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Portland activist Gregory McKelvey announced Friday that he's leaving Portland for Atlanta.
McKelvey helped organize the week-long marches that blocked streets and freeways after President Donald Trump was elected in November 2016. An organized group, Portland's Resistance, emerged out of those protests, with McKelvey its most prominent member.
McKelvey first emerged in Portland protest circles the previous summer, as an organizer of the black activist group Don't Shoot Portland. He led demonstrations against police brutality and then-Mayor Charlie Hales.
"Because the rest of the country views Portland as a progressive city, we have a unique ability to be a model for what a progressive city could be," he told WW in 2016. "When people see these types of things, they realize we're not. It gives us the ability to possibly change so that we can be that model."
McKelvey is going to work for Living Room, a housing nonprofit in Atlanta, which will soon be headed by another current Portland resident, Jerome Brooks.
Related: The Head of an Affordable Housing Industry Group Is Leaving
Friends, it is with a heavy heart but also an excited spirit that I must let you know, we are leaving Portland. I have been offered and accepted the position of Director of Communications & Advocacy at Living Room ATL.
— Gregory McKelvey (@GregoryMcKelvey) July 28, 2018