Demonstrators gather outside the Colorado State Capitol building in Denver on July 4, 2026, with an American flag flying in the foreground. (Photo by Finn Feldman)

On July 4, 2026, a crowd of about 50 people gathered at the Denver Capitol building. Unlike a typical Denver protest, this demonstration was organized and led almost entirely by young people.

The march was spearheaded by The Youth Coalition, a Gen-Z civic organizing group, in partnership with several local organizations including PULSE, Jews Against ICE, and People’s March Denver.

Sam Parker, 16, led the crowd in a series of chants that included, “ICE, ICE, Shame on you, immigrants are welcome too,” “From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is a crime,” and “Trump is in the Epstein files, Trump is a pedophile.”

Co-organizer Sam Parker (left), wearing a Keffiyeh and a patched jacket, rallies the crowd during the July 4th demonstration outside the Denver Capitol. (Photo by Finn Feldman)

For many of these young demonstrators, the current political climate carries a profound sense of urgency. Parker emphasized this momentum: “The youth [are] not gonna rest. We’re not gonna let shit happen to us, we’re not gonna be complicit.”

Parker co-organized the event alongside fellow sixteen-year-old Bre Kennedy, who planned the demonstration for July 4th specifically to challenge standard narratives surrounding the holiday. Kennedy emphasized that “no one is free until we are all free,” noting that this sentiment includes Palestinians and all other oppressed populations.

Co-organizer Bre Kennedy (center) marches alongside other demonstrators during the Youth Coalition protest in Denver. (Photo by Finn Feldman)

To build this crowd, the organizers relied heavily on digital outreach. Many attendees discovered the protest via Instagram while looking for a way to voice their dissent on the holiday, highlighting how social media has become a key tool to mobilize a younger demographic

A sousaphone player with the activist marching band Notes of Dissent performs (Photo by Finn Feldman)

As the demonstrators marched down 14th Street, cars raced by, honking in both support and annoyance. Music echoed through the streets as Notes of Dissent, a local activist marching band, accompanied the demonstration.

Seattle Kay (right) speaks to another protester, marked with a positive attitude while still chanting for political change. (Photo by Finn Feldman)

The band provided background instrumentation to the crowd’s chants and played tracks ranging from “When the Ants Go Marching In” to Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go.” According to their website, the collective aims to build solidarity across the Front Range, inviting community members to “dust off your old instrument and help us fight fascism with music.”

The protest retained some of the traditional joy of a Fourth of July celebration, balanced with sharp political critique.

“While we’re celebrating America, we are also fighting for America,” said 27-year-old attendee Seattle Kay, who described the atmosphere as both festive and purposeful. “We’re all out here getting to know each other and having a great time, but while also standing for the people who aren’t able to, and the people who are separated from their families.”

Protesters, including Seattle Kay (Center) march down 14th Street carrying a Palestinian flag and signs reading “Liberty & Justice for All” and “Convict, Impeach, Remove.” (Photo by Finn Feldman)

The sound of the demonstration even drew in passing residents. Xexal Night-Shade, 28, joined the crowd mid-march after hearing the music from their apartment.

Xexal Night-Shade marched through downtown Denver alongside other youth demonstrators after joining the protest from their apartment. (Photo by Finn Feldman)

“I heard the protest at my window, and I was looking for a protest to join today,” Night-Shade said, recalling how they quickly threw on their boots and ran down to the street.

Like many other attendees, Night-Shade had intentionally sought out a space to express political dissent on the holiday.

Beyond the immediate anti-ICE and pro-Palestine focus of the march, the crowd shared a distinct wave of optimism regarding local electoral politics. Much of the excitement centered on 29-year-old Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Melat Kiros, who recently unseated 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette in the primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District.

For the young organizers and attendees, Kiros’s primary upset represents a structural shift in political representation.

“[As young people] this is our future,” co-organizer Bre Kennedy said. “A lot of these older politicians or older people that are also fighting, they’re not going to live to see what we’re going to see in their own actions. Older representatives don’t have the experiences we have as kids to effectively voice how we feel.”

Kay echoed this sentiment, noting that seeing a woman in her 20s secure a major congressional nomination signals a broader trend of youth voter turnout and civic engagement. Kay expressed optimism about the rise of the DSA in Denver, citing the organization’s platform on universal healthcare and equal rights. However, Kay also emphasized that structural change requires a return to grassroots community unity. “Love your neighbor,” she said, urging a focus on mutual support despite political polarization. “They are trying to divide us, so the more that we let them divide us, the less we’ll be able to actually do.”

Nineteen-year-old MacGregor Lang, who spent the primary cycle canvassing for Kiros, stood at the front of the march. He views Kiros’s victory as a catalyst turning chronic youth pessimism into active urgency.

“This is our future,” Lang said, “it’s up to us to defend it.”

For Lang, meaningful political change requires individual courage and direct local action.. “Whatever you want in your life, take it,” he said. “And for me, that’s that’s taking action in my community: that’s standing up to oligarchy, that’s saying free Palestine, that’s saying we need a green new deal, and that’s saying fuck ICE.”

Lang raises a fist in the air with his back turned toward the crowd during the July 4th march. (Photo by Finn Feldman)

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On a hot June day, I sat outside with CU student Lily Dennis, the low hum of engines bouncing off the nearby road. The conversation was about Pride month and what it means during the Trump Administration. 

“I think that [Pride] is more important now than ever. To remember the history, especially as it’s being erased,” she said. 

In the past year and a half since Donald Trump took office, his administration has systematically rolled back trans rights and attacked the queer community. The military has banned transgender individuals from serving, made it “official” US policy that there are only two genders, threatened to withhold federal funds from hospitals that continue to offer gender affirming care for minors, and dismantled the 988 LGBTQ+ hotline for suicide prevention.  Despite this more than 500,000 people showed up to Denver Pride this year, and around 2,000 in Erie.  

“I didn’t really grow up knowing that I was queer,” Dennis told me. “And my family is not very accepting, so it’s been a struggle. To me, Pride is  an important part of who I am.” 

At Erie Pride, a young girl opens her arms as if in embrace, a Pride flag draped across her shoulders. Photograph by Luna Wolf/Yellowscene Magazine

Pride first began in 1969 after the Stonewall rebellion in New York City. Every June since then, people flock to the streets in cities and towns across the country, in celebration of the queer community. But for some, like CU student Criss Buzzalino, Pride this year is particularly important. 

“In the deep south, the Queer Community in my hometown is incredibly tight and incredibly strong,” he said. “We all have each other. We all have each other’s backs. […] There’s so many people who are afraid of being who they are, and coming together in the face of oppression and marginalization, especially because a lot of the South Carolina queer scene is people of color. It’s just such a diverse, incredible and strong group of people.” 

Ella Lee, a student at CU as well, told me that this year, Pride means a lot to her too.

“It’s an important act of resistance this year for me in particular. Showing up to events and being in my community means a lot more because connecting with other folks is scarier and harder than ever, with the way the administration has been attacking people,” she said. “It also means a lot to see other people that I wouldn’t expect showing allyship. It’s stuff like that that makes this month really important to me and for queer people in the community. Just knowing that there are people out there that still care and will show their support and will stand up for you.” 

When I spoke with Micah Caswell, the Director of Communications and Strategy at Rocky Mountain Equality, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group that organizes Pride events in Colorado, they told me that while the group didn’t yet have their finalized data collection on the number of attendees, they suspect there were more people at Pride this year compared to last. 

“I think that Pride has always been a time to come together, not just for the LGBTQ Community,  but also with our allies and our families who support us,” they said. “That’s really been highlighted for me in the Prides that I’ve attended this year and that we have organized. I think that seeing that is more important than it was a couple years ago. It’s hard to show up and be happy when we’re under attack, but we do it because we always have.” 

A group of people sits on the grass, mid conversation. At their feet, tubs of lemonade are resting next to colorful Pride flags. Photograph by Luna Wolf/Yellowscene Magazine

As reported in Out Front Magazine, there are a total of 17 Prides taking place across Colorado this year. “If Christmas is family, then Pride is like found family,” Buzzalino told me. “I get to put glitter on my face, wrap myself and my friends in a Pride flag, and go run rampant in the streets.”  According to the Human Rights Campaign, this year alone more than 75 anti LGBTQ+ executive orders have been signed. That’s double the amount signed last year. 

“I think that when a lot of people think about resistance and what that means, especially with what we see happening to us, it feels exhausting,” Caswell said. “I am really happy that as a community we have figured out that being ourselves unapologetically with each other in public spaces is resistance.”  

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When Jacob Giron graduated high school, he was shocked by the price of student housing  and tuition at the University of Colorado Boulder. Giron, like many prospective students in Boulder and East County, initially desired to attend CU Boulder. But CU and other public universities in Colorado enforce on campus housing during a student’s freshman year. So when Giron saw the tuition and housing costs that the University would require, he instead opted to attend Front Range Community College. 

The price for residence housing at Boulder ranges from $8,000-$10,000 per semester on top of tuition. “I remember looking at the prices of (living on campus), it became very inaccessible to me,” said Giron. “When I live close enough to drive to campus, why should I have to pay for a dorm?” 

Although Giron is satisfied with his university choice from a financial perspective, he has found that Front Range has not brought the same sense of community as a four-year university would. Lacking on-campus housing, a football team, and a vast range of clubs that would otherwise be found at CU, Giron finds Front Range missing that crucial experience in student involvement and social dynamics. 

“I want to go to a school with a lot of people. It makes it easier to find your niche, something that interests you,” he said. 

At Boulder, students are afforded more accessible student life opportunities, extracurriculars, and a surplus of amenities. For Giron, life at CU Boulder seemed to be a perfect fit. Yet financial barriers have increasingly made CU out of reach for Giron and many of other students.

  CU’s tuition has steadily increased seven years in a row. In 2026, incoming undergraduate students will face a 3% increase in their already substantial tuition. On top of that, students are charged fees for on-campus services such as recreation, transportation, educational resources, and athletics. For students, education at a large public university like CU Boulder comes with a looming financial burden: loans and student debt. Now, some are wondering if tuition and cost increases actually lead to improvements in education and the well-being of students. 

Max Harte, an out-of-state CU Boulder student from Texas, was aware of CU’s high tuition cost. For students who live outside of Colorado, tuition is approximately double the in-state rate. Nevertheless, hundreds of out of state students still find themselves drawn to the CU system.

Harte is grateful for the opportunity to study psychology at CU Boulder. They make an effort to attend all of their classes, noting the financial costs that their family has incurred for them to study. Nonetheless, Harte acknowledges a public university system that has become unattainable for many students purely due to cost. 

Buckingham Hall undergraduate student housing dorm at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) campus in Boulder, Colorado, with the Flatirons in the distance.

“The value of education isn’t valued as highly because it is so difficult, financially, to attain,” said Harte. “I have several friends (back home) that don’t go to college simply because they can’t afford to, not even for in-state schools, let alone out-of-state ones.”

Despite the increase in tuition for new students, Harte has not seen renovations within their department. Harte notes a lack of investment in student research opportunities that are crucial to secure an undergraduate psychology degree. The lack of investment has left some students struggling to secure them. Harte acknowledges that these students are missing out on a key component of attaining an undergraduate psychology degree from the school. On top of the disadvantaged students, Harte themselves have never been paid for any of the research which they have conducted. Some students, like Harte, are fortunate enough to still land a research opportunity. Nonetheless, they feel that the school should be utilizing students’ expensive tuition to ensure research success within the psychology department. 

“It shows what the university cares about, where they put their money, and it’s not toward the psychology department,” said Harte. 

The contrast between Harte’s tuition and the educational struggles within their department are stark. While they value their education in Boulder, Harte wishes that they could feel the impact of their hefty tuition bill in their day-to-day education. 

Giron and Harte’s experience with university tuition are not remotely unique to CU Boulder. Nearly every public university in the U.S. has steadily increased tuition over the last two decades. Understandably, these universities face increasing development costs and payroll for already underpaid educators. Nonetheless, these financial burdens are often offloaded onto students through a raised tuition and increased fees. Instead of incurring these costs, some Colorado students have opted for a different path in life. 

In Colorado, the popularity of community college is rapidly growing. From 2024 to 2025, data from the National Student Clearinghouse Project saw a 3.9% increase of enrolled students into community college. At the same time, the number of incoming freshmen at big universities in Colorado has fallen. The state’s public universities have experienced an enrollment drop of 0.5%, while private ones saw a drop of almost 9%. For some, tuition is expensive enough to rule out college altogether. For others, the high cost means sacrificing their top choices for whichever institution offers the best financial aid package. Many of Colorado’s student population simply take what they can get.

Mooji Boldbaatar graduated from the University of Denver in 2017. She mainly relied on scholarships to pay her way through college because, although she had lived in the U.S. since she was 10 years old, Boldbaatar was still classified as an international student from Mongolia. Due to her status, she was not able to receive adequate financial aid from a public university despite consistent academic success. The University of Denver, a private institution, offered her scholarships, and she ended up studying there instead. Originally, she wanted to attend Colorado School of Mines to study chemical engineering.

“I got into Mines, and then I couldn’t attend because I couldn’t afford it,” said Boldbaatar. “The lack of finances dictated which school I could go to.” 

A lack of aid was not the only barrier for Boldbaatar in obtaining her college education. Out-of-state tuition was worse. She researched and applied to out-of-state universities and, similar to DU, she was able to receive financial aid from some of the schools. But it wasn’t enough; the financial burden of an out-of-state school wasn’t worth the acceptance. 

“I really wanted to study elsewhere, but in order to save on living expenses, I had to stay in Colorado. It was another difficulty for me,” said Boldbaatar. 

Boldbaatar, like numerous other students, finished her degree from the University of Denver while working almost full-time hours. There was also the cost of room and board at the University; the high costs forced Boldbaatar to live with family off-campus. The result was a daily commute of about an hour and 20 minutes. For her, it was the only way to financially sustain herself while pursuing her education. 

After she graduated, Boldbaatar used her college degree to kickstart a professional career working with other young students. She is now a program manager with the Mongolian School of Colorado. While not directly related to her studies, she values the knowledge and experience that her education gave her. Boldbaatar credits higher education for her work ethic and time management. 

“Getting my education opened up doors that I had never really thought about,” said Boldbaatar. “The most valuable part (of my education) was the mindset that I got from it.”

But for many other young Coloradans, a college degree isn’t always attainable or valued. Are tuition, student loans, and lifetime debt worth it for the degree? While people like Max Harte have the incredible opportunity to attend a four-year public university, for others like Jacob Giron, a community college degree was the only option. Academically, Giron has been happy with his experience studying at Front Range Community College. But as a whole, he was looking for something more out of his college education—and, due to the increasingly unaffordable tuition bills at prominent state universities, Giron can’t help but feel that he may have missed out on a valuable experience. 

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The post Priced Out the Quad: Colorado’s Vanishing College Dream appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Muslim Votes forum, April 6th, 2026

Earlier this month, Colorado Muslim Vote, an organization dedicated to mobilizing and empowering the Muslim community across Colorado, organized a gubernatorial forum with Senator Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser. However, Bennet’s team soon made a series of demands, including refusing to allow any questions about his record on Gaza. They also asked for a list of questions in advance, raised concerns over security, and indicated that the forum seemed unsafe and not worth attending. After CMV refused to censor the forum, Bennet withdrew, offering a private meeting with Muslim leadership instead, which the group declined. 

In a statement, Bennet’s spokeswoman, Jordan Fuja, said that Bennet remains deeply committed to having meaningful conversations with the Muslim community. “As we received details about the forum, it became clear that this event would not lend itself to a genuine dialogue where Michael can listen to the community and provide the clarity the people deserve.”

