[7][8] Rose City Antifa was formed in 2007 to coordinate opposition to a music festival that was planned to be held near Portland by neo-Nazis associated with White Aryan Resistance.

[10] According to Alexander Reid Ross, the author of the book Against the Fascist Creep, Rose City Antifa grew out of the group Anti-Racist Action (ARA) which first appeared in 1987.

[7] In a 2020 interview, RCA activists described the group as having "a strong feminist and queer component", as opposed to a tendency toward toxic masculinity in ARA, and as pursuing tactics going beyond street confrontations with the far right.

[9] Rose City Antifa has campaigned against the white separatist organization Volksfront, the band Death in June, the Ku Klux Klan and the American Renaissance website.

[9] In September 2020, RCA published a photograph of Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson with Chester Doles, a former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.