Community activism in Eugene, Oregon
[3] The city received national attention during the summer of 2020, after Black Lives Matter protests in response to the murder of George Floyd grew violent.
In September 1967, the Eugene Naval & Marine Corps Reserve Training Center was damaged by a series of explosions and fire, and in November 1967, a bomb exploded at the Air Force ROTC building.
[1] On Sept 30, 1968, unknown anti-capitalists exploded firebombs at the Eugene Armory, causing over $100,000 in damage (approximately $741,000 in 2020), destroying multiple trucks and Jeeps and dealing significant destruction to the city's equipment compound.
On January 6, 1970, campus demonstrators threw animal blood onto tables at an ROTC recruitment event in order to draw attention to the barbaric war in Vietnam.
This protest successfully forced the Eugene City Council to hold hearings on restricting the street to non-automobile traffic, which passed and soon went into effect.
[9] The Baltimore Sun reported, "Protesters carried a 10-year-old girl inside a body bag to the front door of the federal building as a symbol of war's innocent deaths.
[13] In the Whitaker District, citizens were further radicalized by the incident and helped spur the activist community, which was already burgeoning due to a lack of affordable housing and growing income inequality in the area.
Following a two-day conference at the University of Oregon about the dissolution of the country's economic system, a rally against global capitalism enveloped the streets of the downtown area.
[17] Seattle police chief Norm Stamper in his resignation speech after the 1999 WTO protests blamed the majority of the unrest on "Eugene anarchists".
[18] Influential thinkers in Eugene's scene at the time included John Zerzan, an author known for his contributions to leftist theory and who was an editor for Green Anarchy, an anarchist magazine based in the city.
[17] Groups such as the Neighborhood Anarchist Collective still maintained an active grassroots network, and the Eugene Share Fair has been used as a resource for organizations to market support.
[27] Over 2,000 demonstrators attended a Juneteenth Black Lives Matter protest at Alton Baker Park, which was designed to draw revenue to Black-owned businesses.
[28] In 2023 and 2024, many significant demonstrations occurred in and around Eugene as part of international protest against Israel for their genocide of thousands of Palestinians since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War.
[41][42][43] During this encampment, the students set up their "Popular University for Gaza" on the Memorial Quad in front of the Knight Library and later moved to the space across from Johnson Hall.
[46][47] The UO Palestine Coalition said the UO President Karl Scholz's message about the agreement did not reflect what they had agreed to, and on May 30th, 2024, around 50 students and community members shut down Karl Scholz's investiture event that formally installed him as University President at Matthew Knight Arena, causing him to shift to a virtual format for it as the students moved outside and threw red paint on the Matthew Knight Arena and a nearby Oregon duck statue.
"[60] On October 14, 1996, to commemorate the anniversary of Columbus Day, Earth Liberation Front activists attacked local fast food chains and oil companies.
[61] Later that month, ELF protesters destroyed a U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station south of Eugene, causing an estimated damage of $5.3 million.
[61] In September 2000, members of a Eugene-based cell of the ELF burnt down the Eugene Police Department's West University Public Safety Station.