Senator Michael Bennet pictured. Photo Courtesy of United States Congress

Bennet, like Phil Weiser, is the son of Holocaust survivors, and has issued statements regarding the “unacceptable humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. However, Bennet has not supported prior congressional resolutions limiting arms sales to Israel. 

In 2024 alone, the US government sent at least $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel; since then, politicians across the nation have tried to navigate the growing criticisms from their own voters about American support for Israel. As the death toll in the Palestinian territories has mounted, public polling has shown a sharp decline in support for Israel among US voters. According to Pew Research Center data reported by the Union-Bulletin, national favorability has eroded from 55% in February 2022 to just 37% today. 

The decline is sharper among democrats across the country, including in Colorado. The Colorado Democratic Party adopted a new policy platform at its assembly that recognized Israel’s genocide; it also called for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a US based lobbying group that spends heavily to support pro-Israel candidates, to register as a foreign agent under federal law. 

AIPAC has spent millions of dollars supporting pro-Israel candidates across the country and trying to prevent politicians critical of Israel from getting elected. The group’s focus “is to ensure that America provides Israel the resources it needs as quickly as possible so it can permanently dismantle Hamas” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told Bloomberg. In pursuit of these goals, AIPAC has funded candidates on both sides of the aisle: including more than 100 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election. 

Senator Bennet is among the many candidates who have accepted millions from AIPAC. According to Track AIPAC, these contributions to Bennet’s campaigns total approximately $3,176,314. Due to this context, people viewed his absence from the forum as a symptom of the deepening rift between the Democratic establishment and Arab and Muslim voters over the party’s refusal to confront Israel’s actions. 

As The Denver Post observed, Bennet’s absence sent a clear message: he “was more afraid of the optics of fumbling tough questions about Israel’s war tactics […] than the optics of agreeing to attend an event and then not showing up for the community.”

Azra Taslimi, a Civil Rights and Employment Discrimination attorney who moderated the forum, emphasized the necessity of direct engagement. “The forum was a space for our community to have the ability to confront and ask questions of these candidates,” Taslimi told Yellow Scene Magazine, adding that the goal was for candidates to realize “this is a community that showed up.”

Pictured Azra Taslimi moderates conversation with Julie Gonzales and Melat Kiros at the Colorado Muslim Vote Governor’s Forum April 5, 2026.

For Taslimi, trust is a currency earned through consistency and that public officials falter when they engage only on their own timelines.

“It becomes a problem when officials only choose to engage […] when it’s convenient for them,” she noted.

Drawing on her legal background, Taslimi views these community spaces as essential safeguards for democracy. While she acknowledges that politicians may lack perfect answers, she maintains that sincere engagement is the baseline for credible leadership, especially as recent political shifts, including the second Trump presidency, highlight the urgent need for stronger democratic accountability.

Colorado Muslim Vote released a press release regarding Michael Bennet. “There are families across Colorado who have spent the last two years watching the news from Gaza with a particular kind of dread. The dread of people who know the faces in the rubble, who light candles for cousins and aunts and childhood friends. Those families deserve a governor who will, at a minimum, look them in the eye. Who will sit across a table, hear the questions, and answer for his record – even imperfectly, even painfully. That takes courage. Senator Bennet has demonstrated that he doesn’t have it.” 

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The post The Empty Chair: Senator Bennet Pulls Out of CO Muslim Forum appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Update: This article was updated to clarify that the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa (Nguzo Saba) are expressed in Swahili, a pan-African language.

This year was my first Christmas alone. My son and sister live overseas, and I ended a long relationship in July 2024. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been giving myself space to process that grief, and for the most part, I’ve been okay being alone. But nothing sharpens that awareness quite like the holidays.

Rather than staying home through them, I asked my friends in Denver if it would be appropriate for me to attend the opening celebration of Kwanzaa. The answer was immediate and clear: of course.

We recognize that we are on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ute, Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, and Lakota peoples. We honor the Indigenous communities who have lived on, cared for, and stewarded this land for generations, acknowledge the histories of displacement and broken treaties, and recognize the ongoing presence and contributions of Indigenous peoples today. Photo Credit: Shavonne Blades

I drove down from Erie to Denver and joined the lighting of the 12-foot kinara at the Grande Kinara gathering in Five Points, where the candle of Umoja was lit. Cha’Rel CJ Ji’Cole sang the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, and Ryan E. Ross (Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado), delivered the Land Acknowledgement. Libations were offered as part of the ceremony, poured intentionally into a living plant in honor of ancestors and the responsibility carried forward.

From there, we headed to the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance School, where the celebration continued.

As people milled about in the lobby, I was greeted by MiDian Z. Shofner, of the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership. She asked what had brought me to Kwanzaa. My first reaction was surprise. Me? You want to hear from me? She did. And when I thought about it, the answer was simple. I was there because I had found myself part of a community I’d grown close to, rooted in relationships, trust, and shared presence, and because I wanted to learn about Kwanzaa.

Inside the theater, the room was full. Traditional drumming and dance filled the space, and the energy was unmistakable. The Black National Anthem opened for a second time, this time led by Chrissy Grant of Spirit of Grace, and the audience rose together, standing shoulder to shoulder and singing in unison. Elders, adults, and children stood side by side, not as spectators, but as participants in something collectively held.

Lighting the Kinara. Photo Credit: Jeff Fard

Children were centered throughout the evening. They moved easily among elders and adults, watching closely and joining in as the evening unfolded. The dances that followed carried both joy and discipline, rhythm and intention. Drumming and movement spoke to one another as a shared language, and elders were honored as living teachers whose presence anchored the room.

Djembe drummers. Photo Credit: Jeff Fard

I felt grateful to be welcomed into a space where I could learn about the meaning of Kwanzaa, and I’m very glad I made the drive down to be part of it.

Closing celebration. Photo Credit: Shavonne Blades

I’ve been familiar with Kwanzaa in the past, but only in a limited way. I didn’t know all the words, and I didn’t have the seven principles memorized. But I am learning. During the evening, one gentleman remarked that if everyone practiced these principles more widely, the world might look very different.

One of the people whose teachings helped ground that learning is Jeff Fard, known as brother jeff, a longtime Denver cultural educator and community voice. I saw his post about opening night, and then a comment beneath it that immediately got under my skin. It dismissed Kwanzaa as illegitimate, reduced it to its founder, and framed it as something suspicious rather than cultural.

I responded publicly, pointing out that if we invalidate cultural traditions based on the flaws or violence of people tied to their origins, many mainstream holidays would not survive the same scrutiny. Columbus Day centers a man responsible for enslavement and mass violence. Valentine’s Day and Father’s Day were shaped through deeply patriarchal institutions. Even Christmas, as it is commonly practiced, carries the legacy of imperial Christianity and conquest. Yet those traditions are rarely dismissed outright. Black cultural expression is treated differently.

As I paid more attention, I began seeing the exact same language appear verbatim under other public posts about Kwanzaa. It was an unfortunate, familiar ecosystem of right-wing Christian nationalism and online harassment.

Not long after, I saw brother jeff post a reminder not to argue with people who are not interested in understanding. Instead of engaging the backlash, I chose to listen more closely.

During Kwanzaa, brother jeff shared a seven-day lecture series, one for each principle. One in particular, Day 4, which centers on Ujamaa, stayed with me.

In that lecture, Jeff talks about money not as an abstract system, but as a tool. He explains how our current economic system is built around scarcity, the idea that there is never enough, that competition is inevitable, and that accumulation by a few is the end result. Ujamaa offers a different framework, one rooted in the belief that there is enough for everyone when resources are shared, circulated, and cared for collectively.

Cooperative economics, in this context, is about how money moves, who controls it, and whether it serves community stability or constant extraction. Jeff places this within a long history of systems designed to drain labor, land, and wealth from Black communities, while also noting that a scarcity-based economy ultimately distorts relationships for everyone. It teaches people to see one another as competitors instead of collaborators and separates them from the value of their own labor and land.

Ujamaa challenges that logic. It asks what becomes possible when communities invest in one another rather than in systems that profit from disconnection. It reframes money as a means of sustaining life, not measuring worth.

Jeff also addresses a common misconception that Kwanzaa exists to pull people away from Christianity. In practice, Kwanzaa is secular and observed by people across many faith traditions, including Christians. It is often celebrated alongside Christmas, not in opposition to it. What it insists on is cultural self-definition, the right to name values, priorities, and futures outside systems that were never neutral to begin with.

If you’re like me and know very little about Kwanzaa, brother jeff, and MiDian Z. Shofner have shared photos, videos, and reflections on each of the seven days. Their posts offer context, history, and lived meaning, and provide a deeper understanding of how Kwanzaa is practiced and carried forward in community.

Grande Kinara, Five Points. Photo Credit: Jeff Fard

What are the Seven Days of Kwanzaa and what do the words mean?

Kwanzaa is observed over seven days, from December 26 through January 1. Each day centers on one of the Nguzo Saba, or Seven Principles. The principles are expressed in Swahili, a pan-African language spoken across East and Central Africa. It was chosen by Maulana Karenga to emphasize a shared African identity rather than a single ethnic group. Swahili was also widely used in African liberation and cultural movements during the 1960s, when Kwanzaa was created.

Umoja (Unity) emphasizes togetherness within family and community.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) focuses on defining oneself and shaping one’s future.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) calls for shared problem-solving and mutual care.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) centers on shared ownership and circulation of resources.
Nia (Purpose) asks participants to consider their role in building and restoring community.
Kuumba (Creativity) encourages expression that leaves communities more whole than we found them.
Imani (Faith) speaks to belief in people, in struggle, and in the possibility of justice and dignity.

Taken together, the seven days ask not just what we believe, but how we live those beliefs. Not only during Kwanzaa, but in the ordinary choices we make about community, care, and responsibility, knowing we all share the same origin.

The post I attended my first Kwanzaa appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

We are two days out from Christmas, and it does not feel like it.

If you are feeling a little down this holiday season, you are not alone. On both a local and national scale, this year’s holidays feel strained and harder to settle into. Christmas has long been the dominant holiday in the American cultural imagination. Corporations roll out glossy ad campaigns, storefronts glow with red and green, and for a brief stretch the country appears to move in sync. Even for those who do not celebrate Christmas itself, the season has traditionally carried a sense of shared pause and collective ritual.

That sense of unity has become increasingly rare. As monoculture continues to fracture and Americans struggle to feel aligned on much of anything, the holiday season has remained one of the few moments where a shared national rhythm still exists. This year, even that feels disrupted. For Coloradans especially, the season has continued a year defined by dislocation.

According to CPR, Colorado experienced its second-latest first snowfall since 1882. This December has broken multiple heat records, ranking among the warmest in state history. The familiar markers of winter are missing. There have been fewer snowy mornings, fewer opportunities for sledding, fewer moments that anchor the season in place. These changes are not flukes. Climate watchdogs have long warned that as climate change accelerates, Colorado will face worsening heat, drought, and wildfire risk. What feels unusual now is quickly becoming the new normal.

Climate change is often discussed in terms of sweeping systems and future projections, but it also produces quieter losses. Fewer white Christmases. Fewer snow days. And fewer children who will have memories of snow angels and warming cold hands around a mug of cocoa.

The broader national mood has only deepened the dampening of the holiday spirit. In the past two weeks alone, the country has watched a string of violent and disturbing events unfold. On Saturday, Brown University students Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed in a mass shooting on campus that left nine others injured. Just days later, MIT physics professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro was killed at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Then came the killings of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, who were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of murder. In response, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social mocking Reiner’s death, suggesting it was caused by his past criticism of the president. The post drew condemnation across the political spectrum. When shown a screenshot of the post, 72 percent of Americans said it was inappropriate, while just 17 percent said it was appropriate.

Much has already been written about how the United States has entered a new era of normalized violence, both political and otherwise. Mass shootings and high-profile killings have become grim fixtures of the news cycle. Still, there is something particularly jarring about this level of brutality unfolding during a season traditionally associated with warmth, reflection, and goodwill. Rather than lowering the temperature, national leadership has often chosen to inflame it, reinforcing a sense that even the holidays are no longer insulated from political cruelty.

Economic pressure has further dampened the season. Prices continue to creep upward, making holiday shopping more difficult for families already stretched thin. Analysts predict those costs will keep rising in the year ahead. Despite repeated rhetoric about economic relief and support for working families, the numbers tell a different story.

With the country facing the strong possibility of another government shutdown, meaningful legislative intervention appears unlikely. While the holidays have never been a time when political conflict disappeared, the combination of economic strain and relentless political hostility has cast a long shadow over this year’s celebrations.

There is data to support the sense that this season feels heavier. A Gallup poll released yesterday found that just 24 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, while nearly half describe current economic conditions as poor. Another poll suggests that this sense of political and economic doom is taking a measurable toll on Americans’ mental health. The share of people who say they are experiencing holiday season stress in America this year has risen sharply compared to last year, with much of that anxiety centered on affordability. Polls cannot capture every emotion, but they point to a public that feels anxious, strained, and worn down.

So what do we do with a holiday season that feels off-kilter?

Despite the doom and gloom, reports show that many people still experience an increase in mood during the holidays. That joy has not disappeared entirely. Coloradans do not need to turn away from the realities unfolding around them, but those realities do not need to consume every moment either. There is still joy to be found in celebrating with family and friends. Holding onto those moments may be the only way to enter the new year with any sense of steadiness at all.

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

 When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant. Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192.

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds Becoming a sustaining supporter today for $8 a month!

The post A Strange Christmas in an Unsettled America appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The 2026 Best of the West Poll Is Open (and it’s the real write-in ballot)

Some “Best of” lists are curated. Ours isn’t.

Yellow Scene Magazine’s Best of the West is Boulder County’s only true Readers’ Poll — because it’s an open, write-in ballot. No drop-down menus. No prompts nudging you toward the usual suspects. Just you telling us, in your own words, who actually deserves the crown this year.

And yes, the 2026 Best of the West Poll is now open. You’ve got one month to vote.

What makes Best of the West different?

A couple things we have to say out loud, because the internet has made everything weird:

1) You don’t pay to “get on the list.”
We don’t sell placements, and we don’t stack the ballot. Our journalism standards apply across the board, including this poll. If a business wins, it’s because readers wrote them in, not because someone bought their way into a drop-down.

2) We don’t phone in the winners coverage.
When the votes are counted, we spend real time making sure each winner blurb reflects the actual locale that won and is interesting to our readers, not copy-pasted fluff. Best of the West is part community record and part local love letter.

How to vote (and how to get entered to win prizes)

Voting is simple:

• Start voting now and you’ll be entered to win prizes from Yellow Scene.

• You must complete at least 20% of the poll to qualify, so the ballot stays meaningful. FYI: Junk is tossed.

• We do not sell your name to outside sources. Period.

Vote here!

Want to rally your community to write you in?

If you’re a local business, artist, nonprofit, or organization and want people to remember to write you in, use our shareable tools:

Find 2026 Best of the West promotional collateral here.

Past winners

Want to see how the community voted in previous years—and what makes Best of the West worth reading?

2025  | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018
2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013
2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008

Need to talk to us about Best of the West?

Questions, advertising, sponsorship, or logistics: advertising@yellowscene.com

The post Best of the West 2026 Polling Is Live appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Back in August 2004, at the campus of Cal Poly Pomona, a crowd pressed shoulder to shoulder around a projector screen witnessed what would become one of the most replayed moment in competitive fighting game history: Evo Moment #37. Japan’s Daigo Umehara, down to a pixel of health in the Street Fighter III finals, survived what most players believed was an unblockable super from Justin Wong’s Chun-Li. Instead of folding, Daigo hit a string of frame-perfect parries, timed to each strike of Chun-Li’s iconic flurry, turning the tables, and snatching victory.

