Portland Rally Honors George Washington For Independence Day

On Friday, July 3, two dozen Portland residents came together to honor George Washington and the founding of the United States. Rallying at the site of the toppled statue of George Washington in Northeast Portland, they displayed a banner that said, “GEORGE WASHINGTON: Symbol of Freedom and Human Rights Around the World.”

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Rally attendees, masked and practicing social distancing, said they wanted to send a positive message about George Washington and America on Independence Day weekend. Jason Williams, Executive Director of the Taxpayers Association of Oregon, organized the demonstration. In a press release, he said,

The Taxpayer Association of Oregon is hosting a patriotic flash-rally party on July 3rd, 11:15 am to 12:30 pm, to celebrate George Washington at the intersection of NE Sandy Blvd. and Alameda where his statue was toppled and desecrated on June 18th. Fans of George Washington will wear colonial attire, play colonial music and wave American flags to celebrate his courageous life in advance of July 4th and oppose the shameless destruction of private property and public art in the name of politics.

Antifa and other anarchists have rioted in Portland nightly since the murder on Memorial Day weekend of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

“As a person who has travelled to 50 nations,” Williams said, “I can attest that George Washington is a symbol of freedom and human rights around the world. Today, much of the world still lacks the basic rights Washington and the Founders gave us over 240 years ago. Just this week, China stripped Hong Kong of their Freedom of the Press and Russia subverted their Constitutional term limits to effectively keep their President in power for 40 years! In this age of declining human rights, America and the world need more of George Washington, not less.”

Williams went on to say, “The George Floyd family has condemned acts of violence in the wake of his tragedy. The Taxpayer Association of Oregon (TAO) called for Justice for George Floyd the week he was killed and offered a 5-point police reform plan before the June 2020 Legislature and have been featuring the ‘New Voices’ series (sample) as a way of featuring minorities voices on these critical issues as a way to work towards racial justice and ending police brutality.”

The rally included tri-corn hats, American flags, and period costumes. A family dressed in period costumes and played colonial era music. The national anthem was sung, as was “America the Beautiful.”

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Overall, onlookers seemed to support the rally. Car horn honks in favor seemed to outnumber detractors by about 2 to 1. One African American woman stopped to confront the demonstration over the historical fact of Washington owning slaves. Williams calmly engaged her in conversation and pointed out the fact that everyone at the rally was 100% in opposition to slavery. Nobody is without fault, he explained, but the quest for a more perfect union eventually led to the abolition of slavery, and Washington played a major role in that effort.

In a stroke of good fortune, when rally-goers arrived, a man was attaching a sign to the upturned pedestal that lay in the grass. The sign said,

PLEASE BRING BACK

GEORGE WASHINGTON

FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY

It seems Portland finally may be getting tired of the destruction, lawlessness, and erasing of our national history.

Portland rally for George Washington. Credit: Jeff Reynolds.

Jeff Reynolds is the author of the book, “Behind the Curtain: Inside the Network of Progressive Billionaires and Their Campaign to Undermine Democracy,” available at www.WhoOwnsTheDems.com. Jeff hosts a podcast at anchor.fm/BehindTheCurtain. You can follow him on Twitter @ChargerJeff.