It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist People's History (book)

book based on podcast of the same name // published by PM Press // 2023
coauthors: Moe Bowstern, Mic Crenshaw, Alec Dunn, Celina Flores, Julie Perini, Erin Yanke

It Did Happen Here website // podcast available on all podcast platforms

SHARP patch courtesy of John Bair. Photo by Coyote Amrich.

It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist Peoples’ History is an oral history book, based on the independently produced podcast of the same name. It Did Happen Here is about the community’s pushback to neonazi skinheads in Portland, Oregon in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The November 1988 murder of Ethiopian college student Mulugeta Seraw by neonazi skinheads brought the issue to mainstream attention. The podcast and book tell the story of the organizing that happened sub-culturally within the punk scene and cross-culturally throughout the entire city from 1987 - 1997, taking a close look at a few organizations that pre-date the current Antifascist (“Antifa”) movement: Anti-Racist Action (ARA), Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP), and the Coalition for Human Dignity (CHD). The podcast includes eleven featured episodes and nine bonus episodes. The first episode was released in November 2020 and continued weekly into 2021.

My main contributions to the project were visual research and editing the text with my co-authors. In 2020-2021, a socially distant period, I created social media assets for the project’ s instagram account using archival imagery, and I worked with Design as Protest to produce panels for public displays during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many activists who had been interviewed for the podcast contributed images to these efforts. Producer Erin Yanke and I conducted further research into the collections at the Oregon Historical Society; Portland City Archives; The Oregonian; the Elinor Langer Research Collection on White Supremacy in America, housed at the University of Oregon in Eugene; Portland State University’s Special Collections, and the Rural Organizing Project in Cottage Grove, Oregon.

Order your copy of It Did Happen Here or the It Did Happen Here e-book from PM Press. Or look for it at your local library or independent book seller. The It Did Happen Here website also contains a grades 9-12 curriculum, information on events, and more.

photo by Coyote Amrich

photo from John Bair

History is Now: 6th Vanport Mosaic Festival, window displays on the North Park Blocks, Portland, Oregon // collaboration with Design as Protest, 2021

Panels produced for the 2021 Vanport Mosaic festival on view at Providence Stadium, home of the Portland Timbers and Thorns, 2023

selected public events
2023: 54th Annual Celebration of Oregon Authors, with Julie Perini & Erin Yanke, Oregon Historical Society
2021: History is Now: 6th Vanport Mosaic Festival, window displays on the North Park Blocks, Portland, Oregon
2021: Outdoor Listening Event & Panel Discussion, presented by the People’s History of Portland, Davinci Middle School

Erin Yanke researching in the archives at the Rural Organizing Project in Cottage Grove, Oregon

Files about the Coalition for Human Dignity in the archive at the Rural Organizing Project in Cottage Grove, Oregon

Julie Perini researching in the Elinor Langer Research Collection on White Supremacy in America, housed at the University of Oregon in Eugene

Julie Perini is a filmmaker and artist in Portland, Oregon.