Daigo Umehara executes the legendary “Evo Moment #37” parry against Justin Wong’s Chun-Li during the Street Fighter III finals at Evo 2004.

For players inside the Fighting Game Community (FGC), this is a legendary moment. But outside the scene, tournaments like these often fly under the radar, and even when people have heard of e-sports, that doesn’t mean they have the access, support, or space to take part.

That idea, exposure versus access, came up repeatedly when I spoke with Donald Prellwitz, Longmont Library’s Device Specialist and the organizer behind something entirely new for the city: Longmont’s first-ever e-sports tournament. For Prellwitz, this small local bracket represents a first step toward equity in a space where opportunity is often gated by cost, equipment, and geography.

The idea began with Prellwitz’s long-standing love for gaming competitions.

“E-sports have kind of been a part of my life for a very long time. I started working in libraries back in 2015. This festival, in specific, has been a brainchild or passion project of mine in libraries for quite a while,” he told me.

His motivation came from what he noticed again and again: a gap in who gets to participate.

“A lot of it stems from experiences in libraries that showed a gap in equity when it came to certain opportunities. E-sports, especially, being one of those opportunities that is just missed out on by so many people simply because they don’t have access to it.”

Planning the event required a lot of passion and thoughtfulness.  According to Prewllitz, “To plan this event we needed […] a committee of about thirteen individuals,” Prellwitz explained. “Our goal was to figure out what was possible. As part of that planning, we looked at racing games, fighting games, 5 v 5 MOBA games, so we looked at a lot of that.”

The team needed a game that was realistic for staff to run and accessible to as many people as possible. That meant something one-on-one, easy to learn, and playable on almost any device.

Brawlhalla fit perfectly.

It’s a simple, fast-paced fighting game that’s completely free and works on phones, tablets, consoles, and computers. For a public library trying to build equity in a competitive scene where gear can cost hundreds of dollars, Brawlhalla checked every box.

This was Prellwitz’s first time running a tournament on this scale, and the process came with lessons. One of the surprising challenges was just getting the word out.

“We weren’t sure what the program would be because similar programs aren’t really that common, especially with the library demographic,” he said. After adjusting messaging and outreach, turnout for the second round of sign-ups grew far beyond what the team expected.

The players were learning too. Many had never touched Brawlhalla before registering.

“Most of our players didn’t know about Brawlhalla before the actual tournament. So, about a month or two before the tournament started, players started downloading the game and learning characters.”

Even so, the matches quickly showed depth.

“A lot of players had their own unique playstyles. We didn’t have players come in to just play a game. Players came in with intent, purpose, and a practiced regimen that they were trying to implement in matches.”

For Prellwitz, the biggest surprise wasn’t the skill of the gameplay. It was the connections forming in real time.

Players from the 13U and ABS divisions share their reflections following the 2025 Level Up Longmont Finals, held on September 27, highlighting standout performances and memorable moments

“Watching the players communicate during these matches was really refreshing to see,” he said. “A lot of them were talking to each other during the matches. And, after the matches, they continued playing just for fun. A few players ended up talking to each other, exchanged information with each other to potentially meet up later. It was really heartwarming to see that there is a gaming community in Longmont, that there are other people who share the same interests.”

For many people, the idea that fighting games build social skills seems counterintuitive, but anyone deep in the FGC understands it well. These games can foster a deep sense of respect and connection among competitors. Each opponent is a new puzzle, a new obstacle, a new temporary teacher. In good-faith competition, the same rival you’re trying to defeat often becomes the person who teaches you how to grow.

Where It Goes From Here

The tournament concluded earlier this fall, but Prellwitz is already thinking about what comes next.

“I would love to see tournaments that go intra-library or maybe you have organizations that have teams and then they send them to the library to compete. I would love to see it grow into something that outgrows us and flourish.”

A Brawlhalla tournament might seem small, but the doors it opens aren’t. Evo’s biggest prize pool came from MultiVersus, Brawlhalla’s closest cousin, with $100,000 up for grabs. Street Fighter 6’s latest Capcom Cup handed out a $1 million first-place check.

For Longmont, this first bracket is a rare chance to tap into a competitive world that’s usually expensive to break into. It is only up from here.

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant. Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192. 

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds

The post Leveling Up: Longmont’s First E-Sports Tournament appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A Colorado nurse has won a landmark discrimination case against one of the nation’s largest healthcare corporations, after a federal jury concluded she was targeted due to her race and then wrongfully blamed for a dying patient’s death and prosecuted for manslaughter.

In August 2025, a jury in Joppy v. HCA-HealthOne LLC et al found that The Medical Center of Aurora (TMCA), a Magnet-designated hospital owned by HCA Healthcare, discriminated and retaliated against registered nurse DonQuenick Joppy. The verdict: $20 million, including $15 million in punitive damages.
For Joppy, the win is more than personal. “Future generations need us to tell the truth,” she said. “There needs to be change in healthcare.”

A Pattern of Escalating Harassment

Joppy, a 39-year-old ICU nurse, began working at TMCA in 2017. Within a year, she said the work environment shifted sharply. The lawsuit described “numerous microaggressions and acts of harassment” from charge nurses who publicly berated her, questioned her competence, and scrutinized her for errors they overlooked in white colleagues.

One charge nurse, Michael Oleszczuk, allegedly made repeated comments questioning her critical thinking and organizational skills: remarks Joppy and her attorneys argued were rooted in longstanding stereotypes used to undermine Black professionals.

The hostility intensified while Joppy’s complaints to supervisors went unaddressed. Her attempts to transfer out of the ICU were blocked. Instead, on the very morning she was scheduled to interview for a new position, TMCA cancelled the interview and placed her on a Performance Improvement Plan filled with what she said were “unsubstantiated” claims from the same supervisors she had reported.

“The only thing I could’ve done differently was not be there,” Joppy told Yellow Scene Magazine.

In May 2019, the discrimination collided with a medical crisis.

A 94-year-old man arrived at TMCA in septic shock with multi-organ failure. Although he had a DNR order, the family consented to intubation and temporary life-support while deciding next steps. When the physician, Dr. Ahmad Alsaleem, told them the patient had little time left; they agreed on palliative care in the ICU.

TMCA was dangerously understaffed that night. Joppy, working alone with multiple high-acuity patients, was instructed to prepare the ICU and carry out the patient’s end-of-life transition. A respiratory therapist was unavailable, so Joppy asked for guidance and, according to the lawsuit, was walked through turning off the ventilator. Dr. Alsaleem later disconnected the machine, but failed to remove the intubation tube. Another nurse cuffed the tube before the patient died of natural causes, as confirmed by his death certificate: septic shock, pneumonia, bowel infarction.

Despite that, TMCA launched an investigation and fired Joppy. The hospital reported her to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which charged her with manslaughter, negligent death of an at-risk person, and neglect.

A year later, the state dropped all charges “in the interest of justice,” a phrase the Attorney General’s Office uses when it determines allegations cannot be supported. In effect, the state acknowledged there was no case.

“It was a consuming fire,” she said of the ordeal. 

What happened to Joppy is not an isolated incident, experts say.

Previous surveys found that Asian, Black, and Latino nurses are far more likely than white nurses to experience racial microaggressions. Six in ten nurses reported facing discrimination from colleagues; nine in ten said it harmed their mental health. Yet few felt safe reporting it.

The American Nurses Association reports similar findings: 63% of nurses say they have personally experienced racism at work. The ANA has acknowledged its own historical role in perpetuating racism “through past actions and omissions.”

Jerry Soucy, a friend of Joppy’s and longtime advocate for safe nursing practices, said the industry lacks accountability. “In discussions about nursing and racism, there are a lot of apologies, but there is no accountability,” he told Yellow Scene. “It is only through accountability that real change can happen.

HCA Healthcare, TMCA’s parent company, faces other discrimination allegations. In 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued HCA and two of its divisions for race, national origin, and age discrimination after an Asian American employee said a promotion was denied in favor of a younger, underqualified white candidate. When he complained, the EEOC alleges, HCA retaliated with write-ups, beratement, and eventual termination.

“If This Was Done to Me, What Would They Do to the Black Patients?”

On August 19, 2025, jurors ruled unanimously that TMCA’s treatment of Joppy constituted both racial discrimination and retaliation for protected complaints. They awarded $5 million for emotional distress, reputational damage, and suffering—and $15 million to punish what they determined were intentional, malicious actions taken with “reckless indifference” to her civil rights.

Joppy’s attorney, Jennifer Robinson, told reporters the size of the award reflects “the egregiousness of the hospital’s conduct.”

TMCA denies wrongdoing, calling the lawsuit “without merit” and characterizing Joppy as “a disgruntled former colleague.” After the verdict, HealthOne said it “strongly disagrees” and plans to appeal, insisting that “Ms. Joppy’s employment was terminated because of the actions she took, and those actions alone.”

Through it all, Joppy has insisted she bears no malice toward her former colleagues.

“I am not sharing this story to shame anyone,” she said.

But she is blunt about the cost of silence: “This country doesn’t believe racism is an issue,” she said. “If this was done to me, a registered nurse, what would they do to the Black patients?”

She says she never plans to leave nursing. “I’ll never stop being a nurse,” she said. But she refuses to pretend the system isn’t broken.

“I don’t want our children to be upset with us, because we did not do this [push for change] now, when we had the opportunity.

Jerry Soucy and Don Quenick Joppy, share a moment after securing legal victory. Photo originally shared on social media via Soucy’s LinkedIn profile

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant. Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192.  Become a  Sustaining Supporter today!

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds

The post The $20M Verdict That Gave One Nurse Justice appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

How many times have you sat down for a few drinks with friends and during the course of the conversation said “We should do something about that” only to let the thought fade by morning? When a group of former employees of The Boulder Abortion Clinic got together to mourn its closing last summer, those words became a promise. The clinic had served the community for 50-years and was one of the last in the country to offer later-term abortion care. Rather than let that legacy disappear, the group vowed to continue the work themselves.

Just five months later, they kept that promise as, on October 14, the RISE Collective opened their doors to their first three patients. 

Alicia Moreno, Executive Director of the RISE Collective, said “When the clinic closed we all said we don’t wanna let this go. So the question was who would be interested in helping put together our own thing?” Without hesitation the doctors, nurses, and support staff, almost to a person, said yes. In total, thirteen members of the old clinic came together to form the RISE Collective. Each one is an owner with an equal vote in the operation and future planning.

“We already were so well versed in what we knew how to do. We had worked together for so long and in really incredible ways,” Moreno said. “Everything else was really just procurement.”

Two organizations spun out of that effort. The RISE Collective offers reproductive care, services, and patient support. The Boulder Collective is a 501c3 created to secure funding and a permanent home for RISE and other care-focused organizations. The funds generated from the building ownership will be used to establish a “Forever Fund” for patient support.

Margie Williams, Board Chair of the Boulder Collective, explained “The Boulder Collective came out of the need for RISE to have a safe and secure place to start working. Based on the history of the way that clinics can, and have been, treated in the past they needed a space where their existence would be secure and safe.”

The Boulder Collective is led by five board members and an advisory board. They are working on obtaining funding through grants and donations.

While Moreno and team worked on getting the new clinic set up they had an opportunity to reflect on how best to serve patient’s needs going forward. 

“We had been doing this work for so long, but in the same way, we wondered what […] needs to be evolved,” Moreno said. They spoke with clinics across the country to learn from their models and assess unmet needs. Moreno noted “We really saw an opportunity to update things that had been created forty, fifty years ago.”

As planning for the new clinic continued, they also listened intently to the needs they were hearing from the community. Moreno said “We got a call from a regional hospital who said ‘Hey our administration is pulling back with us being able to offer gender affirming care to people 19 and under. Would y’all be willing to step up and provide some of this care or provide us with space so that we can provide it, so that care doesn’t have to end?’” 

That’s just one of the new  services under consideration along with the return of contraceptive care. “We did that many years ago but stopped,” Moreno said “but a lot of people are going back to states where they’re not even sure if they’re gonna be able to get reliable contraceptive care. So we’re gonna start addressing that here and now.”

Since announcing the new clinic, Moreno said one question comes up again and again: Why Boulder? “We’re all community members,” she said “Plus there is a historical place carved out in Boulder for this type of care, it’s in our city charter. All of those things are what made us want to stay and continue providing care here.”

Like Journalism Like this? Consider becoming a Sustaining Supporter, and we can cover even more.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

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The post Former Boulder Abortion Clinic Staff Rebuild as the RISE Collective appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Updated to reflect that Denver’s crowd numbers may be higher.

From Denver to Erie to Longmont, Coloradans turned out in the tens of thousands for No Kings Day, standing together against authoritarianism with laughter, costumes, and conviction.

No Kings Day, Denver, Oct. 18th, 2025, photo by Shavonne Blades

NO KINGS DAY: DENVER + ERIE

By Shavonne Blades

It was a day of love and joy, filled with color, laughter, and purpose. When it was time to name the photo files, I couldn’t help but giggle at the titles I needed to choose: Cookie Monster, a unicorn, a T-Rex. It fit the spirit of the day. But beneath the smiles, the message was clear: Americans are rejecting the authoritarianism of the current administration.

As a local indie, we couldn’t be in every town that had a protest (there were so many of them), but we did make it to Denver and Erie, and photographer Kenneth Wajda covered Longmont for us.

Colorado State Capitol, No Kings Day, Oct. 18th, 2025, photo by Shavonne Blades

Across the Front Range, the energy was undeniable. In Denver, more than 25,000 people are reported to have turned out (with some stating it could have been as high as 40,000), exceeding the June No Kings Day. We know the march stretched for several blocks. Denver had a visible police presence, but the day remained peaceful throughout the protest. In Erie, at least a thousand Erieites turned out, and in Longmont, an estimated 6,000 joined in, an impressive turnout for a town of about 100,000.

No Kings Day, Erie, CO, Oct.18th, 2025, photo by Shavonne Blades

In Denver, we didn’t see many pro-Trump counter-protesters, and there weren’t many in Erie either—but in a smaller town, even a handful stood out more. Police presence was constant at the Erie protest, with officers repeatedly driving by, but they too remained peaceful. One man tried to start a fight and even put his hands on a protester, but the situation stayed calm as the protester walked away rather than react.

The most unsettling encounter came with two teenage boys proudly wearing MAGA hats. They were polite and cordial; that wasn’t the issue. What was troubling was their message. One of the boys asked why people were so focused on Trump, and the crowd told him it was because he’s been eroding the principles of democracy. He asked how Trump was doing that. When they explained Due Process, he asked, “Does everyone get Due Process? Even illegal immigrants? Pakistanis?”

It was a question that revealed more than it asked. The exchange was deeply troubling—not because of malice, but because it showed how far we’ve drifted from understanding the very Constitution so many claim to defend. Two elderly veterans, patient and kind, stepped in to continue the conversation. They’d seen this country fight fascism before. Let’s hope their words reached them.

It’s a strange balance; joy in the streets, gravity beneath it. It took Hitler just 53 days to dismantle Germany’s government. Trump has not succeeded yet, but the United States is slipping faster down the slope toward fascism.

Protests light the spark, but the real work begins when the marches end — in the daily, determined defense of democracy.

No Kings Day, Longmont, CO, Oct. 18th, 2025, photo by Kenneth Wajda

LONGMONT: RISES UP

By Kenneth Wajda, Photojournalist

The start time for the No Kings protest in Longmont was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. By noon, protesters were already assembling at 6th and Main, and others were beginning to fill Roosevelt Park.

