Free Republic

There are just some situations that a person can't just make up and sweet irony rules the roost. Such an event has occurred in Portland, Oregon, recently where the Trader Joe's supermarket chain found itself being opposed by one of the biggest scourges in the last thirty years: community organizers. It seems that Trader Joe's wanted to open a new store in Portland and decided to open one in a struggling neighborhood in Northeast Portland. Two acres of land that had been vacant for years was going to be developed, but then the Portland African-American Leadership Forum (PAALF) decided to...

The Portland African American Leadership Forum (PAALF) objected to the proposed development partly because it feared that the new retail complex would eventually push up rental prices in the area and drive out the local black community. PAALF officials cited that they held no animosity toward Trader Joe’s whatsoever but were concerned by the city government’s history of displacing African-Americans from their homes. According to The Oregonian newspaper, California-based developer Majestic Realty Co. had plans to build an $8 million retail complex in a vacant two-acre lot in Northeast Portland at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and...