Kansas Organizers Call for Gen Z Participation

Lunchtime in Topeka, Kansas. Under a heat advisory, the streets are especially quiet as the Saturday morning becomes afternoon. Despite the high temperature, a dozen people are gathered in the shade before the wide avenue on the western side of the state’s Capitol.

A case of water was set out as a handful of others parked their cars, waving as they exited before turning back to grab their signs, banners, or flags from the back seat. Even as smiles were shared between the growing group, anxiety was palpable through the hot air.

Many recognized one another, the dedicated activists serve regular roles organizing the various weekly and monthly demonstrations taking place across the eastern plains of the Sunflower State. A sign-up sheet for the Kansas 50501 organization is on-hand for any new faces.

And new faces soon joined, brought to direct action after seeing their screens filled with images of the national guard swarming the nation’s capital as President Trump wrestled for local control of the police from the people, giving that power to his attorney general. Some mentioned the increased cooperation with ICE, including checkpoints established in Washington, D.C., as well as the understandable concern about what city could be next.

The event was a rapid response protest to the federal administration’s military encroachment on D.C. only the Tuesday before. The street was lined with the fifty who had seen the call through one of the organization’s communications channels and came outside to voice their opposition.

Vehicles passing couldn’t avoid confronting the topic, banners across the block reminding them of what was happening today a thousand miles east. Honks of support, thumbs up and enthusiastic waving, are the prominent response. Some display their own protest signs as they drive by, others do multiple laps making more noise with each pass.

A car passes protestors on the west side of the Kansas Capitol in Topeka, waving their own signs voicing discontent with the federal administration’s military occupation of the nation’s capital on August 16, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

The response isn’t all positive, a handful offer a refrain of support for President Trump’s authoritarian approach. Some rude gestures and angry words are lobbed from the occasional pick-up truck window. A touring group of scouts looked on curiously, their adolescent perspectives absorbing contemporary adult politics.

Only blocks from Washburn University, the small Scout troop dramatically skewed the age of those gathered at the Kansas Capitol that afternoon. The majority were of retirement age, acknowledging that they felt they had the time and experience at this stage in their life to be present and to organize, and seemed genuinely concerned about the lack of younger adults participating.

A constant chorus from those who are building for mass mobilization to ask whether or nots the students will show up?

Earlier that morning, in an empty parking lot in Pittsburg, Kansas, a few teenagers laid cones and erected signs, steering new arrivals to their designated dorms. Even at sunrise it was already humid, but the southeast Kansas college town had a buzz in the muggy morning. The start of move-in at Pittsburg State University, the students were returning. Mini fridges are being carted down the sidewalks as stressed parents navigate a supportive good-bye. Enthusiastic volunteers bubble as they help people find the correct building in the maze of campus one-way and closed streets.

At 10, the Kansas Young Democrats are wasting no time discussing how to organize on campus this fall. In partnership with the state party and local groups like the Liberal Ladies and Democratic Socialists of America, 150 were gathered to try to answer that consistent question: Will Gen Z show up?

David Hogg, recently ousted as Vice Chair for the Democratic National Committee, speaks from stage at Pitt State University during an event hosted by the Kansas Young Democrats on Saturday, August 16, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Gathering the crowd into an auditorium, the emcee opened with remarks on the United States’ potential to be a great nation, should the republic entirely embrace the ideals of liberty embodied at its founding. Millennial Congressional candidate Jordan Herrera took the stage encouraging more mentoring, bringing young people along in their party and listening to and applying their input.

“Young people are demanding we lead with clarity and decisive action,” Herrera told the audience of precinct and party leadership gathered.

The emcee asked for those younger than 35 to stand, about 10% of the room rose. When an audience member requested similar acknowledgement for those over 70, more than half the room stood.

Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass was on the stage with a message for the younger generation in the room, asking they take it with them to their friends and peers. The daughter of a civil rights activist, she reflected on a moment in her youth when her mom encouraged the family to continue the fight for equity. To build on her generation’s progress rather than accepting their strides as enough.

She reminded her children that they couldn’t coast on the accomplishments of an earlier time. The laws of physics even against them, if they don’t create their own momentum the smallest force can stop – even push back – a coasting object. Standing before the audience that day, Repass implored the crowd to not coast, to actively get involved and to listen to younger voices as they work to build a coalition in support of American liberties.

With a roar of applause, she concluded and introduced the morning’s headline speaker: David Hogg. The Gen Z organizer and gun regulation activist strolled on to the stage, cooly and calmly grasping the microphone. The recently ousted former Vice Chair for the Democratic National Committee recounted how hard it was to be a voice in a room of leaders where no one else is under thirty.

“The biggest obstacle to success for our party – and I believe the best is yet to come – is that we’ve become the part of ‘we can’t,’” he told the packed house. “It feels like we’ve become the party of incrementalism in the face of atrocities that are happening and blatant violations of the Constitution. I’m tired of being the party of strongly worded letters.”

It’s a sentiment shared by many young activists across the Heartland. In Missouri, students at Mizzou lamented feeling overwhelmed by needing to survive while being asked to solve an issue they were handed as they became adults. In Iowa, where critical race theory was banned in public school curriculum, future lawyers are working with their teachers to ensure their peers graduate with the context they need to understand the moment.

In another Kansas college town, those who have been holding space and raising their voices in opposition to MAGA policies hope to see an influx of new faces and voices because they are also tired after a summer protesting in the sun. For 25 consecutive weeks, community members in Lawrence have gathered in their town’s center to protest and now they wonder whether the returning University of Kansas students will join their effort.

Community members gather at the corner of Massachusetts and Ninth in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, for a weekly hour of dissent. Nearly 200 Kansans come together in the college town each Sunday to picket, organize, and strategize while platforming issues for their neighbors and passersby. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

The day after the Democrats were planning strategy in Pittsburg, some who had been present in Pittsburg shared what they learned. The youngest discussed how to talk to their classmates. Millennials circulated a QR code for a signal group to plan a protest during an upcoming football game. A retiree handed out information on joining a direct action newsletter she’d built, aggregating the region’s protests and political movements into one place.

Nearing 1,000 subscribers, she noted a change of reception as more students returned to town. Anecdotally about 80% of her interactions through the summer had been positive, people enthusiastically taking the information and many following through on subscribing. Lately, though, she felt a swing to the inverse, with students greeting her effort with indifference if not disinterest.

For an hour, hundreds gathered along the roadway, overflowing from sidewalks and occupying any piece of spare shade on the four corners. From one side of the street Derek leads chants through a megaphone, under an American flag held aloft by Rose. On the corner opposite, his calls are met with a response amplified by the hundreds surrounding him and their own speakers.

Some brought sculpture and art projects masquerading as protest signs, others let their dissent be projected through performance. A 6-foot chicken made frequent rounds through the protestors, leaving many with a high five and the friendly conversation of whether they were an effigy of President Trump Always Chickening Out, or their own state’s U.S. Senator Roger Marshall. Senator Marshall has been avoiding his Kansas constituency lately.

One truck slowed and carefully revved their engine to spill black diesel smoke from their tailpipe onto a section of the crowd, taking particular interest in pausing at a group of disabled protestors in wheelchairs. Greeting the moment with a gentle call that they’ve seen worse and are going to stay, attention was returned to the ever-present honks and waves of encouragement by a majority passing through.

While returning students made their way to brunch, they walked through the crowd being asked by many to join. If they don’t have the time to stop today, please take this flyer for the next one. If they don’t want to carry something, just follow an organization on social media. Setting an easy path for however they want to find their way into the movement was clearly a goal.

“I think it’s time for some new leadership,” David Hogg told his crowd the day before. “The resource that Democrats lack more than anything is courage and competition. Comfortability does not spur innovation”

In Kansas, whether in party politics or direct action organizing, creating pathways for multigenerational coalition is top of mind. Across the Heartland, there are humans of all ages who are horrified by the loss of due process, federal government occupation of cities, the construction of internment camps in their states.

“We are here to do the hard work. We know why it matters,” Hogg reminded the crowd gathered in Pittsburg, pleading they platform younger voices as systems are broken.

Best known for capturing striking content from the frontlines of social movements, Heartland EMMY-nominated filmmaker and photographer Vince Chandler has spent 20 years creating art and documentary visuals across the U.S. They served as Communications Director for Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, and Vince has earned national recognition for their work as a visual journalist for The Denver Post. Vince was the principal cinematographer for the feature documentary film Running With My Girls, which premiered at the 2021 Denver Film Festival.

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What does resistance & resilience look like in the Heartland of America?

Sometimes it’s a protest outside an ICE detention center. Sometimes it’s a rural nurse explaining how Medicaid cuts will shutter the town hospital. Sometimes, it’s a law professor teaching systemic racism at a University in a state where CRT is banned in public schools.

As Trump’s second term unfolds — and the One Big Beautiful Act guts healthcare, empowers ICE, and reshapes American life — independent journalism is more vital than ever. However, the national press rarely shows up in the places where policy has the most impact.

We do.

These American Crossroads is a collaboration between Vince Chandler, Emmy-nominated visual journalist, and Yellow Scene Magazine, Boulder County’s only independent newsroom.

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