PORTLAND, Ore. — Black community leaders are urging local protesters to shift the focus of demonstrations back to the Black Lives Matter movement and away from what has become a largely “white spectacle.”

Standing in front of a large banner bearing an image of Rep. John Lewis, the Black civil rights icon who died last week, the Rev. E.D. Mondainé, president of the Portland branch of the NAACP, told protesters “the focus has been moved from where it is supposed to be and made to be a spectacle, a debacle.”

“This is no new thing we’re experiencing. We have seen this from the beginning of time,” Mondainé said. “Four hundred years we have struggled as Black people in this nation … We have been made to be the last that were informed but the first that were affected.”

Throughout the week, protesters have argued among themselves over tactics used to denounce the continued presence of federal officers in Portland. Some have called for nonviolent action, while others have thrown fireworks and lit fires outside the federal courthouse.

The ongoing unrest, which started at the end of May following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, initially began as a series of demonstrations against racism and police brutality. After federal officers under the command of the Department of Homeland Security arrived to defend the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, they became the focus of protests.

Lost in the shuffle were the millions of Black lives suffering systemic racism and injustice, said Lakayana Drury, executive director of Word is Bond, a Portland-based nonprofit.

“I want us to remember why we’re here,” Drury told protesters on Thursday. “What’s happening downtown is not a Black issue. This is a battle between two white supremacy entities — the Trump administration and the local city of Portland.”

In the majority white city, Black people comprise just 6 percent of the population, according to the latest numbers available from the U.S. census. Many of those residents live far from the downtown area where thousands of demonstrators have descended every night for almost two months.

Drury said that instead of drawing national attention to what transpired outside the federal courthouse in recent weeks, protesters should be talking about communities of color, who are subjected to increased policing and a lack of economic opportunity.

“The Black issues exist very far from here,” he said. “It’s in the classrooms when we have Black students in 8th grade who are not at an 8th grade reading level. That’s what we should be marching for.”

The Portland NAACP has repeatedly denounced the actions of federal forces in Portland but has also criticized “mostly white anarchists” for inciting violence during the protests. Much of the national scrutiny in recent weeks has centered on the melee that erupts nightly after small groups of demonstrators begin a cat-and-mouse game with law enforcement.

Over the past week, protests have settled into a cycle that starts early in the evening with peaceful marchers singing and chanting “Black lives matter and “Feds go home.” Recently Portland parents have led a short procession from the Justice Center to the neighboring federal courthouse. There, the Wall of Moms link arms and form a barrier between protesters and the building. Members of the PDXDadPod wear gas masks and carry large leaf blowers to help disperse the inevitable tear gas used by officers against demonstrators.

Sometime around midnight, a small group of protesters, usually wearing all black and carrying makeshift shields and umbrellas, begin to lob fireworks towards the federal courthouse or light small fires nearby. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, after law enforcement erected a steel fence around the court’s perimeter, people targeted the barricade by shaking it or trying to climb over it.

Once the fence is breached, the federal officers come out. They throw tear gas into the crowd and use projectiles. No one standing near the scene is spared, not even Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.

Images of the mostly white Wall of Moms, PDXDadPod and aggressive protesters have dominated much of the news coverage. Last week, a photo went viral showing a standoff between law enforcement and a naked white woman later dubbed “Naked Athena.”

While these images might speak to the constitutional debate created when federal agents use force against demonstrators on American soil, they do not address the bigger issue of systemic racism against Black communities, civil rights leaders say.

In an op-ed published in the Washington Post, Mondainé denounced what he called the “white spectacle.”

“Unfortunately, ‘spectacle’ is now the best way to describe Portland’s protests,” he wrote. “Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention — but how do these actions stop police from killing black people? What are antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of black equality?”

Still, some Black leaders in Portland say any attention drawn to inequities is a step in the right direction.

Reginald Richardson Jr, pastor of Your Bible Speaks Seventh Day Adventist Church, who describes himself as “nonviolent,” encourages white allies to act as shields for Black people who have a historically fraught relationship with law enforcement.

“Black men and women will go to jail at a higher rate than our white brothers and sisters,” he said. “It is time for our white brothers and sisters to stand up and be that barrier.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Friday that a significant number of COVID-19 patients do not recover quickly, and instead experience ongoing symptoms, such as fatigue and cough.

