Thread by @cjcmichel

My dive into the life of Mulugeta Seraw, and his brutal death at the hands of white supremacists—and how Portland, thirty years later, is finally memorializing him. thinkprogress.org/thirty-years-l…

By all accounts, Seraw, an Ethiopian refugee who'd moved to Portland, was a wonderful human: kind, caring, hard-working. The kind of guy who breaks up fights—especially with white supremacists. Even when it cost him his life. thinkprogress.org/thirty-years-l…

A trio of white supremacists, who helped make Portland "Skinhead City" in the 1980s, ended Seraw's life. One of the white supremacists was a metal-head. One was a "street kid." And another was the homecoming king at Grant High School.

Seraw was only 28.

thinkprogress.org/thirty-years-l…

The prosecution after Seraw's death took down one of the US's most prominent neo-Nazis.

But for years, Seraw's memory in Portland ... faded. Portlandia rose. Portland's East Side changed, evolved. And Seraw's murder didn't fit the story the whitest city in the US told itself.

And then, last year, an echo of Seraw's death: A man hurling racist epithets at young Muslim girls in Portland kills a pair of men who tried to intervene.

Suddenly—again—the city's image of itself collapses. And Seraw's name races back into the news. thinkprogress.org/thirty-years-l…

This time, thankfully, the City of Portland decided it wouldn't let Mulugeta Seraw's name fade. Every year moving forward, November 13th will be "Mulugeta Seraw Day" in Portland. thinkprogress.org/thirty-years-l…

“There are a lot of other people like Mulugeta, who stood for good causes, and Mulugeta represents all of those people... There are a lot of people we don’t know, who fought for the right cause and died. And he’s a symbol for all of them.” thinkprogress.org/thirty-years-l…

‘In some ways, the current lawsuit is similar to the one that grew out of Seraw's death.’ pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/4125…