January 5
Muhammad Yunus
Nobel Peace Prize winner
“When we were in caves, we were not sending job applications to anybody. We took care of ourselves and did that for hundreds of thousands of years. We have to go back to rediscover ourselves as creative people, entrepreneurs.”
January 19
Nina Fekaris
President, National Association of School Nurses
“Children living in homelessness experience chronic stress at such higher levels that that part of their brains is constantly triggered, and that prevents you from higher-level thinking. And learning is one of those higher-level-thinking experiences. So it takes a long time once a child enters a school to be able to develop enough trust in their environment for that part of their brain to be able to calm down enough that they’re able to learn.”
January 26
David Attenborough
Narrator, “Blue Planet II”
“We have a responsibility, every one of us. We may think we live a long way from the oceans, but we don’t.”
February 9
Carl Wolfson
Portland comedian and author of “Slide!”
“I see no other alternative to pushing back and being able to unmask him as a fraud, joke or someone unfit for office. I understand that there is the danger of normalization, but you can’t stifle the resistance, whether it’s in organization, speech or in comedy. In the end, you have to hope that enough people see the truth behind the joke.”
March 23
DeRay Mckesson
Activist, co-founder of Campaign Zero
“I used to teach middle school. I used to teach sixth-grade math, 11-year olds, which was great, and it wasn’t their fault that the world wasn’t fair. It wasn’t their fault that they grew up in poverty. It wasn’t their fault that they grew up in the projects. They didn’t do anything wrong. It was a system that failed them. And when I think about my role as an adult, I always think about those kids. That it’s one of my responsibilities as an adult to make sure that they grow up in a world with different choices. They didn’t do anything wrong, and they shouldn’t be penalized for it.”
March 30
Cecile Richards
Former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America
“I’ll never forget the student I met in Iowa who told me she was about to become the first in her family to graduate from college, and she was graduating thanks to two things: scholarships and birth control.”
April 20
Etan Thomas
Former NBA star and author, “We Matter”
“People have forgotten what these protests were about. Somehow, it has transformed into being about the military or the flag, but those weren’t the reasons Kaepernick listed for taking a knee. It was about the constant killings at the hands of the police of unarmed black men and women without any form of accountability for the police.”
May 25
Mario Duke
A friend, in memory of George Myron Mayes
“Most leaders don’t take long to figure out that together, everyone achieves more. I’m sure that’s one of the many reasons George pushed people to be the best version of themselves. That’s one of the many things he did throughout his life – a carpenter that helped build homes, bridges, and most importantly the people around him.”
June 8
Sarah Kendzior
Political analyst and author, “Flyover Country”
“People often ask, ‘What do I do?’ And that depends. Where do you live? What are the problems where you live? What are you good at? What do you have to offer people? What makes our world good and interesting is that we are all different and that we all have something to offer and that together it is possible to turn this around.”
July 13
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters
“I want him impeached! Even to the chagrin of some of my fellow Democrats. He’s a crook, he’s a criminal and the White House is a criminal enterprise. You see it unfolding every day.”
August 17
Katelynn Howard
Daughter of Street Roots vendor Andy Howard, in her eulogy of her father
“He may not have been able to buy me winter coats or school supplies, which I was provided with in other ways, but I’m so grateful I’ve never lived a day without knowing my dad loved me, that he was proud of me, and that he felt the most blessed to call me his daughter.”
September 21
Shane Bauer
Author, “American Prison”
“For all intents and purposes, prisoners in the South, for decades after slavery, remained slaves. They worked on plantations, they were whipped, and they were often tortured for not working and for not meeting quotas. They worked in coal mines for huge companies, like the U.S. Steel Company, and the work was so brutal and they were driven so hard that they actually died at a much higher rate than slaves did before the Civil War”
October 5
Chris Hedges
Author, “America: The Farewell Tour”
“You have one corporate party, and on one end you have troglodytes like the Sheldon Adelsons, the Mercers and Trump, who are unrepentant racists and bigots and Islamaphobes. And on the other end, you have Silicon Valley (types). They don’t want to be painted as homophobic or racist or Islamaphobic, but on all the structural issues, there’s zero difference. And it’s the structural issues that are destroying us, including destroying the ecosystem on which we depend for life.”
November 2
Brenda Tracy
Rape survivor, counselor and founder of #settheexpectation, a pledge to stand up against sexism and violence against women
“Forgiveness is not the absence of consequences. Playing sports is a privilege, not a right. You don’t get to be on a pedestal where you drive culture and you drive the national conversation and people look up to you as a role model unless you’ve earned it. Character matters, and I don’t know why people have such an issue with that.”
November 9
Mark Lakeman
Architect and housing innovator
“Houseless people have relevant, valid ideas and solutions for their own needs. Others should join in the conversation and say, ‘You should be able to solve your own problems. We respect you, and we will help.”
December 7
Danielle Outlaw
Portland police chief, regarding her response to the Oregonian report that more than half of PPB arrests were people experiencing homelessness
“We have to find a way to address the root cause of the issue. Because the calls for service aren’t going to stop on our end. We don’t have the luxury, when someone calls the police for service, to say, ‘We’re not coming.’ And a lot of times, we don’t know what we’re responding to.”
December 7
Aileen McPherson
Street Roots vendor, on being homeless as a woman
“I’m defending my life. I am the only one who has the right to say when my life ends.”
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