As many as a third of patients who were never sick enough to be hospitalized are not back to their usual health up to three weeks after their diagnosis, the report found.

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“COVID-19 can result in prolonged illness even among persons with milder outpatient illness, including young adults,” the report’s authors wrote.

The acknowledgement is welcome news to patients who call themselves “long-haulers” — suffering from debilitating symptoms weeks and even months after their initial infection.

“This report is monumental for all of us who have been struggling with fear of the unknown, lack of recognition and many times, a lack of belief and proper care from medical professionals during our prolonged recovery from COVID-19,” Kate Porter, who is on day 129 of her recovery, wrote in an email to NBC News.

Porter, 35, of Beverly, Massachusetts, has had low-grade fevers, fatigue, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath and memory and sleep issues since her diagnosis March 17.

“This gives me hope that we will gain access to more resources throughout our recovery and hopefully, get our lives back to what they once were,” Porter wrote.

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The CDC report is based on telephone surveys of 274 COVID-19 patients. Ninety-five of those patients, or 35 percent, said they “had not returned to their usual state of health” when they were surveyed, which was at least two to three weeks after their first test.

Many with long-term symptoms are otherwise young and healthy: Among those surveyed between ages 18 and 34, about 20 percent experienced lasting symptoms.

“This report indicates that even among symptomatic adults tested in outpatient settings, it might take weeks for resolution of symptoms and return to usual health,” the CDC authors wrote.

The report also pointed out that in contrast, “over 90 percent of outpatients with influenza recover within approximately two weeks” after a positive flu test.

Among the patients who experienced lasting symptoms in the CDC report, 71 percent reported fatigue, 61 percent had lasting cough, and 61 percent reported ongoing headaches.

The CDC added that preventative measures, such as physical distancing, face masks and frequent hand-washing, continue to be important to slow the spread of COVID-19.

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Chicago removed a Christopher Columbus statue from the city’s lakefront Grant Park before dawn Friday, a week after protesters tried to topple it.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said the city temporarily removed Columbus statues from both Grant Park and the Little Italy neighborhood a few miles away “until further notice.” It was not immediately clear where the statues were taken.

The removals come “in response to demonstrations that became unsafe for both protesters and police, as well as efforts by individuals to independently pull the Grant Park statue down in an extremely dangerous manner,” the statement said. “This step is about an effort to protect public safety and to preserve a safe space for an inclusive and democratic public dialogue about our city’s symbols.”

On July 17, a clash between protesters and police at the Grant Park statue resulted in injuries of both demonstrators and officers.

Lightfoot, a Democrat, originally said she didn’t think the Grant Park statue should come down. “Look, I know that the issue of Columbus, Columbus Day is an issue of great discussion but I think that the way in which we educate our young people in particular about the history is to educate them about the full history,” Lightfoot said in June, according to NBC Chicago.

But on Monday, the mayor said she would announce a plan to take inventory of monuments and other symbols in the city.

“In time, our team will determine there are no monuments to African Americans in this city,” Lightfoot said. “There are no monuments to women. There are no monuments that reflect the contributions of people in the city of Chicago who contributed to the greatness of this city,” the mayor said, according to NBC Chicago.

The statement on Friday said the mayor and city “will be announcing a formal process to assess each of the monuments, memorials, and murals across Chicago’s communities, and develop a framework for creating a public dialogue to determine how we elevate our city’s history and diversity.”

Both Columbus statues that were taken down Friday had been vandalized last month, NBC Chicago reported.

Like Confederate monuments around the country, statues of Columbus have been targeted in recent protests over the Italian navigator’s history of colonization, enslavement and violence toward native peoples in the Americas.

The statue removals come as President Donald Trump’s administration plans to dispatch federal law enforcement agents to the city in response to a recent swell in gun violence, a plan that has raised concerns among some Chicago community activists.

A collection of activist groups filed suit Thursday, seeking to block the federal agents from interfering in or policing protests, The Associated Press reported.

Trump on Wednesday evening called Lightfoot to confirm his administration’s plan to bring agents into the city to supplement violent crime investigations. In a statement, Lightfoot’s office offered caution, saying that “the mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.”

Trump directed federal agents to Portland following an executive order to punish those who vandalize federal monuments or government property. In widespread, nightly demonstrations in the city, residents have protested the presence of federal agents.