LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!

Shelter in Place, Rain or Shine Outdoor Opening

Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education 724 NW Davis Street, Portland, OR, United States

Social artist and activist Adam W. McKinney opens Shelter in Place in the windows and first floor gallery of Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, October 1, 2020. Shelter in Place, which in its entirety is viewable from the sidewalk surrounding the museum, is a film, photography, and dance-based interrogation of the social tenets of Sukkot—departing and dwelling, expressing and atoning, striking and shaking. A Black Jewish response to histories of oppression, McKinney’s Shelter in Place is an inquiry into social isolation and the physical and emotional effects of anti-Black racial violence. While the museum is closed, the multimedia installation extends into the museum’s first floor gallery and windows and is completely viewable both day and night from the…

Free

We Got Each Other’s Back

PICA 15 NE Hancock St, Portland, OR, United States

Carlos Motta and Heldáy de la Cruz and Julio Salgado and Edna Vázquez November 7, 2020 - February 14, 2021 Gallery Hours: Thursday & Friday, 12-6pm / Saturday & Sunday, 12-4pm By Appointment Only: December 24, 2020 - January 3, 2021 (email kevin@pica.org to request) Virtual Symposium: February 13 & 14, 2021 (program and schedule to be announced January 2021) During open gallery hours, the exhibition space will have limited capacity, and face coverings and physical distancing will be required. Hand sanitizer and PPE will be available if needed. Part of a long-term documentary project by interdisciplinary artist Carlos Motta— in collaboration with artists Heldáy de la Cruz, Julio Salgado, and Edna Vázquez– We Got Each Other’s Back is a three-part, multi-channel video installation featuring…

Free

IntersectFest VI: For and by BIPOC

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hi all, this is the schedule for this year! It focuses on different ways BIPOC have responded to the pandemic, BLM, protests and activism, work, abolition, protection and healing. IntersectFest VI A Festival for and by BIPOC November 21 2020 10:00-11:00 FOOD SOVEREIGNTY Mimi and Heifara 11:10-11:50 START YOUR OWN FEST Organizers of Decolonisefest, London 12:00-12:45 PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ABOLITION Cory 12:45-1:30 lunch break 1:30-2:15 SEX WORK, ANTI-BLACKNESS AND COLONIALISM Saiya 2:30-3 DOXING V 3:15-4 MOVEMENT AS HEALING claire 4:15-5 TRAUMA IN ACTIVISM Mikey 5:10-5:40 MUTUAL AID NETWORK Q+A Organizer of Gas Mask and filter supplies Salty's Zoom link will be posted on Event page on fb.com/pdxpoc on Nov 20

Free

Richard Brown in Conversation With Brian Benson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Is Not for You (Oregon State University) tells the story of activist and photographer Richard Brown, a Black Portlander who has spent decades working to bridge the divide between police and the Black community. Brown’s memoir (written with Brian Benson) brings readers with him into the streets with fellow activists, into squad cars with the rank-and-file, and to regular meetings with mayors and police chiefs. There are very few people doing the kind of work Brown has done. And that, as he sees it, is a big problem. This Is Not for You finds Brown approaching his 80th birthday and reflecting on his life. As he recalls his childhood in 1940s Harlem, his radicalization in the newly desegregated Air Force, and his decades of…

Free

Michelle Nijhuis in Conversation With Elena Passarello

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In the late 19th century, as humans came to realize that our rapidly industrializing and globalizing societies were driving other animal species to extinction, a movement to protect and conserve them was born. In Beloved Beasts (W. W. Norton), acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the movement’s history: from early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today’s global effort to defend life on a larger scale. Nijhuis describes the vital role of scientists and activists such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, as well as lesser-known figures in conservation history; she reveals the origins of vital organizations like the Audubon Society and the World Wildlife Fund; she explores current efforts to protect species such as the whooping…

Free

Things that have to do with fire: Artist talk and virtual walkthrough with Vo Vo

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

(Portland, OR) Fuller Rosen Gallery is pleased to present Things that have to do with fire, a solo show of new work by Portland-based artist Vo Vo. Their newest series of video, print and  large-scale textile banners focus on the social, racial and environmental upheaval during the summer of 2020. Led by the ideals of Black Lives Matter, Antifa and their own background as a radical educator, Vo’s solo show investigates the multitudes of activism and is a call for social justice and global solidarity. Come with curiosity. Approach with openness. Opening weekend February 18 - 21, 12-5 pm. Artist talk and virtual walkthrough with Vo Vo March 13, 5-6pm. Zoom Link + Information https://portlandcc.zoom.us/j/95962382201?pwd=RWNjN3ZoRUlBWWFWdmNDRXl3MXRhQT09 Time: Mar 13, 2021 5-6PM Pacific Time Meeting ID: 959…

Free

Live Online Lecture and Q & A with Saeed Jones

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Saeed Jones is an essential author as well as a powerful voice in the world of literary activism, and his writing often takes on questions of identity. Formerly a major contributor at Buzzfeed, he shaped his platform into a tool for social awareness with his no-holds-barred personality. In 2019, Saeed released his highly anticipated memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives. In this memoir, Saeed has developed a one-of-a-kind style that is as beautiful as it is powerful, and he has cemented himself as an essential writer of our time. This event will be free and open to the public. For the link and password to the event, write to anelson@clark.edu. *Because this lecture falls during Clark College's spring break, a recording will be made available to…

Free

Feminist book circle: The Revolution Question

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

"An inspiring examination of the critical role of women in revolutionary struggles and the relationship of these movements to feminism. Professor Julie Shayne, Coordinator of the Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, UW Bothell, describes the courageous part played by women in three Latin American liberation movements from 1950s-90s. Interviews with female participants reveal what women brought to the struggle and whether their hopes for leadership and equality were answered. Learn from this still-fresh history and how it applies to questions of feminist leadership today. Everyone welcome." (Promo Copy)

Free

Rafia Zakaria in Conversation With Jean Guerrero

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Rafia Zakaria’s Against White Feminism (W. W. Norton) is a radically inclusive, intersectional, and transnational approach to the fight for women’s rights. Elite white women have branded feminism, promising an apolitical individual empowerment along with sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity. As Zakaria expertly argues, those promises have been proven empty and white feminists have leant on their racial privilege and sense of cultural superiority. Drawing on her own experiences as an American Muslim woman, as well as an attorney working on behalf of immigrant women, Zakaria champions a reconstruction of feminism that forges true solidarity by bringing Black and brown voices and goals to the fore. Ranging from the savior complex of British feminist imperialists to the condescension of the white…

Free

Dave Zirin in Conversation With Etan Thomas

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In 2016, amid an epidemic of police shootings of African Americans, celebrated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a series of quiet protests on the field, refusing to stand during the U.S. national anthem. By “taking a knee,” Kaepernick bravely joined a long tradition of American athletes making powerful political statements. This time, however, Kaepernick’s simple act spread like wildfire throughout American society, becoming the preeminent symbol of resistance to America’s persistent racial inequality. Critically acclaimed sports journalist and author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, Dave Zirin chronicles “the Kaepernick effect” for the first time, through interviews with a broad cross-section of professional athletes across many different sports, college stars and high-powered athletic directors, and high school athletes and coaches. In…

Free