Portland Housing Activist Margot Black Returns to Tenant Leadership

"I'm done apologizing," she said, "for being a fierce, outspoken and powerful woman with a brain, opinion and voice."

(Walker Stockly)
By Rachel Monahan

Prominent Portland tenants' rights activist Margot Black has returned to a leadership position at Portland Tenants United, the group she helped found.

Black resigned from the group's organizing committee last year after PTU was accused by an African-American organizer of promoting "white supremacy."

Black went on to serve as a volunteer adviser to now-City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty's election campaign. Black and Anthony Bencivengo, who helped organize tenants at the Holgate Manor apartment complex last year, were this month elected the first co-chairs of PTU.

Black says members asked her to run "to help reinvigorate PTU's militant roots" and said she had tried to respond to criticisms.

"Ultimately, I'm done apologizing," she said in a statement, "for being a fierce, outspoken and powerful woman with a brain, opinion and voice."

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