No Kings Day, Longmont, CO, Oct. 18th, 2025, photo by Kenneth Wajda

By early afternoon, the crowd at Roosevelt Park—which had grown significantly—turned and marched toward Main Street, right past Colorado Chapter 434’s monument to Purple Heart veterans.

Along Main Street, for the next two hours, there was a steady cacophony of car horns, plus waves, peace signs, and thumbs up raised out of car windows and sunroofs to show support for the protesters. Some drivers even created their own signs and joined in with those who lined the main street from below 5th Street past 6th Street and up toward Longs Peak Avenue.

Crowds at the last No Kings rallies were estimated at 5,000 people. This event appeared even better attended—perhaps 6,000—many carrying signs and standing up to a Republican administration they feel has gone too far and is on the brink of destroying American democracy.

There was a small police presence. Two officers were parked next to the Pumphouse Brewery and were seen chatting with folks while standing beside their cruisers. The crowd was peaceful and respectful. At one point, a police cruiser drove down Main Street and received a thumbs up from protesters in the crowd.

The signs were direct, clever, and sometimes funny. The main message: America got rid of its last king in 1776, and there isn’t going to be another one. They want this administration to back off the ICE raids and military presence in U.S. cities. And they want Donald Trump to know they are not going to let an authoritarian regime rise in America without a fight—without standing up for democracy.

No Kings Day, Longmont, CO, Oct. 18th, 2025, photo by Kenneth Wajda

As the Purple Heart monument reads:

“My stone is red for the blood they shed. The medal I bear is my country’s way to show they care. If I could be seen by all mankind, maybe peace will come in my lifetime.”

No Kings Day, Denver, Colorado, Oct. 18th, 2025

Photos by Shavonne Blades

No Kings Day, Longmont, Colorado, Oct. 18th, 2025

Photos by Kenneth Wajda

No Kings Day, Erie, Colorado, Oct. 18th, 2025

Photos by Shavonne Blades

Like Journalism Like this? Consider becoming a Sustaining Supporter, and we can cover even more.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

Plus you get the hard copy delivered to your home—reading is good.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Tigers and Lions and No Kings, Oh My! The Front Range Rises Up for No Kings Day appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Phil Caragol says his newest book will attempt to bring his two clashing identities together. “This [book] shows a different side of me. And for people who went to CU, they’ll get some real first-hand account of what it was like to go to CU and live in Boulder in the first half of the 1970’s.”

There’s the local celebrity, “Buffalo Phil,” a viking-helmeted CU fanatic. And then there’s Caragol the writer, now stepping into the spotlight with the publication of his memoir-in-vignettes, “The Blunder Years.” Reconciling those two personas wasn’t easy. At times when he looked in the mirror and saw his black and gold beard, his beer koozies, and eye makeup, it was difficult for him to feel like a ‘real’ writer. “I asked myself at one point, is this a good look for a serious author?” he laughed.

The book darts from his childhood on Long Island through Boulder’s hippie heyday to the beginning of his ad-man years in New York City. Written in short, skit-like buzrsts, the style mirrors the “scatterbrained” label teachers once gave him. In it, Caragol recalls the national unity he felt as a child cracking after JFK’s assassination, and how the upheavals of the ’60s echo the uncertainty of today.

His first attempt at writing, a sprawling dystopian thriller, collapsed under its own weight. “I got maybe about a third of the way through and there were so many subplots, so many characters that I just got tangled up in it,” he said. “I stepped back and I said, okay. Mark Twain once said, ‘write what you know’. What do I know? I know what it was like growing up.”  

That decision gave him both purpose and momentum. “Our lives are so serious right now,” he said. “My readers helped me […] to realize that people are remembering how to laugh again when they read this book.”

Caragol has been making people laugh since his ad-agency days in New York and San Francisco. He once launched The San Francisco Comicle, an absurdist annual parody of city life that ran for 15 years and even landed him on the local evening news. After three decades in big cities, he and his wife Susie returned to Boulder, her long-promised reward after his 25-year “urban tour.”

What he found upon his return was a town very different from the “magical” Boulder of the 1970s. “Everybody got along,” he said, “we were accountable. We were responsible. I think it may have been a bubble.” Today, he worries about congestion, sameness, and less room for civil dialogue.

Even with his worries, he still thinks that Boulder County has much to offer, “Culture, check. Creativity, check. Those major careers, check. And work-life balance, check, check, check, check, check.”

Even as Buffalo Phil, he’s kept his independence, politely rejecting CU’s invitations to make him an official mascot. He wants to keep his own schedule and engage with the team on his own terms with a beer in hand. “I’m indie,” he said.

Caragol hopes his October 22 Boulder Bookstore reading can help fuse his twin personas permanently; the crazed buffs fan with a dyed beard and the satirist with the sharp eye and alligator grin.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post “Buffalo Phil” Caragol: From CU Superfan to Memoirist appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

When I was younger, I read a book by a renowned Civil War historian. I remember thinking John Brown was an outright crazy man—at least, that’s how he was described in the book. Now, 166 years later, his deep devotion as an abolitionist is finally recognized through a different lens.

The way Brown’s legacy was distorted then echoes the way history is being manipulated now. The current administration is seeking to sanitize the nation’s past by erasing stories of struggle, resilience, and resistance.

It took 150 years after the 13th Amendment to open the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. That was more than 50 years after the end of Jim Crow and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. And now, in Project 2025’s America, even these hard-won rights are under attack.

Jeff Campbell proves that no one person can resist alone, but that each act we take makes a difference.

Jedidiah Blackstone is a different kind of performance—part history lesson, part poetry, part storytelling, and part hip-hop. It defies the boundaries of a traditional play, blending poetry, storytelling, song, and dance into something unforgettable.

It features an all-star cast: Jeff Campbell, playing one part as himself, but through the persona of Jedidiah Blackstone; the indomitable Erica Brown, whose pipes sent chills down my spine; joined by her daughter, Merrian Johnson, herself a commanding singer; and dance performances by DeAndre Carroll, and Jared Hill, with DJ Musa mixing the sound. Shayla Micole directs the production, and Joseph Graves Jr. created the set design.

Billed as The Dark Side of The West, we learn the stories of remarkable Black pioneers from Colorado, Clara Brown—who the administration is currently trying to erase from the National Museum of African American History and Culture—along with Jeremiah Lee, Lorenzo Bowman, and Ramblin’ Roy.

These are more than characters in a performance—they are real people from American history who rose up against all odds, including slavery, and embodied Black excellence long before the phrase existed.

Jeff Campbell, Emancipation Theater, Jedidiah Blackstone

There are only eight more shows, with the run ending on October 5, 2025. Tickets are $30, and every purchase supports Black arts.

But you’re also learning the real history of our state and country. This matters to all of us, no matter the shade of our skin. The soul of the United States is at a crossroads: do we return to the brutality of the past, or continue the fight for liberation for all?

History lives not just on stage but in our public spaces. Earlier this year, Clara Brown’s highway marker in Gilpin County was taken down—a plaque that, even in its original form, reduced her freedom to a metaphor about striking gold. Today, a petition calls for its return, with words that finally reflect her real legacy. Add your name here, but first go get your tickets. There are only eight performances left, counting tonight.

The post Jedidiah Blackstone: Storyteller. Poet. Hip-Hop Historian appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The room was tense, despite the late hour energies were running high and colliding as voices mixed and ideas flowed. The overlapping noise intermixed conversations, the group exchanging their thoughts in a twining mix. A ringing crescendo culminating in the decision to designate a remote control the talking stick.

Slowed down, the group of leaders listened intently as individual voices rang through sudden silence, discussing how to get their friend out of jail.

Seven in the room had been arrested earlier that day at the Dirksen Senate Building Cafeteria, one remained behind bars for allegedly resisting arrest during the nonviolent protest they’d staged. They had travelled to their nation’s capital to spend a week raising their voices for the Heartland, sent by their neighbors in Kansas to be heard.

The Free State Advocates, a coalition of political action groups from the Sunflower State, were going to be sure they were.

“I feel like in my local group, there’s only so much you can do holding a sign and attending a rally, or making phone calls, and we’ve done a lot locally but we don’t feel heard,” says Michelle Jones. “I wanted to make a statement not just for myself, but to show the people in my local area that you can do big things. You can be scared, and it’s OK to be scared, but it’s simple actions and it’s daring moves. I want to be able to give a voice to the voiceless to those who are afraid.”

One day earlier, they were a group of virtual strangers, many meeting for the first time as they boarded planes or arrived at Washington, D.C. hostels. Some flew, others drove their trademark Freedom Van over a thousand miles filled with supplies sent from home. Protest signs, a sizable collection of homemade buttons, stacks and stacks of zines to be distributed, hundreds of handwritten notes from Kansans to their Senators scrawled on yellow notecards.

Arriving in Arlington, Virginia the first task in getting to know one another was dinner. Heading to the grocery store they pulled the list of dietary restrictions and shopped cautiously, adhering to meet the group of fourteen’s needs with as broad a selection as possible. Plant-based dairy free cheese was found while ingredient labels read twice to be sure they were free from mushrooms.

The care taken in the early stages reflects the intentional, careful consideration that had united these organizers, activists and fueled the trip to D.C. Weeks earlier, an article discussing the initial decision by President Trump to deploy National Guard troops into Washington was shared into a statewide group chat. Shelby Hermosillo, from Salina seized her Jerry Maguire moment and asked who was going with her.

“It all just happened so fast, it was kind of like ‘are you kidding me?’” Hermosillo told Yellow Scene, reflecting on the quick build and immediate reception of her idea. “It was my last straw, because we’d been standing out there protesting every week, doing the things, making yard signs, doing all these little things and as much as it matters I didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere. I was ready to go to DC and face it. I messaged the group chat and just asked ‘anyone want to go to DC? Let’s rally together, let’s go.’”

Soon, the group had leadership from twelve statewide organizations equaling fourteen people were confirmed. Reigning the momentum, the group of experienced organizers transitioned from ideation to activation. Immediately, fundraising began and plans were made.

A rental home in their budget was found only miles from the Capitol, one they could all share. Virtual meetings were set to share personal experiences and plan for everyone’s role. For some, this would be their first time traveling to the east coast, their experiences building movements at home were extrapolated and applied. Representatives from Leading Kansas, Midwest Unrest, Sunflower Coalition, Noisy but Necessary, Kansas Impact Coalition, Central Kansas Activists, Arc of Justice, Franklin County Action Network, KC Women’s Action Collective, 50501 Kansas, Boots on the Ground, Indivisible, and “likely more,” coordinated and collaborated, concluding in an action plan.

“It was just inspiring, ” Malice, an organizer in Kansas City for KC Women’s Action Collective, told Yellow Scene. “We had so many people from different backgrounds, from different areas with different levels of experience and reasons for being involved. We had queer people, we had disabled people, we had young people, we had old people, seeing people that were so diverse coming together for the same purpose is what we want to see around the country. This was an example that it could happen.”

“I’m biracial, and looking back in history at the civil rights movement, we’re following the pathway that has created change, movement, for the rights we have now. I felt as though I was doing a very similar thing protesting in this way, causing civil unrest like my grandparents and great grandparents stood with in the 60’s.” says Olivia Philips, who was one of the eight arrestees on September 10. “ We come from the center of the country and we’re not getting heard. I feel like it’s monumental for us to travel all the way to D.C. and make a stand like this.”

The first question to be answered: what would they like to accomplish? They wanted to carry the voices of their neighbors, the messages from the signs which surround them in their separate corners of Kansas, to their elected leaders. They wanted to confront the National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They wanted to speak directly with their representatives in Congress. Some were willing to risk arrest to take a stand.

“I’m not the leader of any particular organization, I’m just somebody who shows up and jumps in where I see something that can be done,” Sara Gillum, of Lawrence, Kansas, said. “If you had told me that I would be doing this four months I would’ve wondered who you were talking about.”

Her family, her husband and children, encouraged her to attend despite her reservations. Once she was in, Gillum was all in.

“If you’re feeling helpless and messed up, to create something out of nothing is such a good way to make sure you don’t feel hopeless, to fight back against feeling inadequate,” she reflects. “Especially with resisting this whole situation, to feel like you’re just a drop in an ocean, to have something tangible to hold is progress.”

For those who were fired up to take the legendary John Lewis advice to get into good trouble, a new partnership arrived a week after word spread of their impending adventure. Popular Democracy, a nationwide group who “unapologetically demand transformational change” approached Leading Kansas team leader Josh Fredrick asking if they wanted help.

Leading Kansas is a nonpartisan group of Kansans dedicated to holding elected officials accountable to the people, they stage regular readings of the U.S. Constitution in a weekly rotation outside of their Senators’ offices and coordinate town halls with officeholders. Planning to travel with the newly forming Free State Advocates, Fredrick brought the offer to the group.

“I wasn’t even initially a part of the group, to be honest. I saw the GoFund Me being advertised, reached out and asked if I could come, I’d like to do anything I can do to help” Fredrick says reflecting on how he joined the Free State Advocates coalition. “I had someone approach me at a protest and it really was a game changer. We wouldn’t have been able to bring as many people as we did without them, getting fourteen people there.”

They now had the institutional knowledge and organizational support to take their action to the next level. The first stop after arriving in D.C. would be a training on staging nonviolent civil disobedience on federal property, including what to expect as Capitol Police affix zip ties or handcuffs. To be sure their efforts wouldn’t go unnoticed they’d participate in a press conference with a member of Congress and activists from across the country sharing the stories of what brought them to this moment.

For the first night, though, ahead of tomorrow’s excitement the attention was on what was for dinner. The first four off the plane, shopping to fill the fridge for the week and paying so much attention to allergy concerns, landed on a spaghetti dinner. For this group from Kansas, of course corn would also be included.

Sara Gillum, of Lawrence, Kansas, finishes preparing a spaghetti dinner on her first night in Washington, D.C. with the Free State Advocates. Free State Advocates is a Kansas grassroots network of powerful leaders and activists traveling nationwide to uplift Kansans & fight for human rights. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Around the dinner table that evening, conversation turned to the events ahead. Concerns were shared about the consequences of their actions, hopes exchanged about how they could have impact. There to fight against proposed cuts in the proposed appropriations bill before Congress to Housing and Urban Development, personal experiences were passed around. Some had experienced varying levels of unsheltered homelessness, all carried the weight of housing insecurity.

At eleven, the stove was restarted and the meal reheated in anticipation of the Freedom Van’s arrival. Making the 22-hour trek from the midwest, four more Free State Advocates arrived at the house bringing a fresh spark to the evening, unloading their supplies for the week and chattering hurriedly about next steps as they fixed their plates with the hot meal ready for them. Only staying to introduce themselves and to fill their stomachs, they soon departed to meet the other half of the group in downtown Washington, where they were staying a stone’s throw from the Capitol.

In the morning, with the excited sense of a child’s first sleepover, the house buzzed with an eager energy. Today was the first day of a long week of coordinated actions, ranging from nonviolent civil disobedience to scheduled meetings with their lawmakers. A cold breakfast was foraged by those for whom coffee alone didn’t suffice, and with the sun barely breaking behind the grey, raining clouds they set off.

Walking into the basement of a church, it could be Bingo night. Rows of folding tables and chairs are arranged before a small lectern, the walls lined with additional seating, spare a/v equipment, and a short buffet where breakfast was being laid out. In minutes, the quiet space is transformed to a boisterous, busy meeting room. From across the country – from Colorado, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, and of course Kansas – activists were learning how their day would go, through conversation, instruction, and role play.

Introductions are brief, there’s a loaded agenda and getting to the heart of the planned action was centered in the palpable urgency. Today, the group was gathering to fight for housing. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that under the U.S. House’s proposed 2026 spending bill, 181,900 fewer households would be served, while under the Senate’s proposed bill 107,800 fewer households would receive rental assistance. The loss of these vouchers would disproportionately affect older adults, people with disabilities, and families with children.

Highlighting the need for the average American to take a united stand against the removal of the social safety net for the nation’s most vulnerable populations, a member of each state represented was selected and asked to speak. With rain still pouring outside the basement windows, the scheduled press conference was moved at the last moment from the Capitol grounds to the church basement.

Eyes turned to watch members of the media stream through the door, placards distributed to the activists as they gathered in a semi circle under a large banner set behind a lone microphone. A murmur of gasps and a wave of excitement rippled as their keynote speaker entered the room: Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Talib, the first Palestinian American elected to federal office.

“In my community the housing has gotten so bad,” Congresswoman Talib told the gathered crowd. “You’re here to tell people ‘you’ve got us in survivor mode, and we’re tired.’ We should be able to thrive, we shouldn’t have to worry like this. I don’t care who is in the White House, this housing crisis has not been addressed with the urgency that’s needed.”

Congresswoman Talib continued her rally cry, highlighting policy positions she has introduced to assist with home ownership, food and medicine assistance, and better education opportunities. She passed the mic to speakers from Philadelphia, PA, Little Rock, AR, Oakland, CA, and – of course – Salina, Kansas. Shelby Hermosillo approached the lectern taking a deep breath.

Shelby Hermosillo, of Salina, Kansas, speaks following Congresswoman Rashida Talib during a Popular Democracy press conference before staging an act of nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol. “I had this weight over me, knowing that I was leaving my family back home, losing money because I’m here to do this, but it matters more than making sure we had a check at the end of the week,” Hermosillo said. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

“This comes from the heart,” she started. “A year ago I had a great life. We were living life comfortably, and then life happened and it wasn’t. We started getting behind, and we got so far behind on our rent and behind on our bills that we could never catch up. Our electric got shut off. Our gas got shut off. Our internet got cut off. Our kids couldn’t play the games that were the only distraction from what Mom and Dad were going through. Having to watch our kids watch their Mom and Dad cry together because we lost our home…and now fighting with HUD.”

“This fight is personal for me, I speak for many people I know and love who are also going through the same thing, as embarrassing as it is to admit my own story I hope it can help bring awareness and help others find hope and stand with us,” she concludes as the crowd around her closed in embracing the Kansas mother and chanting to answer the call, find dignity for all.

Fired up and ready to go the group split into two, some headed to occupy Senators’ offices demanding they recognize the needs of their constituents and some headed to the Dirksen Senate Building to disrupt a quiet lunch cafeteria.

A packed room of tables, the sounds of cutlery scraping on plates while smells of pizza and hamburgers waft through the air, office staff, lobbyists, and lawmakers sit together to eat. Sharing space and talking in low voices, this is a moment to pause from the day’s stresses and find some nourishment. Suddenly, voices start ringing across the room shouting that housing is a human right.

Deploying two large pop-out tents, representing the shelter that so many Americans find from harsh outdoor conditions while living unhoused across the country, the activists sat down making noise and sharing their stories in a united voice. Within minutes, Capitol Police had surrounded them, warning that if they didn’t desist they’d be detained. After a third warning, they began to arrest the group of fourteen people from across the country, many strangers to one another only a few hours earlier, now united in their cause.

Becky Norlin was the last person removed, and as she was pulled from the cafeteria she found every camera she could, being sure her voice was clear. For her effort, she was given an enhanced charge for resisting arrest, the only member of the group who wouldn’t be processed and released that day she’d spend the evening in a jail cell in D.C.

Gary Phillips, of Salina, Kansas, raises his fist overhead while surrounded by Capitol Police arresting his group for staging a nonviolence sit-in in the Dirksen Senate Building Cafeteria. he Free State Advocates travelled to Washington D.C. to join Popular Democracy for an act of civil disobedience protesting proposed cuts to the Housing and Urban Renewal in the recently proposed appropriations bills. Congress has until September 30 to reach a temporary funding agreement to avoid a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

The decision would alter the plans for the Free State Advocates, forcing them back to the drawing board for the next day’s planned protest. Suddenly, they had to offer court support.

“I am from the heartland of America, the middle of America, the line in Kansas and I want the world to know that there is a spark in the middle – even – of the United States,” Norlin told Yellow Scene following her release. “I am in love with the people in my country and my community, and the people that I work with every day. This was a no-brainer for me.”

Knowing that their peer would not be proud of them pausing, the Free State Advocates decided to continue with their efforts to meet with law makers and continue to strive toward equitable policy decisions benefitting their midwest neighbors, meeting their needs.

The next day, after a short break in the hot late-summer afternoon sun, the swampy humidity forcing a stop for water and some shade, the Kansans mount their scooters and head off toward the White House. The only evidence they had been there: a single homemade zine left tacked to the wall they’d been resting on, waiting to be found and read.

Access to medical care, cuts to education, the loss of SNAP benefits, and an impending cut to housing assistance compounding their concerns and pushing a ripple of anticipatory anxiety about whether their voices would suffice with their Senators, they headed back to Capitol Hill, where a majority of the group had been detained and charged fewer than 24 hours earlier. With a meeting scheduled with Senator Jerry Moran’s office, they decided to attempt to drop-in with Senator Roger Marshall and their members of the House.

“If you knew what was going on, you would be fighting for us,” said Norlin, who would not be making the trip with the group because of a personal ban from the property stemming from her additional charges. “We’re not gonna stop, and we could travel all the way to D.C. because we have a wonderful team of people in Kansas that we represent who got us here. We’re trying to sound the alarm bell, wave the flag.”

Only hours before they’d been in the D.C. Municipal Courts, providing support for the final member of their group who had been held in jail overnight. They had travelled across the country to their nation’s capital city to raise a united voice, bringing to the forefront of national politics their crisis in the center of the country.

The Free State Advocates travelled from House offices to Senate offices, popping in to ask to talk with their leadership or aides. In Congresswoman Sharice Davids’s office, they were allowed a comfortable impromptu meeting with Senior staff who heard feedback on the needs to protect immigrants, the poor, and the queer community.

“Right now, the only people they’re listening to are the people who can drop a dime and fly across the country on a moment’s notice and that doesn’t represent the majority of American people,” says Josh Fredrick. “If that’s all they’re listening to, that’s all they’ll know. We need to make sure that the underrepresented has a voice in this conversation.”

In Ron Estes’s offices aides met the group with a sense of reservation, asking them to state their issues and were quickly asked to depart. For their meeting with Senator Moran’s staff, they were brought to an internal conference room where they sat around the table discussing concerns about National Guard deployments to Wichita – where the crime rate is four times worse than in D.C. – about education, and about preservation of the federal safety net.

Jesseka Greene speaks with Congresswoman Sharice Davids’s staff in their Capitol office, where they were allowed a comfortable impromptu meeting with Senior staff who heard feedback on the needs to protect immigrants, the poor, and the queer community. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

“I’m the only trans member of the group, I need to push my voice just as much as I’m helping to push everyone else’s,” says Jesseka Greene, from Abilene, who travelled with the group to advocate for special education funding. “There is no difference between my civil rights and your civil rights. Some people feel uncomfortable with me, but that’s their deal and has nothing to do with me. In Moran’s office, I felt heard. I felt the emotional response I got when I got into the details of my experience as a trans woman looking for a job, after a lifetime of struggling through school needing more support.”

Following what they saw as a successful day on Capitol Hill, where some members of Congress gave them time to talk and others left them feeling unheard and frustrated, the group paused for a human moment. Finding a Thai restaurant, they took a moment to celebrate Becky being released, and group member Mary’s birthday. Around the table, stories were shared about the excitement of participating in civil disobedience which resulted in arrest and hope was eschewed that not only could they individually have impact but that their efforts could inspire their neighbors at home to follow their lead.

Becky Norlin smiles during a pause in conversation at a dinner celebrating group member Mary’s birthday and Norlin’s release from police custody. Eight of the Free State Advocates were arrested the previous day and released in hours, Becky was held overnight on additional charges of AOP Resisting Arrest. Arraigned the next day she was released to an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd for her action. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

After dinner, they weren’t done. With such limited time in the capital city, there was little rest or recovery to be found in the week. Not with work to be done. The final day of the 30-day deployment order originally issued by President Trump and the sun now sinking below the horizon, the group readied themselves to again hit the streets. They were going to get first-hand experience of night time in what they called “occupied D.C.”

In a silent city, absent from the normal late-night clamor of lobbyist cocktails and tourists, they rented scooters and bikes and set out. Rolling across the streets, their eyes peeled for ICE vehicles or armed Guardsmen, there was a tense sense of unease. They were not certain what they would find, and they were most certainly not in Kansas anymore. MAGA Republicans had rallied outside the White House earlier that day, with J6 activists leading the charge for further liberation for those who supported the administration.

All was quiet, though, and hours later as the Freedom Van returned to bring them back to their rental their attention was now on the next morning and their final protest action: guiding their legislators back to heartland value. In classic Kansas style, they’d be doing it by building a yellow brick road for them to follow home.

Jesseka Greene, Christie Peterson, Michelle Jones, Sara Gillum, and Miranda Bachman (L-R) work to construct a yellow brick road, built with “bricks” carrying messages from Kansas constituents, to bring to their representatives in the U.S. Senate. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

For weeks, they had gathered hundreds of handwritten notes on yellow note cards asking Kansans to share what they’d like their lawmakers to focus on. Healthcare, housing, humanity, the topics ranged far and represented the red state’s people’s priorities. Some included asks to end the genocide and occupation in Palestine, others called for protection for immigrant workers. At daybreak the work was begun to build the road.

50 feet of “road” was made by laying the cards as bricks across cloth, something easy to roll up and carry to the Capitol. The Free State Advocates headed back to The Hill for the third straight day carrying the concerns of Kansas, off to see the wizard. Debuting the reference to Dorothy’s iconic pathway, they took a group photo and spoke to tourists and curious passersby about their project before beginning its rapid deconstruction to deliver the notes to their Senators.

Jesseka Greene and Christie Peterson were selected to represent the group in the offices.

“People on the coast tend to have more power, because of access. They are closer to where the decisions are being made, I think here in the middle we have to raise our voices really really loud to be heard. I don’t think the plight of the farmers is being heard by politicians on the coast.” Peterson, who is a State Organizer for Kansas 50501, and had been arrested at the Dirksen Senate Cafeteria only days earlier, told Yellow Scene. “The call is for people who believe in upholding the Constitution, ending executive overreach, maintaining the three coequal branches of government, and equality for all. As far we’re concerned these should be no-brainers.”

Their first stop would be Senator Moran. Entering the office with a shaking, calm voice, she explained the yellow note cards came from constituents in Kansas asking for their Senator to be heard. She played a video of the yellow brick road being constructed and displayed at the Capitol, explaining that this won’t work if it’s just a cool video – they need people to join the call and they need their representatives to hear them. Within minutes, a silent alarm had been pushed and she found herself again surrounded by Capitol Police.

“It was like a gut punch. The fact that they couldn’t even talk to me, or tell me that they’d like me to leave the office… I was talking to them so reasonably and as a constituent, to have them call the police on me really felt like feeling the voices of Kansans to their office was somehow a threat,” Peterson reflects. “They did allow me on my mission to continue my mission of bringing the voices to Senator Marshall’s office.”

Christie Peterson, of Kansas 50501, talks with Capitol Police outside of Senator Roger Marshall’s office. They had escorted her to deliver messages from constituents after being called to remove her from the office of Senator Josh Moran moments earlier. The Free State Advocates had carried hundreds of handwritten messages to their Senators from neighbors in Kansas, written on yellow paper and briefly turned into a yellow brick road, hoping to lead their representatives home to heartland values. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

That office was locked and the door remained unanswered. Christie signed the guest book outside, leaving a note promising to mail the Senator his collection of cards, thanked the officers for their personal escort through the building, and departed.

“I wanted to go into this with an open mind, I wanted to meet with other organizers and learn what next steps could be,” Miranda Bachman, of Salina, told Yellow Scene after the week’s events. “I was really happy with being able to spread our message and there’s no way that [Senator] Marshall didn’t know we were out there.”

Since the event, Senator Marshall has responded to press inquiries spinning his constituent’s messages asking for attention to be paid to their values as threats of political violence.

“I think it’s important for people to realize that as red as some of these states or cities vote, there are people out here who didn’t vote for this,” Bachman continued. “Medicaid cuts are really going to hit rural Kansas, and as we feel this we’re going to be more in your face. I think that’s what we need, it’s important to write your legislators and call them, but they’re not listening. We need to stay peaceful, but speak with a loud voice until we’re heard.”

“You’re capable, you can do it,” Malice said after returning home already planning the next direct action in her hometown of Kansas City. “Organizing in Kansas isn’t the same as organizing in large cities like Chicago or New York, but I don’t want anyone to think that’s a reason to not do it.”

The work that could be done now done, the group retreated to their shared temporary home for a final evening of reflection. Sitting together while the Freedom Van was packed, they stayed up late into the night talking about what they felt they’d accomplished, discussing lessons learned, and sharing ideas for what to do next. Some went to bed as the clock ticked past midnight and others swapped stories as those who had driven started to ready their departure.

“It was a little hard to say goodbye to each other, especially recognizing that we may never be in the same room again,” said Josh Fredrick, looking back at the sudden end and departure after three days of intense direct action and police interaction.

With promises that they’d do all they could to build on their momentum, tears were shed and embraces held for more than a few beats. In the dark of night, the first group started their trek back to Kansas with Becky Norlin starting the van’s engine and taking the wheel. They’d return, and they’d do it with more of their neighbors.

This November, with a shared pulse from the Heartland, the Free State Advocates plan to bus hundreds of Kansans to Washington D.C. carrying their demands and raising their united voice insisting to be heard.

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.

______________________________

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.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post 8 Kansans Arrested, 3 Days of Protest in D.C. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The sun set hours ago. Despite it being a Sunday night, the coffee shop crowd continues to sip their hot beverages, smoke cigarettes, and chat amongst themselves. Their energy ripples through the dark sidewalks where people walk to the bus stop, glancing at their phones as they head to their evening’s next destination. Just down the street, a small group of 20-somethings are gathered on a bar patio, their excitement palpable, chattering away below billowing Black Lives Matter, Trans Pride, and Progress Pride flags.

Only blocks from a quiet residential neighborhood, separated by an active railroad track, in the Rust Belt city of Cleveland, they were there for an evening of art, community, and political discourse. As the first sounds of the show start to drift past the security at the door, the group disappears inside the venue, No Class.

Cleveland’s second-best gay bar, the space’s dive-y aesthetic and all-black sticker-covered interior sets the expectation immediately that you’re there to see a punk or metal band on stage. Any other night, you probably could, venue owner Emma Jochum has a lifetime of experience booking and producing shows for bands who play what she calls “extreme music.”

Tonight, though, Cleveland’s queer scene is here for a drag show. Ostensibly set to celebrate the birthday of host Bram Stroke-Her, you’re asked at the door to make a contribution to TransOhio, an organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and gender nonconforming people in the Buckeye State.

Drag performer Homer E. Rodick points to the sky while show host Bram Stroke-Her faces the audience during a performance raising funds for TransOhio at No Class in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller re-established Cleveland as a prosperous city of wealth during the second Industrial Revolution, building the city in his image of splendor while creating distinct divides between the baron class owners and the workers who generated his fortune. Like other industrial cities in the region, it has felt the impact of the departure of manufacturing, slipping into disrepair bearing signs of dilapidation.

Clevelanders in this eastern gateway to the Heartland insist, however, that their city is worth fighting for. Cognizant that they’ve been left picking up the tab for political corruption, they see the wealth gap that fuels the profits of billionaire developers and energy conglomerates, while leaving themselves and their neighbors behind. Recently, there has been a push back at the continued exploitation of the lakefront midwest metropolis, as the people work to build community first campaigns and organizations to reinvigorate and revitalize their town from the grass roots.

To do that, it takes people. Those people need the place to gather safely. At No Class, they find solidarity in a space where art and conversation can thrive. Existing for years as Now That’s Class before Jochum took ownership, the space organically transformed from crust punk hovel to its current existence as No Class, what can only be described as a gay metal bar. Show attendees may not know it when they walk through the door, but they’ve entered a political space.

No Class owner Emma Jochum speaks with people at her bar during a drag performance benefitting TransOhio on Sunday, September 14 in Cleveland, Ohio. The metal and punk venue hosts queer performances and politican functions, as well as local and nationally touring music acts. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

“It’s really hard to make people care, and I just care,” Jochum says, sitting on the venue’s back porch moments after finishing a board meeting with a local community development corporation. “Trying to get other people to give a shit about stuff has been a struggle, but we’re working on it.”

Tonight, the effort to combat ennui would be through drag. Stroke-Her produced their birthday show with the TransOhio fundraiser attached and invited queens and kings to take the stage – and microphone – advocating for their rights, to discuss political violence, and to keep the community organized. The sounds of bumping dance music pulsed through the doors to the quieting avenue outside, while inside cheers erupted and joy was shared.

No one can enter this space without feeling the impact of local politics. Naloxone hydrochloride is available at the bar, a brochure rack near the restrooms is laden with notices for upcoming mutual aid group meetings, protest and direct action flyers adorn the wall. The drag show will obviously bring its own messaging of liberation and resistance, and on nights when heavy metal or punk rock acts take the stage canvassing and campaigning will be entwined.

“A lot of metal dudes are not into politics at all, or if they are, they’re into the wrong politics,” Jochum continued. “I’ve definitely caught some heat for being public about my opinions but ultimately, I don’t care. We do a lot of extreme metal, black metal and stuff, and there have been a few times where I didn’t vet the bands properly and had to cancel a gig.”

Platforming voices she feels need to be heard isn’t the only direct action the bar and venue owner takes. Serving on the Northwest Neighborhood CDC, covering Cleveland’s Edgewater and Gordon Square neighborhoods, is where she sees her impact the most. Combatting gentrification while advocating for community-driven growth through affordable housing and locally-owned business anchoring their neighborhood, she makes the time between her day job and No Class duties on the evenings and weekends to lend her voice.

Knowing she can’t do it alone, she utilizes the platform she’s built in No Class to raise the voices of local leaders, political candidates, and issues organizers. In June, her bar hosted a Punk is Political meet-and-greet for city council candidate Tanmay Shah. An Indian immigrant, union organizer, lawyer, and truck driver, Shah is a democratic socialist with popular support who has spent his fifteen years in Cleveland defending tenants against unethical landlords in housing court and organized a union at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.

Hosting canvass launches and candidate meet-and-greets isn’t enough for Jochum, though, she wants every person who passes through her venue to remember that punk rock is most certainly rooted in politics. In the months to come, as city and state elections near, she intends to host candidates like Shah and local organizers like Justin Strekal on-stage during shows, between sets, to tell the moshing crowds where else they can direct that energy.

“When we have bigger shows, bigger punk shows or even bigger drag shows, where I know that people give a shit about politics and will sit and listen, I want to get people on stage in the middle of the show and hopefully introduce a wider audience to candidates, let them hear what they’re running for and why and hopefully mobilize some more voters,” Jochum says. “It’s dangerous, and it’s hard, and it sucks a lot, but it needs to be done and the work is important.”

In Vice President JD Vance’s home state, where President Trump won by twelve points, organizing for progressive issues and candidates can be an uphill journey. The community identifying and supporting a safe venue for that work is important, and whether it was set up with intention, or completely by accident as is the case with Emma’s No Class, they fill a vital role in red states. She stresses the importance of not waiting until you’re told to do something, or think you have all the resources, but working with what you have, mobilizing, and getting to work.

Tonight, on an otherwise innocuous Sunday evening, the crowd came together to cheer on drag performers, to laugh after a week fraught with national stories of targeted violence and fear, and raised more than $500 for an organization which will continue to carry that message. Tears were shared, proverbial cups filled, and through joy and celebration of life, their mission continued.

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.

______________________________

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.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Punk Rock is Political, Cleveland’s Gay Metal Bar Won’t Let You Forget appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The rows of chairs at New Hope Baptist Church rang with calls of “amen” Tuesday night, yet the gathering wasn’t a worship service. It was a rallying cry. Last night, community leaders announced plans to sue the University of Colorado and back Regent Wanda James as she launches a run for Congress.

During a town hall hosted by the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance and Colorado Black Democrats, speakers pledged to take legal action on behalf of Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, which they say was disenfranchised by the university’s sanction of James. James, the first Black woman elected to the CU Board of Regents in 43 years, vowed to fight both the censure and the broader culture she described as hostile to Black voices.

“I was elected by 211,000 people,” James said. “Yet seven white regents decided I didn’t have the right to sit at the table. I’m not backing down. I’m not going anywhere. When life gives you lemons, you make lemon drop martinis. Tomorrow is my birthday. And on my birthday, I will be running for Congressional District 1.”

The censure stemmed from a July vote by the Board of Regents following James’ criticism of “TEA on THC,” a CU-backed marijuana education campaign she said relied on racist imagery. James asked that funding for the campaign be revoked, which some regents viewed as a misuse of her role. The board followed with a sanction barring her from representing the university at events and stripping her of committee assignments.

James told the crowd that the campaign was just one example in a pattern of systemic exclusion. She pointed to the lack of BIPOC-owned vendors at Folsom Field, the absence of a fair procurement system, and the fact that of the university’s 37,000 employees, not one was a Black vice president or chancellor.

“I love this university with everything in my heart and soul,” James said. “But it was shocking to me how little regard they had for Black professionals, Black students and Black faculty.”

Her supporters echoed that sentiment. Hashim Coates, chair of the Colorado Black Democrats and James’ campaign manager, said the regents’ actions silenced an entire district.

Black Democrats attending a town hall in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Scott Hansen)

“What do we have to lose to stand up for what’s right?” Coates asked. “What CU Boulder has done is disenfranchised 700,000 people and kept them from having a voice. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And we have to do something.”

Former Speaker of the Colorado House Terrance Carroll said James was fulfilling her duty as a regent.

“She held them accountable like she was supposed to,” Carroll said. “They just had a problem with a regent not doing the ‘same-ole, same-ole,’ just letting them do what they’ve been doing. We have an obligation to speak out against injustice. And this is an injustice.”

Representative Regina English added that Black women leaders are often pressured to stay quiet.

“I’m told to be quiet, to not ruffle feathers and stand down,” English said. “But I can’t be silent. I can’t sit down and let these things happen. No matter how good we are or kind we are, we are still being treated this way and retaliated against.”

The gathered organizations agreed on three next steps: pursuing the lawsuit, supporting James’ congressional bid, and offering financial backing for her campaign. They noted that other CU regents and administrators were invited to the town hall but none attended.

James said she has no plans to back down.

“I don’t know how to do anything other than stand up and fight,” she said. “This cycle of racism is a playbook that we must end or it will be used against us over and over again. We don’t have any intention of backing down.”

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Community Rallies Behind Wanda James Following CU Censure appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A couple of days ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Campbell, the talented and visionary playwright, actor, and producer of Emancipation Theater. 

This isn’t my first interview with Jeff. I have attended many of his productions since Honorable Disorder, which starred Theo Wilson in 2018.

Generally, when I interview someone, I don’t write out a list of questions. Instead, I study my subject, dive into every article I can find on them, and learn who they are. I find the questions flow naturally that way. Such was the case with Jeff; we had an amazing conversation I thought I was recording. Alas, at the end, I noticed the recording button was not on, and we had to turn it on for the last few minutes.. But that’s okay, because every time I speak to Jeff, it’s unforgettable.

Raised in Longmont, Colorado, and one of the only Black students in his school, Jeff often speaks about how he longed to get into the hood while others were trying to get out. Raised in an all-white school environment, he sought out spaces where he could connect with people who shared his identity. Always involved in theater and performing, he eventually helped form a hip-hop act, Heavyweight Dub Champion. Touring the US and Canada, often playing large music festivals. As they grew, band egos emerged, prompting him to leave the industry for good and return to Denver.

Locally, he founded the Colorado Hip Hop Coalition, an after-school program for youth, and later Emancipation Theater. He has produced six plays (as playwright and producer) and two documentaries, all with a focus on telling stories of Black Americans first and foremost, but also of others who have faced oppression. His plays include Who Killed Jigaboo Jones; Honorable Disorder; Recipe; I Am Raverro; and In The Pocket: The Ballad of Bobby Trombone. His documentaries include Message to the Mayor, addressing the plight of the unhoused during the pandemic and former Denver Mayor Hancock’s treatment of them.

He performed alongside an all-star cast, each of whom wrote their own part, including Kid Astronaut (Jon Shockness), Bumpy Chill (Adrean Jones), Kingdom (Jeffery McWhorter), and Mizta Sandman (Shannon Richardson), in collaboration with producer Mic Coates. As Westword noted in its coverage, the message resonated deeply.

But having an all-star cast is what Emancipation Theater has always been about. Jeff tells me that he writes his characters with the actor in mind. This intentionality has made Emancipation Theater some of the most compelling work on Denver’s stage.

As a younger person, my parents took us to the theater a lot. Sometimes I enjoyed it, and sometimes it was just…long. But not in the case with Emancipation Theater. Every show I have attended has left me spellbound.

His latest production, Jedidiah Blackstone, is the central storyteller of real-life stories about pioneers and Black western history. One of the central characters is Clara Brown, a woman of remarkable resilience.

Clara Brown, National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame

Clara was enslaved in 1800 in Virginia as an infant. After her husband and children were sold away from her, it shaped her life’s mission. In 1856, at the age of 56, her enslaver passed away, leaving her $300 in his will. She was able to buy her freedom but was forced to leave Kentucky as a free person. She joined a wagon train, which “politely” carried her pots, pans, and cleaning supplies, but forced her to walk behind the train—for 700 miles. She settled in Central City, cooking and cleaning for miners. Even though she prospered, she never gave up searching for her family. In 1882, she finally reunited with her daughter after a 50-year separation. She died in 1885, and her funeral was one of the largest the city had seen, attended by governors, mayors, and pioneers who recognized her role in building the young territory.

It was learning about Clara that sent Jeff down the rabbit hole of finding the lost stories of forgotten Black pioneers.

Jedidiah Blackstone is a modern-day retelling of those stories through the Jedidiah Blackstone character (who has his own backstory as well). Jeff says he is literally becoming Jedidiah Blackstone in everything he does, embodying the storyteller for the performance.

If the preview videos are any indication of what is to come, this show is bound to be another Jeff Campbell hit.

But successful theater aside, Jeff’s mission is what makes his storytelling so good. At the end of the interview, I asked him why people not directly affected should care about these stories, and why he needs to be so immersed in the character.

If the reasons aren’t already obvious, Jeff passionately explains why stories of our historical—and shameful—past are essential today:

“Clara Brown currently has a statue in the African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, DC. From the words directly from this current administration, that may not be for long. Clara Brown and other very significant figures within our history could be taken out of that institution.

At the exact same time, the same administration is talking about renaming military bases and re-erecting statues of Confederate soldiers. So it’s not really lost on me that they’re doing this at the exact same time. They’re saying that one history is too hard and too harsh to learn about or paints a bad picture for America, while saying that this other history must be preserved and protected.

Well, I personally think that Clara Brown’s story is a far more and better story to tell about America than the one about insurrectionists who took up arms and tried to secede from the United States.

So we are at war for information. There’s a war on our minds—for our minds, for what we believe—and historical markers, monuments, street names, and all of these things shape our national narrative. That national narrative then shapes our identity. And if you can erase one side of history while elevating and celebrating another side of history, then you make generations to come indifferent about the suffering and the condition of the communities who have no recorded history.

We as artists must take up the mantle when we’re being censored in the classroom and erased in the museums. It is the duty of the artist to wield the power of the storyteller, because the storyteller wields its power through classrooms, courtrooms, newsrooms, boardrooms, and dictates who winds up in jail cells, hospital beds, and graveyards.

It’s first a war of words; they shape the narrative, to shape perspective, to shape opinion, to shape people’s beliefs.

And so, in the forefront of the civil rights movement in the third decade of the 21st century, narrative and information play a crucial role. Warfare is contextual, combat. This is exactly what we must do. And artists are the soldiers on that front line.”

At just $30, tickets are priced so that anyone can experience the storytelling of Black heritage—an act of accessibility in a nation that desperately needs more empathy.

Tickets to Emancipation Theater’s Jedidiah Blackstone.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Jeff Campbell’s Jedidiah Blackstone Brings Hidden Black Pioneers to Life appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

– Updated 8/28 reflect details on the peach vendors and size of the festival

Two Saturdays ago, six blocks of Lafayette’s downtown were packed to the brim with vendors shoulder to shoulder, live music drifting across the street, the smell of fried food colliding with kettle corn and turkey legs. The annual Lafayette Peach Festival seemed to pull in the entire county, and then some, making it one of the biggest local festivals I’ve ever visited.

Wandering through the sprawl of booths felt familiar, like Boulder Creek Fest, the county fair, or a weekend farmers’ market, where soap makers, salsa sellers, jewelry stalls, and hot sauce hawkers are always part of the crowd.

But this festival was sprawling, even bigger than the fair, with enough room for plenty of new vendors to wedge themselves in.

Funny thing, though: for a Peach Festival, peaches were surprisingly scarce. Sure, you could find peach soap, peach jam, peach lotion, but actual peaches? You could count those stands on one hand. Maybe two or three vendors total, selling crates by the boxful, not slices or samples. Still, the fruit was everywhere.

Later, organizers explained to Yellow Scene Magazine that this was an intentional decision. Each year, there are three certified organic peach growers from Palisade that attend. They are invited so that the festival is opportunity uplift and support their local farmers.

People were lugging their crates down the street like they were stocking up for winter. I saw one family balancing three boxes between them, and they looked pretty pleased with themselves.

If peaches were missing from the booths, they more than made up for it in cobbler.

The longest lines by far were at the cobbler stations, three of them, turning out tray after tray of bubbling peach cobbler courtesy of The Huckleberry, the little Louisville diner on Main Street. Add a scoop of vanilla from Dairy Queen and suddenly it made sense why people were willing to stand half an hour in the blazing sun. That combo was the star of the show, worth the wait.

Me, I’m weak for two things: a good summer drink and pie. I gave in to a peach lemonade so big I needed both hands, tart and refreshing with just enough fruit flavor to feel festive. And then, because of course I did, I went home with a crumbly peach pie that didn’t last the weekend.

If I had one complaint, it’s that the festival never got weird with it. You know how pickle festivals lean in with pickle beer, pickle ice cream, even pickle tea? Here, aside from cobbler, lemonade, pie, and the occasional skincare product, things never got particularly adventurous. I kept waiting for someone to hand me a peach taco or a peach latte. Alas. Maybe next year.

