RURAL ORGANIZING PROJECT
2021 ANNUAL REPORT
FOSTERING STRONG AND HEALTHY GROUPS, BUILDING RURAL LEADERSHIP, DEFENDING HUMAN DIGNITY AND ADVANCING DEMOCRACY FOR ALL

BIG STATEWIDE VICTORIES MADE POSSIBLE by RURAL OREGON
Human dignity groups across 16 counties uncovered major legal loopholes that Immigration and Customs Enforcement exploited to use local law enforcement resources to detain and deport rural Oregonians despite Oregon’s Sanctuary Law. Together with a coalition of allied organizations, we helped draft the Sanctuary Promise Act that closes those loopholes to ensure that the federal government can no longer use local public resources to tear families apart. In July, the Sanctuary Promise Act was signed into law and went into effect.
In addition to the Sanctuary Promise Act, six key policies the ROP network prioritized because the will help rural communities move from barely surviving to thriving were successfully signed into law. After human dignity groups drafted policy, wrote letters, and met with elected officials, together we passed the Childcare for Oregon Act, the Oregon Energy Affordability Act, the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, and funding to expand broadband internet access.
BREAKING RURAL ISOLATION
ROP virtually convened hundreds of rural organizers and small-town community leaders for strategy sessions, the annual Rural Caucus, and living room conversations to develop local and statewide plans for the year.

ORGANIZING for SAFE & WELCOMING COMMUNITIES
Many new groups formed and launched campaigns to make local change out of the mobilizations for racial justice in 2020. Vernonia Equality & Racial Justice (VERJ) in Columbia County formed during roadside Black Lives Matter demonstrations to advance campaigns for racial justice. VERJ’s successes include working with the City of Vernonia to draft and adopt a resolution denouncing racism, discrimination, and police brutality against Black people, establishing a plan to educate city leadership on implicit bias and racial equity, and committing the city to collaborating on a bias incident reporting system.
In 2020, every county in Oregon mobilized to protest the murders of Black and brown people killed by police. In 2021, rural Oregon mobilized to respond to the murders of Black people by white vigilantes. After Aidan Ellison was killed in Ashland, the Truth to Power Club at Ashland High School hosted virtual anti-racism workshops and painted a mural at the school celebrating Aidan’s life alongside other prominent Black, Indigenous, and people of color who have graduated from Ashland High School.

After Barry Washington, Jr. was murdered in downtown Bend, his white killer was immediately released by police with a minor charge of manslaughter. Central Oregon Peacekeepers and other groups organized vigils, rallies, and a successful campaign to push the district attorney to change the charge to second degree murder. When a local TV station put a video of the attack on their website against Barry’s family’s wishes, the Peacekeepers coordinated a successful campaign that asked advertisers to end their contracts until the video was removed.
When Creswell’s annual 4th of July parade was cancelled due to COVID-19, Proud Boys and so-called patriot groups announced they would hold their own parade and statewide gathering. Community leaders who spoke out received threats of violence and the mayor resigned after out-of-towners mobbed her home. A week later, the community of Cottage Grove learned the same Proud Boys were eager to march in their town’s annual festival’s parade. More than 100 business owners, service agencies, faith leaders, and concerned neighbors succeeded in convincing the festival’s board to exclude the Proud Boys with a heartfelt letter campaign declaring hate has no presence in their community.
NEIGHBORS SHOWING UP for NEIGHBORS
Central Oregon Peacekeepers, Redmond Collective Action, The Helpers, and Central Oregon Democratic Socialists of America teamed up across three counties and the Warm Springs community to distribute necessities where unhoused communities were camping and mobile distributions for people that were living more remotely. They expanded to provide showers, trash pick-up, and vaccination clinics and used their success stories to pressure elected officials towards ending the practice of clearing out camps and instead ensuring the health and safety of unhoused community members, from trash service to managed camping.
Led by multiple community partners and volunteers, the food pantry at our Community Building Center in Cottage Grove shared food and supplies with more than 1,200 people every month.
Many of the recipients are refugee and migrant farm-working families systematically excluded from other services because of documentation requirements, language accessibility, and cultural competency. This program has successfully raised awareness of these barriers and several local agencies have changed their practices, hired interpreters, and adapted to better serve the entire community.

