Portland State Magazine

alumni life

STEPPING UP FOR PORTLAND’S BLACK COMMUNITY SEVERAL DAYS AFTER George Floyd was killed, Cameron Whitten ’16 sent out a Facebook post, eager to connect individuals with resources to Black Portlanders in need. “We had just survived a long, painful week after a year that challenged us all to the core with multiple Black deaths at the hands of police while facing a pandemic,”Whitten recalled. “A huge number of white Portlanders reached out to make sure I was OK, and I knew a lot of my Black friends did not have the same support.” Whitten—who uses all gender pronouns— originally expected to raise $5,000 over two days to give Black friends fnancial assistance for rent, utility bills, food and medicine.Te frst day turned into an 11-hour Facebook marathon Whitten describes as a “community beneft stock brokerage exchange,” with more than $11,000 coming in. Deciding to move the efort to an online fundraising platform, Whitten co-founded the Black Resilience Fund ( blackresiliencefund.com ) with friend Salomé Chimuku. “Every moment is an opportunity to take care of our most vulnerable Portlanders,”Whitten said. “Even when we don’t think we can solve all the issues, we can do something positive. So we got to work.” Te fund far exceeded Whitten’s highest aspirational goals. In less than two months, it raised more than $1.2 million with about 13,000 individual donations.Tere were enough funds to provide assistance to 4,000 Black people across the Portland Metropolitan area. (By press time, the total had passed $1.9 millon.) Fighting social injustice through nonproft leadership, activism and political organizing has been a defning thread throughout the past In less than two months, Cameron Whitten’s Black Resilience Fund raised more than $1.2 million in emergency

aid with about 13,000 individual donations.

SO-MIN KANG

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// PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE