Nearly 40 years ago, news broke that shattered Portland’s image as a liberal city.

In the early hours of Nov. 13, 1988, three white men brutally beat a young Black man. He died later that day.

The killing of 28-year-old Mulugeta Seraw has gained added resonance as white supremacy surges back into the national consciousness.

In the aftermath of Seraw’s killing, youth from the city’s punk music scene organized to push the neo-Nazis out of Portland.

Two years after the murder, jurors in a civil trial found a California-based white supremacist group, the White Aryan Resistance, liable for Seraw’s murder and awarded a $12.5 million judgment to Seraw’s family.

‘What is happening?’

Outside of the mainstream view, young people in the city’s punk music scene had been victims of white supremacist violence for years.

“It was weird because these were all people in the scene. Many of us knew each other well,” said Jason, a young man at the time and a former member of Anti-Racist Action, a group that clashed with white supremacists.

OPB is not using Jason’s last name due to his expressed concern for his personal safety. “One day you’re all friends, and the next day you’re like ‘What is happening?’”

The violence was not confined to young people in Portland’s music clubs.

As 1988 wore on, racist skinheads had attacked people from nearly every community in Portland, from Black people and Asian families to the gay community.

“There was tension in the city. There was tension in the clubs because of these skinheads,” said Terry Currier, the owner of Music Millennium and a longtime fixture in the Portland music scene.

Not all skinheads were racist, and a significant faction of the skinheads fought against racism.

But in the late 1980s, the image of the skinhead with a shaved head, combat boots, and a bomber jacket began to be associated with white supremacy.

‘I didn’t think Hitler was cool.’

“We started noticing a lot more skinheads coming into the store,” said Currier. “They were asking for bands out there around the world that professed the message of Adolf Hitler.”

“I think a great deal of the initiative came from these individuals themselves,” said Elinor Langer, a journalist and the author of “A Hundred Little Hitlers,” a deeply researched history of the murder of Seraw.

Her research uncovered that, outside the view of most adults, racist extremism had found a foothold amongst a fringe of the city’s youth.

“I didn’t think Hitler was cool,” said an anti-racist activist who then went by the moniker China. “But a lot of these kids did seem to think he was cool.”

As one of a handful of Black youth in the punk scene, China herself was the victim of a terrifying attack by neo-Nazi skinheads outside of the Pine Street Theater, a popular venue for punk music.

That attack occurred a week before Seraw was murdered.

‘We just called them “boneheads”’

In the late 1980s, racists calling themselves skinheads began appearing on national television programs like “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Geraldo.”

In a now-infamous moment, a brawl erupted on “Geraldo” between racist skinheads and anti-racists that left Geraldo Rivera with a broken nose.

The irony is that the original skinheads were part of a multiracial subculture in the United Kingdom that fused the cultures of Jamaican immigrants and white working-class youth.

“Skinhead literally grew out of Black culture,” said Tom Tegner, a former member of the Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice or SHARPs.

“Nothing about them was skinhead,” said Tegner, who expresses frustration that racists adopted the trappings of skinhead culture. “They were basically like heavy metal dudes who shaved their heads. So we just called them ‘boneheads.’”

The murder of Seraw galvanized the youth of SHARP, Anti-Racist Action, and a third anti-racist organization, the Coalition for Human Dignity, to organize and push the neo-Nazis out of the music clubs and out of Portland.

‘It just doesn’t make sense.’

The grimmest irony is that Seraw had come to Portland in part to avoid a civil war that was raging in Ethiopia in the late 1970s and 80s and that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.

“To be killed in America while trying to avoid being killed in Ethiopia?” said Engedaw Berhanu, Seraw’s uncle. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Berhanu had come to the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s to study and arranged for his nephew to follow in his footsteps.

Berhanu felt particularly close to his nephew because Seraw’s mother, who was Berhanu’s sister, had raised Berhanu after their own mother died.

Like his uncle, Seraw grew up on a family farm and was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

After coming to Oregon, Seraw learned that he had a son who was not yet born when he left Ethiopia.

‘Mayhem ensued’

On Saturday, Nov. 12, 1988, Seraw had been at a going-away party for a friend who was returning to Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, members of the neo-Nazi group East Side White Pride, including Ken Mieske, Kyle Brewster, and Steven Strasser, had been working with a youth leader of the White Aryan Resistance, Dave Mazzella.

They were passing out white power leaflets in downtown Portland.

“They were also drinking the whole time,” said Langer, which gave a sense of their state of mind.

