He should be alive

I am Jo Ann Hardesty’s campaign photographer again. Four years have passed since she became the first Black woman elected to Portland City Council, and it’s time for her to run again. I don’t have money to contribute to her campaign, but I’ve offered my services as photographer free of charge, and today I went back to work. There was a ceremonial walking tour of some traffic safety improvements (see extra), and all three local TV stations showed up for it. (The news report of one station is a little less than a minute and a half long, and in it you can hear a few seconds of her speech, if you’d like.)

During the tour, which took about half an hour, two pickup trucks full of white men drove by honking, making obscene gestures, and shouting the most vulgar words imaginable. I found it frightening, but Jo Ann said to me softly, “This happens every day of my life, wherever I go, since I won that election.” 

The walking tour ended in Lents Park, and the big shots and news photographers packed up their gear and went home. But Lents Park was the scene of yet another police murder this past April. Jo Ann hadn’t seen the memorial Robert Delgado’s family erected in his memory until today, and she took her time reading all the tributes and testimonies, looking at the photos and paper flowers. She told me, “Robert Delgado’s name has been in my mouth often over the past few months. If the Council hadn’t voted against my proposal to fund an alternative to policing, this man would be alive today. He should be alive. He needed mental health services, and the police sent a sniper.”

A second extra gives a wider view of the informal memorial woven into a fence near the spot where he was killed.

Before I go, thanks for your incredible response to the little portrait of Bella I posted last night. She was tired and had put her head on the table to rest. Your generous response to it came as a shock to me.