Across town, high school students gathered in Northeast Portland to protest president-elect Donald Trump. Students from Grant High School organized the rally. About 100 people gathered, smaller than a walk-out last week.
Alexis Cannard, a senior at Roosevelt High School, urged her fellow students to make sure their voices are heard.
“Many of us were unable to vote in this election. Yet, we are the ones who will be feeling the after effects for the year to come,” she said.
Cannard and other students said they are worried that a Trump administration will stoke racism and withdraw from efforts to combat climate change.
The vice president of the Portland teacher’s union, Elizabeth Thiel, also spoke. She told the students she was proud of their activism, but also encouraged them to build relationships with people who don’t share their beliefs.
"We need to organize, and organizing is about bringing people in, especially people who aren't easy to bring in to your cause," she said.
Portland Police officers on motorcycles helped to block traffic so the students could safely march through the streets. They crossed the Burnside Bridge, chanting “We reject the president elect.”
Later in the evening, police arrested three adult activists with the group Portland's Resistance, who had helped organize the rally. Police identified those people late Monday night as Gregory McKelvey, 23; Katheryn Stevens, 24; and Micah Rhodes, 23. All three are organizers for the group.
"During the march, police officers observed McKelvey and Rhodes actively encouraging and directing student protesters to counter lawful police orders which were being broadcast over a loudspeaker by police," police Sgt. Pete Simpson wrote in a press release.
Simpson said Stevens was arrested when she tried to stop McKelvey's arrest.
All three were booked into Multnomah County Jail on a charge of second-degree disorderly conduct. Rhodes and Stevens were also charged with interfering with a police officer.
Law enforcement temporarily dropped the charges against the activists at a court hearing Tuesday.
"I will plead not guilty and fight every single charge, even if reduced to a violation, in the courts," Gregory McKelvey said in a press release. McKelvey maintains he was personally singled out for arrest by Mayor Charlie Hales.
But the mayor cancelled the march after Portland's Resistance said it intended to hold a rally at the same time and place.
Hales has advocated for refugees and immigrants in the past. He supported a local labor activist and undocumented migrant who, facing deportation, took refuge in a church and denounced then candidate Donald Trump’s suggestion of a total ban on Muslims entering the United States.
But Hales has also questioned the efficacy of the protests that took place following the election, and some of his critics denounced the march as “hypocrisy.”
Bryan M. Vance
/Portland's Resistance spokespeople Gregory McKelvey and Kathryn Stevens prep ahead of a rally on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016.
Amelia Templeton
/Portland high school students stage a sit-in on the Burnside Bridge, as part of a march in opposition to President-elect Donald Trump.
Copyright 2016 Oregon Public Broadcasting
