Epilogue

Abstract

OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 606 Epilogue by Eliza E. Canty-Jones THANK YOU for reading this special issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly . The work of preparing this issue for publication has been both professionally satisfying and emotionally wrenching. Since we began this project in summer 2017, the news has been filled with reports of White supremacist organizing and violence. White supremacists have repeatedly and proudly marched in Portland, Oregon. Men deploying White supremacist rhetoric have attacked Muslims praying in Christchurch, New Zealand, Jewish people gathering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and families perceived to be Mexican shopping in El Paso, Texas. These events are tied to both the history we have been exploring through this special issue and to one another. After the massacre in El Paso, historian of radical right movements Kathleen Belew wrote: The white power movement imagines race war, incited by mass violence among other strategies. The core texts of this movement . . . provide a road map to how such violence could succeed. To call them manuals is too simplistic: They provide the collective ideas and vision by which a fringe movement can attempt a violent confrontation that could lead to a race war.* As we undertook the labor of creating this investigation of White supremacy and resistance in Oregon history, it was impossible to ignore the contemporary violence that is linked to the legacy of that history. Our sincere hope, as Carmen Thompson wrote in the introduction, is that the work we have produced offers readers a “freshness of thought” that can itself be a tool for resisting White supremacy. While we believe this issue provides a substantial framework for understanding the history of White supremacy and resistance in Oregon, we know it is by no means comprehensive. The work of perceiving the structures of White supremacy, and the attendant expectations of Whiteness, is the work of a lifetime. For 120 years, the Oregon Historical Society has published this journal every three months. We expect that investigations of White supremacy will continue to fill its pages for years to come. * Kathleen Belew, “The Right Way to Understand White Nationalist Terrorism,” New York Times, August 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/opinion/el-paso-terrorism.html (accessed November 26, 2019) ...