Racial Justice & Alliance Building

Racial Justice

Our Work

Basic Rights Oregon's Racial Justice and Alliance Building program has two main goals:

• Centralizing the experiences and leadership of people of color.

  Our Families is a public education campaign that seeks to raise visibility and public support of LGBT families of color through storytelling, media tools and educational events.

• Taking action as an organizational ally to racial justice work.  

  We have provided our racial justice education series to over 1000 LGBT and allied activists.  After building a shared understanding of why this work is so vital we move our activists to take action. BRO has taken active roles in campaigns led by people of color, in support of immigrant rights, fighting prison expansion, police accountability and reform, issues of economic justice and more. 

Why We Do This Work

As with most organizations in the LGBT movement, we have struggled to truly address race and racism. Our lack of an approach to racial justice impacted our strategy and effectiveness, as we were unable to respond to our opposition’s strategic efforts to divide LGBT and communities of color. More importantly, it pushed out and harmed LGBT people of color in our own communities who continue to experience homophobia and transphobia in unique and deep ways.

Today, we are a very different organization. Our commitment to racial justice shows in our strategic plan, in ongoing political education for our base, and in centralizing LGBT people of color in each of our program areas.  Today, we have increasingly multi-racial leadership in our organization, a track record on racial justice, and a reputation for being a dependable ally. We do this work because our mission is to serve the entire LGBT community, it is strategic, and because it’s a matter of justice.

Who We Are

The Our Families campaign was developed, launched and is led by Standing Together – a team of LGBT and allied leaders of color from across the state who worked with the racial justice staff to build this community education campaign, by and for people of color.

Our organizational ally work builds on the strong partnerships with organizations of color throughout the state. We work in coalition with many groups including Causa Oregon, Western States Center, APANO, Center for Intercultural Organizing, Partnership for Safety and Justice, the Urban League of Portland, and more.