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   From: oregon.queers@aids.org   
      
   Oregon’s contemporary Patriot movement does not come out of a local void.   
   Despite its reputation as a liberal stronghold, the state has a long   
   history of Hard Right politics—including large grassroots movements. These   
   include the racial exclusion laws the state was founded on; a large Ku   
   Klux Klan presence; various Nazi and White supremacist groups; Posse   
   Comitatus recruiting and activism; Roy Masters’s foundation and media   
   activities; the homophobic and anti-abortion Oregon Citizens Alliance; and   
   Christian Patriot and militia movement in the 1980s and 1990s. Just like   
   the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and Malheur occupiers did in 2015 and   
   2016, in the 1970s to early 2000s Hard Right groups in Oregon—including   
   the Posse Comitatus, Aryan Nations, the Oregon Citizens Alliance, and   
   Southern Oregon Militia—all hitched their horses to land-use issues. And   
   numerous Sovereign Citizens have been arrested in the state for years,   
   especially in Jackson County.   
      
   Early Foundations   
   Racial Exclusion Laws   
   Oregon was founded on racial exclusion laws. In 1844, when it was still a   
   territory, a law was passed subjecting to lashings any free black citizen   
   who did not leave. This was repealed, but an 1849 law prohibited African-   
   Americans from coming to the territory; this too was repealed. Oregon was   
   accepted into the union as a non-slave state, but its 1857 Constitution   
   prohibited any African-Americans from moving to the state who were not   
   already residents. Voters overturned the law in 1926.(1) The state also   
   ratified the Fourteenth Amendment (which granted citizenship to freed   
   slaves) in 1866, but rescinded it in 1868; it was only re-ratified in   
   1973. And Black Oregonians were not the only group persecuted; in 1893,   
   LaGrande’s Chinatown was burned down, and its residents fled.(2) Today,   
   the state is 77 percent White (non-Hispanic/Latino)—one of the most white   
   in the country, which is currently 62 percent.(3)   
      
   Ku Klux Klan   
   Oregon’s Ku Klux Klan had meteoric rise and fall; it was founded in 1921,   
   dominated the 1923 state election, and by 1925 had fallen apart. Lawrence   
   J. Saalfield, author of a book about the Oregon Klan, described Portland   
   as “the virtual headquarters of the Klan west of the Rocky Mountains.”(4)   
   There were 14,000 to 20,000 Klan members in the state by the early 1920s,   
   and before the decade’s end as many as 50,000 may have passed through the   
   organization’s ranks.(5)   
      
   Oregon’s Klan was an overtly White supremacist organization; however,   
   while it occasionally campaigned against people of color—in particular   
   those of Japanese descent—its main focus was against Roman Catholics, many   
   of whom were recent immigrants. At the time, they were demonized in the   
   same way Jews often are: as a fifth column in the nation, who dominate its   
   institutions, but whose real loyalties are to a foreign power. Scholar   
   Eckard V. Toy wrote, “The racial and moralistic attitudes of Klansmen were   
   not significantly different from those of other Oregonians”—who were   
   overwhelmingly white, Protestant, and native-born.(6)   
      
   The 1922 vote was a two-fold victory for the Klan. First, the Republican   
   candidate they backed, Walter Pierce, was elected governor; and second, a   
   referendum they supported, aimed at crippling the Roman Catholic private   
   school system, was passed. In March 1923, both Pierce and Portland Mayor   
   George L. Baker paid their political dues by attending a banquet for Klan   
   leader Frederick L. Gifford. Klan-backed legislation was also passed,   
   banning teachers from wearing religious headgear in public schools (aimed   
   at Catholics), and limiting land ownership by non-citizens (aimed at   
   Japanese). But other bills failed. Beset by internal faction-fighting, the   
   state Klan faded from sight in 1925, although there was a brief revival in   
   1926.(7) But the Klan’s power had faded so much that, the same year, the   
   African-American exclusion clause was repealed from the state   
   constitution. The private school referendum they had backed was also   
   struck down the year before by the Supreme Court.   
      
   Silver Shirts and Japanese Internments   
   In the 1930s, the state had a visible membership in the Silver Legion of   
   America (better known as the Silver Shirts), a pro-Nazi organization.   
   Former Oregon Klan leaders Gifford and Luther I. Powell even joined the   
   group, which in 1939 had 750 members in the state.(8)   
      
   The pro-Nazi group was suppressed by the U.S. government during the   
   war—but the federal government turned around and enacted its own racist   
   policies in the state. In 1942, the federal government forcibly interned   
   4,000 Oregonians of Japanese descent (including both Japanese expatriates   
   and native-born citizens) in camps. When they returned after the war, 75   
   percent of the land they had owned before 1942 was no longer in their   
   hands.(9)   
      
   Posse Comitatus   
   In the 1970s, Oregon also became a center for the Posse Comitatus   
   movement, centered around Portland’s Henry Lamont “Mike” Beach. A former   
   member of the Silver Shirts, Beach became a key link between Oregon’s past   
   and future Hard Right.   
   Many of the tactics and organizing approaches used by the 1970s Oregon   
   Posse Comitatus can be seen in use today by the Patriot movement; these   
   includes establishing relationships with radical gun rights groups,   
   establishing fake courts, anti-environmental activism, and armed   
   takeovers. In 1974, a “citizens grand jury” was organized by the Lane   
   County Posse Comitatus. The same group also made links with a gun rights   
   group, the National Association to Keep and Bear Arms (NAKBA).(10)   
      
   In 1973, Beach plagiarized the writings of Posse Comitatus founder William   
   Potter Gale into a short booklet, the Blue Book, and started issuing his   
   own charters for groups. Soon there were at least nine Oregon counties   
   with chartered Posse Comitatus groups.(11) Many were in the same areas   
   where the 1920s Klan had been strong, in Oregon’s south and east—the same   
   political strongholds of Posse Comitatus, and today of the various Patriot   
   movement groups.(12)   
      
   In 1975, the Klamath County Posse Comitatus chairman sent threatening   
   letters to state legislators, saying they would be tried for treason by   
   his movement’s fake grand juries if they did not repeal a 1973 land   
   conservation act. The threats were discussed on the floor of the state   
   senate, and the Oregon state attorney general was consulted.(13)   
      
   Posse Comitatus activists sued Josephine County for accepting paper money   
   for tax payments.(14) And foreshadowing the Malheur takeover, in 1976   
   Posse Comitatus activist Everett Thoren claimed (falsely) that he owned   
   half of a farm in rural Umatilla County. He recruited Posse Comitatus   
   activists from California and Portland, and engineered an armed takeover   
   of the farm—although Thoren himself did not join in. Like at Malheur, none   
   of the occupiers were locals, but unlike Malheur, they surrendered the   
   same day to authorities.(15)   
      
   Josephine County: Roy Masters and the State of Jefferson   
      
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