PRESERVING & SHARING RURAL ORGANIZING HISTORY

ROP is transforming our records of powerful community organizing into an archival collection! These unique materials will be featured in a traveling exhibit celebrating ROP’s 30th anniversary next year, giving us all a chance to learn from 30 years of the ROP network’s victories while strategizing what we can accomplish together over the next 30. Reach out if you’d like to see this exhibit in your town!
ADVANCING DEMOCRACY OVER THE AIRWAVES
In 2021, we completed the second season of Rural Roots Rising, our monthly podcast and radio show that broadcasts on 20 community radio stations across the state. Rural Roots Rising features rural organizers and media-makers who are organizing to respond to white supremacist violence, climate disasters, language accessibility, and housing crises. Listen to Rural Roots Rising wherever you get your podcasts or at RuralRootsRising.org!

What is the
RURAL ORGANIZING PROJECT?
ROP’s mission is to strengthen the skills, resources, and vision of primary leadership in local autonomous human dignity groups with a goal of keeping such groups a vibrant source for a just democracy.
More than 80 human dignity groups and thousands of community leaders worked together to advance democracy in small-town and rural Oregon. From April 2020 to April 2021, ten Rural Organizing Fellows virtually convened to share skills, organizing strategies, and to build up their organizing toolboxes.


BAKER
- Baker Community Justice Project
BENTON
- Coast Range Association
- Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
- Disability Equity Center
- Linn-Benton Greens
- Linn-Benton NAACP
- Linn-Benton Rapid Response Team
- Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates
- Mid-Valley Solidarity Coalition
- Race Matters, First Congregational UCC
- Stop the Sweeps
- Street Outreach Response Team
- Veterans For Peace, Linus Pauling Chapter 132
CLACKAMAS
- Bridging Cultures
CLATSOP
- Columbia Pacific Alliance for Social Justice
- Indivisible North Coast Oregon
COLUMBIA
- Columbia County Coalition for Human Dignity
- Vernonia Equality & Racial Justice
COOS
- Human Rights Advocates of Coos County
CROOK
- Central Oregon Peacekeepers
- Latino Community Association
- PFLAG Central Oregon
CURRY
- Indivisible North Curry County
DESCHUTES
- Bend 4 Black Lives Matter
- Bend Equity Project
- Bend Indivisible
- Central Oregon Peacekeepers
- High Desert Peace Kitchen
- Indivisible Sisters
- KPOV 88.9 FM High Desert Community Radio
- Latino Community Association
- Peace and Social Justice Team of First Presbyterian Church
- PFLAG Central Oregon
- Redmond Collective Action
DOUGLAS
- Support for Asylum-Seekers and Immigrants
GILLIAM
- NORCOR Community Resource Coalition
- Rural Voices
GRANT
- Grant County Positive Action
HARNEY
- Rural Alliance for Diversity
HOOD RIVER
- Columbia Gorge Women’s Action Network
- Gorge ICE Resistance
- Hood River Latino Network
- Hood River County Rapid Response Team
- NORCOR Community Resource Coalition
JACKSON
- Peace House
- Truth to Power
JEFFERSON
- High Desert Peace Kitchen
- Jefferson Positive Action Group
- Latino Community Association
JOSEPHINE
- Unitarian Universalists of Grants Pass Social Action Team
LAKE
- Indivisible Lake County
LANE
- Blackberry Pie Society
- Church Women United
- Community Alliance of Lane County
- Deadwood Resists
- Florence Indivisible
- Florence ORganizes
- KSOW 106.7 FM Real Rural Radio
- Springfield-Eugene Showing Up For Racial Justice
- Support for Asylum-Seekers and Immigrants
LINCOLN
- Acompañar
- Coastal Network
- PFLAG of the Oregon Central Coast
LINN
- Albany Peace Seekers
- Linn-Benton Greens
- Linn-Benton NAACP
- Linn Benton Rapid Response Team
- Mid-Valley Solidarity Coalition
MARION
- Silverton Progressives
MORROW
- Oregon Rural Action
- Rural Voices
POLK
- Polk Folks for Human Dignity
- Unidos Club at WOU
SHERMAN
- Rural Voices
TILLAMOOK
- Racial & Social Equity Tillamook
- Tillamook Democracy Project
UMATILLA
- Oregon Rural Action
- Pendleton Community Action Coalition
UNION
- Oregon Rural Action
WALLOWA
- Safe Harbors
WASCO
- Gorge ICE Resistance
- NORCOR Community Resource Coalition
- Protect Oregon’s Progress / The Dalles
- Wasco County Rapid Response Team
WASHINGTON
- Adelante Mujeres
- Western WashCo For Racial Justice
WHEELER
- Rural Voices
YAMHILL
- Progressive Yamhill
- Unidos Bridging Community
Download our annual reports as PDF files:
2021 Annual Report (pdf, 848 kb)