At some point I started asking people the obvious question: So, how many peaches have you eaten today? Almost everyone laughed and admitted: None yet. Still, everyone seemed to have something peach-flavored in hand, whether it be a cobbler, a lemonade, or a cookie.

As for me? My final tally from Lafayette Peach Festival: zero whole peaches, one comically large lemonade, and one pie that vanished long before Monday.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post The Sweet Life at the Lafayette Peach Festival appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

When I first heard “Shakespeare” and “prevent youth violence” in the same sentence, I did a double take. The two aren’t exactly synonymous. Shakespeare’s plays often end in tragedy, so how could they possibly serve as tools for preventing violence?

A few days before her event at the Boulder Bookstore, I called Dr. Amanda Giguere to find out. Over the course of our conversation, she described the origins of her new book, Shakespeare & Violence Prevention: A Practical Handbook for Educators, the years of research behind it, and the personal stakes she feels in the work. Her enthusiasm came through in every sentence.

Giguere holds both an MA and PhD in theatre history and criticism from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she is now Director of Outreach for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (CSF). She works closely with the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) and its director, Dr. Beverly Kingston, on the festival’s “Shakespeare in the Schools Tour: Shakespeare and Violence Prevention,” launched in 2011.

A CSF Perfomance of Twelfth Night

The tour began during a peak in national attention to bullying. Over time, it has evolved alongside rising concerns about school violence in Colorado. According to Safe2Tell, the number of reports made in April 2025 increased by 15% compared to the previous school year. 

CSF’s research identifies five key themes in violence prevention, all focused on strategies to prevent youth violence:

1. Violence is preventable

2. Explore root causes

3. Address risk and protective factors

4. Build a positive school climate

5. Upstanders make a difference

“Live and deal with others better,” Giguere said, summarizing the program’s mission.

In roleplay activities, students speak directly to Shakespeare’s characters, practicing how to intervene when they witness harm. Research shows that when a peer intervenes, bullying stops within 10 seconds about 57% of the time. Giguere describes the program as “solution-focused and student-generated,” a combination she believes drives its impact. Since 2011, the tour has reached more than 140,000 Colorado students, about 10,000 per year, and now she hopes to share its approach more widely.

The accessibility to Shakespeare’s work in schools was what led her to gear the book toward educators. His plays are already being taught in the classroom, so why not take it a step further and begin a conversation about how violence could have been prevented in his work? 

“It’s about translating research into practice and putting the cutting-edge research about violence prevention into the hands of the people who are going to have the most impact. Those are teachers. They’re working directly with the next generation,” she explained. 

Still, I asked, why Shakespeare specifically?

“In Shakespeare’s plays, we see ups and downs, highs and lows. We see people mistreating one another. We see how harm can escalate and lead to war and violence, and brutality, and it can ultimately lead to dehumanization. I think we can use the plays, and maybe any art form, as tools to understand our own time, our own world, our own place.” 

Giguere continued, “In theatre, transformation is always possible. Just as we see an actor put on a role and become a king in one moment and then change their bodies and costumes and become a commoner in the next, we know that that same kind of change that happens in the theatre is possible in the violence prevention world.”

A few days later, I saw that transformation in action. At the Boulder Bookstore, every chair was filled before Giguere began her first-ever author event. She sat in a black chair at the front of the room, fielding questions with warmth, inviting the audience to use their “Shakespeare voices,” and weaving her deep knowledge of theatre and prevention into each answer. Many in the audience were students, colleagues, or longtime friends but all shared a love for theatre.

Her book reflects that connection, with a prologue, interludes, and an epilogue framing examinations of eight plays: three tragedies and five comedies. Each chapter pairs a plot synopsis with an exploration of how violence prevention themes emerge in the text, moving from the overt brutality of Macbeth to the subtler tensions of The Tempest.

“Violence is a spectrum, but in any form, it is preventable,” she emphasized. 

While the included practical roleplay exercises make the book a resource for educators, Giguere hopes it reaches parents, community leaders, and anyone interested in helping to prevent youth violence.

Photo from CU

“As a mom, […] I want my kids to grow up knowing how to speak up for others, knowing how to advocate for themselves, knowing how to understand what’s making their communities tick, and knowing how to care for others.” Giguere shared.

Now that the program’s ideas exist in book form, she believes their reach can extend far beyond the classroom.

“As long as we continue to examine the root causes of violence and the roles that we play in preventing it, we can encourage forward motion in violence prevention.” 

Shakespeare & Violence Prevention: A Practical Handbook for Educators is available in paperback and e-book. More about Amanda Giguere can be found on her website.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post How Shakespeare Is Helping Educators Prevent Youth Violence appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Correction (Oct. 4, 2025): This article previously misstated Council Member Taishya Adams’s position. She serves on the City of Boulder Council, not with Boulder County.

Of the 325,815 residents in Boulder County, Colorado, 1.4% of the population identifies as Black according to the World Population Review. From those residents, a few leaders emerge, making up an even smaller percentage of Boulder County, Colorado.

A little over a century ago, the University of Colorado (CU Boulder) campus was predominantly composed of white students and was primarily male. In 1914, a black male student graduated from the university, and four years later, Lucile B. Buchanan, the first black woman, followed suit. In 1924, CU Boulder Law School had its first African American graduate. 

While those milestones seem to be part of a distant past, one may wonder how much progress modern-day Boulder has made in mending the social disconnection between diverse communities in recent history.

In an effort to explore this question, we at Yellow Scene Magazine interviewed half a dozen black leaders in Boulder county.

We found that today, many black leaders in Boulder County experience varying levels of harassment, demonization, and racism during their time in service. Yet despite the challenges, these leaders continue to rise and serve their communities.

Every leader starts with a desire to see change in their community, and that was certainly true for leaders such as Representative Junie Joseph and Penfield W. Tate III. 

Junie Joseph is a State Representative for House District 10 in the Colorado General Assembly. She also served on the City Council and later as Mayor Pro Tempore.

“When I first moved here, I came as a student. I started law school, and I was having issues finding housing.” Joseph told Yellow Scene.

Joseph saw a need for affordable housing in Boulder County became a lawmaker to help remediate the problem. 

Before she was a representative, Joseph served on the Community Corrections Board, the Boulder County Housing and Human Services, and volunteered at a homeless shelter.  Joseph said that at that time, the work that she did was reactive, where she helped people after they had already experienced a social challenge such as homelessness, incarceration, or unemployment. 

“How do we alleviate certain social ills before they happen? How do we ensure community members have access to housing, instead of them having to commute to Boulder, an hour away?” Joseph told Yellow Scene. 

Making changes in Boulder before the residents required help and intervention was a key reason why Joseph decided to run for the city council.

Penfield W. Tate III is a lawyer and the son of Penfield II, who was the first African American mayor of Boulder County. With over forty years of experience, Tate founded his law firm, Tate Law. 

Boulder’s first black councilman, Penfield Tate, finds out about his electoral victory

Tate was motivated to become a leader in his community after watching his father’s resilience as an elected official. His father was the first black city councilperson in Boulder from 1972 to 1976 and was elected mayor in 1974. 

“When I graduated from law school and came back to Colorado, I got active in a number of community-based organizations and began to work in the community.” Tate said.

Tate went on to serve four years in the House as the State Representative for District 8, over six years in the Colorado General Assembly, and two years in the Senate as the State Senator for District 33. 

Each leader we interviewed came from modest beginnings, driven by the influence of those around them or the challenges facing their communities. Although each leader came from unique circumstances and different parts of the county, there was shared thread throughout most of their stories.

In Boulder County and across Colorado, several Black leaders spoke of a particular kind of racism that was subtle, insidious, and difficult to name. Covert racism, they explained, often hides behind polite smiles or well-meaning policies.

Annett James is the former president of the Boulder County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which the executive committee voted to dissolve earlier this Spring. 

“First of all, let’s just be clear that racism is very alive and well in Boulder County. And I think the difference here is Boulder has really hijacked an attitude that is progressive and it’s liberal, and therefore, the racism that exists in Boulder, I would argue, is a more refined racism. It’s not that blunt force that you know, people recognize immediately,” James told Yellow Scene.

Having lived in Boulder for nearly 46 years, James believes that the demographics certainly play a role. She has experienced countless instances of microaggressions and refined racism in her community. People often mistake her for a visitor or guest in Boulder County, even after she has resided here for over four decades.  One example of subtle racism that James has encountered is seemingly concerned strangers asking her if she is lost when she is walking the marked path on the trails in Boulder. One could argue that the negative stereotypes that shape those interactions can leave a bad taste in one’s mouth. 

“It happens every day. Ask any black person, and they’ll tell you how many times they’ve been pulled over. They’ll tell you how they were followed in the market, or on a trail.” James said.

According to James, when a small percentage of the population is people of color, people don’t necessarily have a working knowledge of black people.

“And then you look at inclusion. Well, that’s how you’re going to treat someone, right? Yeah, to be included is [about] how you are being treated. And I would argue that Boulder falls short when it comes to inclusion.”  James told Yellow Scene 

James believes that the dissolution of the NAACP Boulder County was an example of overt racism, the opposite of subtle racism. 

“To have a city government that believes that they can go inside of a non-profit, a civil rights organization, and basically finagle with that, that is just the ultimate [act]. And I would argue that the city would not have done that to an organization that was not black.” James said.

Taishya Adams is a City Council Member for the City of Boulder, serving a term from 2023 to 2026. She also serves on the Colorado Office of Tourism’s Destination Stewardship Council and was the first African American woman to serve as a commissioner to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

When asked about instances of racism in her time of service, she said: “I have received emails with comments like go back to Africa, N-word, […] So racial slurs, there’s also been incidents where information has been withheld, kind of finding out about things after it already happened.” Another form of discrimination that Adams has faced has been navigating the stereotype that the black population is a monolith. She holds that the Black diaspora is on a spectrum encompassing various socioeconomic, linguistic, and geographic groups. 

“How do we ensure that anyone who is discriminated against receives the full support of our community, of our council, ensuring their safety for themselves, their family, their friends, their peers. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and that includes within the boundaries and city limits of Boulder,” Adams told Yellow Scene.

Justin Brooks is the former mayor of Erie, Colorado, who served from April 2022 to January 2025. 

When Brooks was running for mayor, he received various threats, including an instance where, allegedly, someone sent an anonymous letter to the chief of police, to all council members, and to the town staff threatening to expose his domestic affairs if he did not withdraw from the race. 

“At the end of the letter, it said, ‘We have to get these colored out of here,’” Brooks told Yellow Scene. “People would put dog crap in the back of my pickup truck. They would put used condoms outside of my house, on the sidewalk, things like that.” 

Following a meeting in April 2022, former political opponent Ryan Kenward filed a complaint with the Colorado Ethics Commission, claiming that Brooks encouraged Committee members to hold a vote on funding for a non-profit in which he was involved, alleging an unethical conflict of interest. Brooks told Yellow Scene that he believed Kenward’s actions were motivated by racism and homophobia.

“The investigation was concluded back in December. It showed I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t break any rules, […] It dragged on for over three years. It caused personal damage to my reputation. It caused me to miss out on employment opportunities. I’ve been laid off from my position at my company,” Brooks told Yellow Scene.

The Colorado Ethics Commission has since dismissed the ethics complaint, with prejudice, blocking the possibility of anyone filing it again. While the decision does not directly inform whether the complaint was warranted, it does provide some context of the reality of a black leader being visible and targeted in local politics. 

Tim Barnes is a Councilman to the City of Lafayette. He completed a four-year term from 2019 to 2023 and has been reelected as Councilor until 2027.  He serves on the Colorado Communities for Climate Action (CC4CA), the Senior Advisory Board, and the Audit Committee.  He, like many other black leaders, has experienced racism.

“There was a single incident where I was out with a friend, and we met two other people that we were hanging out with, and the police came to the car we were sitting in because there was marijuana in the car, and they were smoking,” Barnes said. 

The police allegedly questioned the driver and let them go without a penalty, yet were especially interested in information about Barnes, despite him not partaking in smoking or other disturbances.

“The only thing they wanted to know was if they had any information about the black guy. And I was like, wow, what? So at that point, I was so mad,” Barnes told Yellow Scene.

Through a friend’s connection, Barnes then emailed the Chief of Police regarding the incident, who allegedly initially denied the reality of Barnes’ experiences and later apologized for what happened, explaining that the department had some new officers and that some training needed to be administered.

The experience of racism leaves many black leaders with an emotional and mental toll that they must manage in their everyday lives. Many find comfort in the simplest pursuits, such as exercise, community,  family, friends, mentorship, and meditation.

When it comes to the racism that Barnes has experienced, He told Yellow Scene, “They made me hesitate in continuing to do what I was doing in leadership roles or to participate and pick my words very carefully.”

Barnes explained that white fragility is something he often has to be mindful of in various settings. 

“I sometimes diminish my viewpoint, trying to take care of everybody in the space, and make sure that I’m not being that angry black person in the room. So listening and then trying to pick my words carefully enough so that if I say something, it doesn’t trigger people to get defensive.” Barnes said. 

Barnes manages the toll through exercise, engaging in conversation with his family and friends, and seeking other people’s perspectives on what’s happening. Representative Junie Joseph believes that people of color are strong and can overcome adversity due to the early experiences they had in a long ancestry of servitude.

“You know, black people in this country have experienced 246 years of slavery, over 89 years of Jim Crow. So we are a resilient people.” Joseph told Yellow Scene. 

When it comes to finding community despite the racism that Annett James has experienced, she told Yellow Scene., “So it [NAACP] has provided an opportunity for people to connect in a really close and supportive way. You know, I would not have gotten to know these people at this level had I not agreed to chair the organization and work so closely with them.”

Black graduation, an event held in the past by Boulder NAACP. Former president James can be seen on the left.

Not every leader believes that racial bias in Boulder County has negatively impacted their leadership experience. One leader views their experiences quite differently, through a lens of positivity.

Representative Junie Joseph told Yellow Scene: “I’m not a product of racism and structural violence. I would say I’m more the exception to that rule.”

Joseph explains she recognizes the reality of others and does not discount people who experience racism, sexism, and other social ills.

Representative Joseph is a black woman who was born in Haiti. She came to this country as an adolescent, moved to Boulder, and joined the city council within a year. About five years later, she became a state representative. 

“So I can’t sit here and tell you that racism has kept me down. But does it happen? Yes. I can’t discount people who experience racism. I just don’t have that same experience[…] I just think somehow I have been lucky enough to experience a side of the community where I feel supported,” Joseph told Yellow Scene. 

Joseph explains that she tries not to talk too much about the discomfort, even though she has faced some challenges as a black woman.

“I think Michelle Obama said this: ‘When you are a servant leader, or you are in the business of serving people, you don’t center yourself. You center people’.” Joseph said Yellow Scene 

Other leaders navigate serving their community and making progress while also struggling with racial bias and discrimination that negatively affect their experience. 

Black leaders have accomplished  much in the Boulder and surrounding communities despite the  systemic barriers they face. 

Penfield Tate said he is proud to have sponsored a bill that amended the Colorado Medical Records Act to give patients control over their medical records, including those related to mammograms and X-rays. He also advocated for affordable housing, criminal justice reform, and LGBTQ +.

“Every year I served, I carried legislation to establish penalties for hate crimes, enhance penalties for people who were the victims of criminal activity because of their sexual orientation,” Tate told Yellow Scene. 

The LGBTQ+ community supported Tate throughout the seven years he carried the legislation, and it later became law after Tate’s time in service. 

“I never wavered in supporting it, because I believed in the cause when I served in the General Assembly.” Tate said.

