Portland-Based Anarchist Camp For Kids Promises To Turn 10-Year-Olds Into Activists

A Portland-based summer camp for kids in grades four through eight is attracting attention for aiming to create young anarchists bent on overthrowing society.

Budding Roses claims to “provide a free, safe and empowering space for East Portland youth to learn, express themselves, and engage critically with the social justice issues that impact them.” They accomplish this through a variety of social justice-focused activities in a summer camp setting. It’s unclear how many children have attended the camp or completed the workshops in the past.

The page says that mainstream education “often reproduces structural oppression and disempowers youth, particularly low income and youth of color.” The creators are interested in “activating young leaders to see themselves as agents of change.”

Because of the pandemic, Budding Roses has only offered the camp online for the past two years.

Online resources include the “Budding Roses Protest and Chant Book,” which features songs such as  “Solidarity Forever,” the labor rights song from the International Workers of the World, and “All You Fascists Bound to Lose” by Woody Guthrie.

Materials for camp attendees also include an instructional called “Tear Gas for Portlanders,” which teaches kids how to handle being sprayed with tear gas and donate to bail funds.

There’s also a Black Lives Matter coloring book, an Indigenous land map, a walking tour of radical Portland highlighting an “amazing history of radical organizing,” a primer on police abolition, and a white supremacy reflection series that promises to explore topics such as intersectionality, privilege, and systemic racism.

The printable coloring pages include themes such as “Restorative Justice,” “Globalism,” “Collective value,” “Queer Affirming,” and “Transgender Affirming.”

Budding Roses was founded by the Black Rose Anarchist Federation, which claims its mission is to “overthrow the state and capitalism and build a new world from the bottom up.”

The youth camp was selected for a 2018 Spirit of Portland Award as Nonprofit Initiative of the Year.