the justice group Don’t Shoot Portland and the Portland Association of Teachers.

Starting at Peninsula Park, participants handed out free books, T-shirts, and artwork before briefly speaking about the revolutionary spirit of King. Members of the Tigray community in Oregon also spoke and walked alongside the marchers, asking for attention to the ongoing ethnic genocide of their people in Ethiopia.

They marched through remnants of Albina to Moda Center, the that sits atop a leveled Black neighborhood.

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