On Wednesday afternoon at Laurelhurst Park, two women shared cigarettes and paintbrushes as they spread globs of acrylic paint over stretched canvas frames. Mama Zeigh, a woman in her mid 60s with a grey-flecked mohawk, worked on an octopus painting, while Alma Barrett, a younger woman with a small white dog, painted a vibrant sky. “This is how we find calm,” said Zeigh, who asked to be identified by her nickname. “We need something to...
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When Margaret Carter reflects on police, she remembers the 1970s, when officers in North Portland planted marijuana in people’s cars and arrested them. Since then, said Carter — the first Black woman elected to the Oregon Legislature — little has changed to restore trust between Black Portlanders and police officers. And continued police killings of Black Americans have only exacerbated these ...