According to Talbott’s book, throughout modern history well-meaning blacks had been persecuted. Each time a city had burst into flame, when black citizens had rushed to save property threatened by the fire, white military forces had used this as a pretense to arrest them for looting. These days as fires churned through block after block of Portland, anyone who tried to help was arrested. Convicted on trumped-up charges, they were railroaded to work gangs.
