[5] Herndon organized a boycott by 4,000 Black students in 1982 to keep Harriet Tubman Middle School open.
In 1989, then-mayor Bud Clark made a racially offensive remark, and refused for several weeks to apologize.
Herndon and fellow activists ultimately extracted an apology from Clark by threatening to convene rallies, sit-ins and boycotts.
[6] News coverage at the time described Herndon as an "expert at confrontation and the most powerful activist in Northeast Portland" and noted his political clout in bending city policy toward the benefit of Black people and the poor, but that he was uninterested in elective office.
[8] In May 2020, at the outset of the George Floyd Black Lives Matter protests and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Herndon said: "Racism – for [Black americans], that is the original pandemic in this country and it can't be escaped," while disagreeing with the actions of the early anti–police brutality protesters in downtown Portland.