Local NAACP calls community to action against ICE detentions
Protesters line both sides of the Harlow Road overpass during the Good Trouble demonstration in Eugene July 17, 2025. Credit: Craig Strobeck / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Demond Hawkins’ parents raised him with clear moral directives and a warning: What’s right is right, what’s wrong is wrong, and stay out of trouble.
Hawkins, president of Eugene Springfield NAACP, lived with his head down for most of his life, until the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“He was my height, he was my build, we were the same age,” he said of Floyd.
When he saw people dismissing Floyd’s death because of details of who Floyd was, Hawkins could not stand by any longer. He joined the NAACP and started getting involved in local civil rights activism — what the late civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis described as “good trouble, necessary trouble,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins shared his story in honor of Lewis’ legacy during a July 17 event at the Clear Lake Community Center. In front of an audience of more than 100 people, Hawkins spoke about the Trump administration’s current immigration crackdown and how he sees it as a call to action as urgent as Floyd’s murder.
“This immigration issue is not just an issue of one population or another, it’s a Black issue, too,” Hawkins said. “It’s a human rights issue.”