The Portland Red Guide: Sites & Stories of Our Radical Past

The coolest guide to our city doesn’t mention donuts even once. Instead, it celebrates Portland’s radical past — the people, organizations, protests, strikes, and movements that have made their mark on the City of Roses, and the vestiges of that past that can still be found today (using one of the maps that accompanies each section, or by following one of the walking tours outlined at the end). My endorsement of this guide has nothing to do with the author photo at the back of the book, which shows Michael Munk standing in a crowd of striking Powell's Books workers on May Day, 2000, but that certainly doesn’t hurt. Recommended By Tove H., Powells.com

A historical guidebook of social dissent, Michael Munk’s The Portland Red Guide describes local radicals, their organizations, and their activities in relation to physical sites in the Rose City. With the aid of maps and historical photos, Munk’s stories are those that history books often exclude. The historical listings expand readers’ perspectives of the unique city and its radical past. The Portland Red Guide is a testament to Portland’s rich history of working-class people and organizations that stood against repression and injustice. It honors those who insisted on pursuing a better justification for their lives rather than the quest for material wealth, and who dedicated themselves to offering alternative visions of how to organize society.

The Portland Red Guide uses maps to give readers a walking tour of the city as well as to illustrate sites such as the house where Woody Guthrie wrote his Columbia River songs; the office of the Red Squad (the only memorial to John Reed); the home of early feminist Dr. Marie Equi; and the downtown site of Portland’s first Afro-American League protest in 1898. This new edition includes up-to-date information about Portland’s most contemporary radicals and suggests routes to help readers walk in the shadows of dissidents, radicals, and revolutionaries. These stories challenge mainstream culture and testify that many in Portland were, and still are, motivated to improve the condition of the world rather than their personal status in it.

"Michael Munk is the Lewis and Clark of Portland’s radical past, leading his readers on a voyage of discovery through a long-lost and wonderfully evocative historical terrain. I only wish the Red Guide had been around in the days when I was one of those Portland radicals he writes about with such knowledge (and affection)." Maurice Isserman, author of If I Had a Hammer: the Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left

"What fun to learn all the ordinary places have a not-so-ordinary history. Some will call The Portland Red Guide subversive, others will welcome it as the sweet breeze of revelation, but all will have to admit it adds a fascinating new layer to appreciating Portland. Even those Portlanders who think they know their city’s past will likely find themselves shocked at the wealth of radical Portland history related in this volume. One hopes it becomes as ubiquitous as cell phones in Portland pedestrians’ hands." Sandy Polishuk, author of Sticking to the Union: An Oral History of the Life and Times of Julia Ruuttila

"A roller-coaster ride through Portland’s radical past. Who knew that being on the losing side of just about everything could be so much fun?" Phil Stanford, Portland Tribune columnist, author of Portland Confidential

Michael Munk was born in Prague in 1934. He escaped the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and came to Portland in 1939. He graduated from Hillside School, Lincoln High School, Reed College, and received an MA in political science from the University of Oregon. While a student, he worked as a casual longshoreman on the Portland docks, sold tickets at the Holladay Bowl's summer concerts, and drove a truck during wheat harvests in the Paulouse. His political activity began in the 1950s, when he became a local opponent of nuclear testing as well as a promoter of a Portland concert by Paul Robeson. As vice president of the Young Democrats of Oregon in 1956, he failed to win their endorsement of US recognition of China, and had also failed to prevent the firing of a philosophy professor by Reed College in 1954. In 1959, he was ordered to leave Oregon by the federal government, whose domination of South Korea he witnessed as a member of the US Army.

After Michael's military service, he was the national affairs editor of the leftist New York news weekly, the National Guardian. After receiving his PhD in politics from New York University, he taught political science for more than twenty–five years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Roosevelt University in Chicago, and Rutgers University, before returning to Portland.

Michael published on local radical history and culture in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, the Pacific Northwest Quarterly, and Science & Society. His column, "Our Radical Past" was a monthly feature in the Portland Alliance for several years.

Michael passed away in 2021.