The neo-Nazis ended up at an apartment in Southeast Portland.

When their party broke up in the early hours of Sunday, Nov 13, the racist skinheads and their girlfriends got into their car to go home. Seraw’s apartment building was right around the corner, and his friends were dropping him off at home.

“Racial epithets came out of the car,” said Elden Rosenthal, a now-retired Portland attorney and then co-counsel in the civil trial against the White Aryan Resistance. “Brewster, Mieske, and Strasser got out of the car, Mieske with a baseball bat,” said Rosenthal, referring to the members of East Side White Pride.

“Mayhem ensued, and Mulugeta Seraw was brutally murdered by Mieske with a baseball bat.”

‘Somebody has to pay for this.’

Mieske, Brewster, and Strasser were arrested and pleaded guilty to avoid criminal trials. Mieske was sentenced to life in prison for murder.

Brewster and Strasser were sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter.

Tom Metzger was a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan who founded the California-based White Aryan Resistance.

Metzger and his son John had been gaining notoriety for their group’s appearances on “Geraldo” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and through their self-published WAR newspaper and public access TV show, “Race and Reason.”

“Metzger was on the rise in the white supremacist movement,” said Langer. “He was a very powerful force overall at that time.”

“He was looking for a street army,” said Rosenthal. “He thought if he could recruit hundreds or even thousands of skinheads, he would become a power broker on the far right.”

Metzger picked up the cause of East Side White Pride and proclaimed that “the skinheads did a civic duty” by murdering Seraw.

“When I heard about Metzger organizing these kids,” said Berhanu, “and them killing him, I said ‘somebody has to pay for this.’ A couple of kids pled guilty, and that’s it? I wasn’t satisfied with that. In Ethiopia, if somebody kills your brother, you have to avenge his loss. I can’t kill somebody. But I can do something about it legally.”

Berhanu worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League to file a civil suit in April 1990 in Multnomah County Circuit Court against Tom and John Metzger and the White Aryan Resistance on behalf of the Seraw estate.

‘A very dangerous criminal was being tried.’

“This was a civil suit,” said Jim Redden, a longtime Portland journalist. “This was not a criminal case. But I think anyone attending it would believe that it was actually a criminal case going on. And a very dangerous criminal was being tried, because there was just massive security.”

The trial raised important First Amendment issues.

Could the Metzgers be held liable for a murder that occurred when they were a thousand miles away?

“The right of free speech is not absolute,” said Judge Ancer Haggerty in a statement during the civil trial. “It does not allow an individual to prepare a group for violent action and spur it on to such action in the immediate or near future.”

A key witness in the trial was Dave Mazzella, the youth leader of the White Aryan Resistance, who testified that the Metzgers had sent him to Portland to encourage East Side White Pride to commit acts of violence against racial minorities and gay people.

The trial resulted in a landmark $12.5 million judgment in Oct. 1990 against the Metzgers and the White Aryan Resistance for inciting the violence that led to Seraw’s death.

The judgment bankrupted Metzger.

“I feel vindicated,” said Berhanu. “I did my duty to family. And I’m thankful to God.”

‘They are so close to power now’

But the continued prevalence of white supremacy in American society has others feeling more circumspect.

“I don’t think stopping Tom Metzger stopped anything,” said Langer. The white racist movement wasn’t stopped, she said. “It grew. And it is growing.”

Racist skinheads are no longer terrorizing the streets of Portland. But the noxious ideas of white nationalism that they represented now hold sway at the highest levels of the United States government.

“They are so close to power now,” said Langer.

“It’s why our civic institutions need to be strong,” said Rosenthal. “It’s why the rule of law needs to be sustained. And it’s why the challenge of combating racism and sexism is every generation’s obligation and duty.”

This story was written and reported by Dan Evans and Nora Colie and edited by Arya Surowidjojo and digitally produced by Meagan Cuthill. The documentary was produced by Nora Colie and Dan Evans. Illustration by Sharon Albor.

• Learn more about the history of white supremacy and resistance in Oregon from the Winter 2019 edition of the Oregon Historical Quarterly.
• Listen to the “It Did Happen Here” podcast of oral histories on the Portland grassroots fight against neo-Nazis.
• Read more about the history of hate groups in Oregon from “Oregon Experience” producer Kami Horton.
• For educators: Deep dive into classroom materials about the murder of Mulugeta Seraw in this curriculum written by “It Did Happen Here” in partnership with the Oregon Historical Society.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/18/mulugeta-seraw-documentary-oregon-experience/