During her time in office, Representative Junie Joseph worked on legislative achievements related to housing and renter protection, environmental protection, keeping children in school, and criminal justice reform.

“Every year, I pass a piece of renters’ protection legislation. In my first year, I passed a bill that would require a 30-day mandatory mediation before you kick someone out if they have SSI (Supplemental Security Income), SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families).” Joseph told Yellow Scene

Joseph is proud of the housing and renters protection legislation passed as a way to help reduce homelessness. 

“And how do we prevent homelessness? We have to keep people housed. And that’s something that is extremely important to me,” She said.

Councilwoman Taishya Adams has focused her resources on climate and cultural resilience in her first 19 months in office. 

“I think, from a climate perspective, I have been most proud of extending the climate resilient tent to include agriculture and how we grow food, ensuring our food quality, just ensuring we’re having conversations and we’re investing with our values around, you know, ensuring sustainability now and into the future.” Adams told Yellow Scene.

Councilman Tim Barnes took office, and the COVID-19 pandemic started shortly after. Around the same time, the city had a ransomware attack, and George Floyd and Brianna Taylor were killed.

“I’m proud of the fact that the council and I were able to manage all three of those incidents, and come out the other side without major problems in the city,” Barnes told Yellow Scene.

Former Erie Mayor Justin Brooks is proud of the economic growth, public safety, and housing affordability he achieved during his tenure. 

“In the two and a half years that I was mayor, we increased our business sales tax revenue by 30%, which was a huge increase, and […]. We invested over $100 million cash in our streets, water treatment facilities, and the core infrastructure items that help our city,” Brooks told Yellow Scene.

“I was able to obtain both federal and state grants for the first affordable housing project in 25 years. That initiative created 35 for-sale affordable homes in town,” Brooks said 

Annett James, the former president of the Boulder NAACP, accomplished some meaningful work during her tenure.

“We [NAACP Boulder] did really big programs to involve the whole community. And people are saying, well, Juneteenth doesn’t look the same [this year].” James told Yellow Scene

James also worked on scholarship and financial advocacy, helping to create the Joan Washington Scholarship Fund and the Charles and Mildred Nilon Scholarship, which fund the education of students in the community.

Black leaders urge the young generation of black individuals in Boulder to show up and serve their community. The task may be daunting, but it is a cause worth the effort. 

“The world is run by those who show up. The easy thing to do is to glide through life and take care of yourself and expect everything around you to take care of itself. The hard thing to do is show up for your family, show up for your community, and show up for others.” Tate said. 

For those who might hesitate to step into a role of leadership because of the fear of being discriminated against, Tate said, “It’s even more important that you show up, because racism is not going to be eliminated just by everyone sitting back, hoping it goes away sometime. It’s an ongoing, persistent fight.”

James advises young aspiring leaders to seek a mentor, learn their history, question everything, travel, and get involved in their community. 

“Don’t be afraid of being black. It’s a beautiful thing, and we still have to tell our children that being black is beautiful and it’s intelligent,” James said. “Know your craft, and stand up for it, and that will set you apart.”

Black leaders have called for changes that could benefit inclusion in the Boulder community. A visible black business structure, proportional or representative leadership, provision for physical spaces for Black people, and a more inclusive and equitable community are some of the suggested improvements for Black people in the community. 

“Even communities with progressive ideals and opinions can become conservative if they stick to only a certain perception of what is progressive, of what is liberal.” Tate said.

“Boulder still thinks of itself as liberal, but does not see some of the microaggressions and systemic racism that exist in the county and in the city.” Tate said, “I like to say as human beings, we’re all works in progress, and as a result, our communities are perpetually works in progress. Boulder is a work in progress.”

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The post What It Takes to Be a Black Leader in Boulder appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The red sun still laying low over the far away horizon, rolling hills and glowing roads guide the way as you arrive in Topeka, Kansas. Navigating the sleepy avenues toward the state’s Capitol. The air is cool and humid and the limestone building reflects the warm light, an omen of the hot day to come.

A dozen volunteers are setting up canopies, pulling wagons loaded with water and speakers. A microphone was just plugged in at the foot of the stone south steps. Greetings are exchanged as tables erected for an art station, a volunteer check-in, first-aid. Hours before hundreds of people would join, a handful of smiling people handed out walkie talkies and shared sour sentiments about Sesame Street.

Spirits were high, despite the underlying sense of dire urgency which had called this group to spend their Saturday morning building the infrastructure to protest their own government. A jobs market in sharp decline, the forced famine in Palestine, President Trump and the Epstein List; conversations swirled between topics which elicited tones of real concern and uncertainty. Some topics contrasted in conversation, questioning a lack of youth particpation while criticizing the growing support for populism and socialism in younger voters.

Representatives from Indivisible Kansas discuss the day’s events with rally attendees while selling yard signs as a fundraiser for the ““Real Kansans. Real Voters. Real Fed Up,” billboard campaign in the Sunflower State. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

“I would ask people to talk to their neighbor, and not in a way that says ‘hey idiot..’ but more in the ‘are you aware’ way,” Kansas 50501 organizer Scott McFarland told Yellow Scene during the protest. “[We need a] connection to the younger generation to work with us and help in clearing the apathy. There’s a lot of dislike of capitalism, they’re being labeled as socialists, but it’s just that they’re tired of the corruption in capitalism.”

As support organizations and political parties continued to arrive, the crowd grew. A visible majority were people over 40, many old enough to recall their experiences seeing the unrest around the Vietnam War while discussing today’s events. There was a voiced sentiment of shock that they were seeing authoritarianism in their lifetimes and a concern for disinterest and acceptance by younger Americans.

Previous 50501 protests have attracted thousands to the streets of the Kansas capital. Each week in cities across the state, grassroots activists maintain consistent presences in the +16 Trump/Vance state. Organizers for today’s “Rage Against the Regime” event were cautiously conservative with their expectations for attendance, hoping to see a few hundred.

Ultimately, almost 500 Kansans were gathered as our day’s sole speaker approached the microphone and greeted the crowd. With a flowing, energetic speech matching her audience’s inertia, she spoke for a fiery thirty minutes, leading them in chants between reflecting on her personal experiences extrapolated to the national policy conversation. A sexual assault survivor, she outlined her rage that day being fed by seeing a credibly accused sexual predator sit at the Resolute Desk, using his power to pardon other assailants.

Kansans from across the political spectrum rally together on Veterans’ Walk in front of the state Capitol in Topeka ahead of a march through the downtown urban center. Organized as a “Rage Against the Regime” the 50501 protest are a “a decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration.” (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Wrapping up with a moment of silence for the children of Gaza, the energy returned like a shockwave carried on the wall of sound produced from hundreds of hand-made noise makers breaking the quiet calm. From the steps of the Capitol, where attendees had gathered for a group photo, they stepped off down the Veterans’ Walk toward the town’s major thoroughfare.

Keeping to the sidewalks, marshaled by volunteers who maintained adherence to street signals and crosswalks, the hundreds of unified Kansans marched through the city center. Along commercial roads on a path which brought them past the county’s Republican offices, they raised their voices declaring their dissent to authoritarianism, the loss of due process, and cuts to public services like health care and education.

The line of protestors carrying signs, clanging pots, blowing horns, and chanting loudly stretched for blocks. Passersby honked encouragingly, waving and cheering from their windows as they passed. Not without opposition, some shared crude hand signals with anger on their faces.

An inarguable Republican stronghold, a Democrat hasn’t won the presidential ticket since before 1980 and their U.S. House representation has been overwhelmingly red in the same period, one district never seeing a Dem victory. Statewide and locally, though, there is some partisan flexibility, the Governor’s seat has been blue since 2018.

In the same time period, the population of Kansas has not kept up with national growth trends, seeing a state increase of less than 3% in the previous census. Kansas lost a seat in congress in 1990, and in the presidential race lost some influence with ten electoral college votes falling to only six. The fastest-increasing portion of their population is 65+.

Civic engagement is split into two majority coalitions, registered Republicans making up the largest group and only a few thousand behind are non-participants. Of the two million registered voters in the state, nearly 800,000 chose to stay home in November 2024.

Young voters continue to connect more with social issues and movements over partisan idols and party politics. At the county Democrats’ annual fundraiser following the 50501 protest, politicos grappled with how to translate the evolution of local engagement for ballot initiatives specific to issues like abortion and the economy into capturing votes for candidates.

Current electeds, alongside candidates vying for their own seats, shook hands with constituents while volunteers prepared a buffet of picnic staples. Awards and recognition were distributed for service to the chapter and speeches were given highlighting the party’s want for coalition building and grassroots persuasion.

“A couple times during the presidential election, I went to bed thinking that change was really going to come for our country, and then I woke up disappointed,” Topeka Mayor Michael Padilla told the crowd assembled in the IBEW hall. “But that doesn’t mean that that disappointment makes me less determined to make that change happen with the help of fellow Democrats, independents, and – yes – Republicans.”

Topeka Mayor Mike Padilla, a Democrat and former police officer, speaks on the need to reach out to everyone with a tone of kindness and a resolve committed to Democratic values during the annual Shawnee County Democrats Picnic, telling the crowd “it’s necessary for us to speak up. I get pushback, and its because they want to silence my personal opinion simply because I’m in opposition to what they seek. When asked why they oppose these ideas of democracy, and freedom, and civil rights for everyone. They’re usually hard pressed for answers.” (Photos by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Reflecting the sentiment, a majority of the conversation was centered on moving those who cast their ballots regularly from the more conservative Republican ticket to the centrist-leaning Kansas Democrat platform. While the state’s place in the abortion rights movement was rightfully celebrated, and the need to expand access to affordable housing was constantly mentioned, the theme centered openly on the need for bipartisan cooperation and converting existing voters rather than finding the messaging which would create new ones.

The historic vote rejecting the ban on abortion in the  Sunflower State saw an measurable shift in partisan response, illuminating the importance of elevating issues’ impacts above partisan and candidate politics. The Republican state voted against the ban, with more people casting a vote in the decision for abortion than the decision for president.

The sometimes apathetic unaffiliated voter in Kansas was engaged in this vote, legally unable to cast a ballot in the parallel primary elections but able to make a decision in the referendum. Almost 200,000 voters not affiliated with the two major political parties participated. In the lead-up to the election, Kansas was also the third most engaged state for young voters aged 18-29, with registration leaping from 2018 numbers and the Gen Z / Zillenial vote increasing their influence to the highest levels in thirty years.

Nearly 40% of registered voters under forty in Kansas cast their ballot in 2022, during a traditionally low turnout midterm primary election, called to action by an issue more than a person. In 2024, during the presidential race when voter turnout is traditionally at its highest, fewer than 2% of the same group went to the polls.

“One of the things that Kansans are good at, especially in some of the rural districts where I knock doors, is that we all have different opinions and we give each other time to talk,” Shawnee County Democrats Vice-Chair JP Porter told Yellow Scene Magazine at the event. “Right now, it’s time to build those relationships, just talk to people. Hear them out, make sure people are comfortable.”

As the Shawnee Democrats wrapped up their fundraising raffle with a 50/50, back at the Capitol another protest was beginning to be set up. While the morning saw hundreds rallying against the authoritarian creep in policy and posture by the federal administration, a few dozen were gathering to protest their state government in support of personal liberty and religious freedom.

The Satanic Grotto, an offshoot of The Satanic Temple formed in pursuit of increased autonomy, were returning for the first time since a series of dramatic moments during a previous protest they organized in March resulted in scuffles, police intervention, and four arrests. That event drew thousands to the Capitol grounds, a majority counterprotestors. Tonight, fifty gathered, including the police and five antagonists carrying crosses and warnings of eternal damnation.

While counter protesters and some attendees exchanged loud sounds and short statements, most stayed close to the newly erected sound system, once again at the bottom of the building’s south steps. Speakers and musicians exchanged the stage, bringing a mix of concert and rally to the crowd. Activist Ms. B spoke on the need to not be complacent, to not be lazy, in a moment that required presence and action. She illustrates her call to action with reflection and accountability for moments in her own past when she wished she’d done more.

Author, activist, and former local elected Mike Trapp quoted from his book “The Practical Guide to Building a Better World” offering his eleven suggestions to coalescing in movement work. He outlined his decades of experience advocating for a better world, discussing bearing witness to the slide from what he calls “friendly fascism” into something even worse. He encouraged looking past contrasts in aesthetic or approach to build allies aligned with the civic work to be done at a local level, in City Halls and on school boards, where individuals can have the most impact.

After a full concert set from Girard, Kansas metal outfit Rage Is My Rival, Satanic Grotto president Michael Stewart took the mic warning those still gathered as the sun sank below surrounding buildings that he was definitely going to cry. He thanked his peers, organizers, lawmakers, community members, and even the Capitol police who practiced their principles of supporting individual and religious liberty by fighting for the Grotto to secure the required permits for the protest to occur uninterrupted that evening.

The Satanic Grotto president Michael Stewart leads attendees on an umbrella march around the Kansas Capitol, stopping on the four cardinal coordinates and leading those gathered in a synchronized chant meant to evoke and emanate personal power. The Not Quite Witching Hour protest organized by The Satanic Grotto marked the end of a months-long battle to return to the spot exercising their first amendment rights after a briefly-chaotic culmination to the group’s previous event, a Black Mass held in the same spot in March 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

He remembered aloud his assault and arrest at the Capitol earlier this year. He reflected on how people’s perceptions and preconceived assumptions often inhibited the message he was advocating for. He cited specific legislation being discussed inside the government chambers he stood before while gave encouragement to those in attendance to get involved. Offering testimony, contacting representatives, organizing neighbors, his plan for action mirrored that of the organizers earlier in the day: participation.

“We cannot be the only ones fighting,” Stewart told those gathered. “The intersectionality converges right here on this battlefield. Hiding from it will not make you safe, it will only make you an easier target. Everyone, everywhere, needs to pick their battle and drive it the [expletive] forward.”

From the jump, a group of political organizers identifying themselves as Satanic is going to cause controversy. Some will find it easy to discount their message because of the container in which it is distributed. Some write them off as unserious performative art, others take their cartoonish construct literally and refuse to listen for fear of devil worship being the core talking point. Their consistent pushback at over-encroaching authoritarian policy and intentional organizing messaging, in tandem with their undeniable regionally and nationally rippling impact – though – suggest that their efforts should be seen more seriously.

“From a marketing perspective, their ‘extreme’ branding definitely gets their group plenty of attention and free press, but then people just judge the book by its cover and don’t actually look into their really solid ethics and organizing tactics,” Nebraska political organizer JD Hanson told Yellow Scene while reflecting on how other Heartland movements see and feel their influence locally. “Some people just hear satanic and then completely tune out everything else.”

Conservative Kansas is the contemporary reality in the state the Westboro Baptist Church calls home. While registered Republicans have decreased by more than seven thousand people this year already, a majority of the state’s voters are GOP members. Nearly a million. The only group of voters to grow in 2025, by about 3,000 people, is the second largest pool: the unaffiliated.

Kansas has a history of standing ten toes forward for their principles. Bleeding Kansas fought a small war against Missouri slavers to found their territory as a Free Soil state. Infamous abolitionist John Brown first made national headlines by violently fighting against the institution on the eastern plains, years before he’d be remembered forever for his failed attempt to start an enslaved persons revolt at Harpers Ferry. Touring the Capitol’s visitor center you’ll see that this radical history is still celebrated.

Kansas resident turned activist Molly Tolly distributes hundreds of protest placards she handmade at her “Sign Library,” a pop-up table she erects at actions across the state. She has attended 38 protests so far in 2025, often bringing more than 100 signs, she allows attendees to borrow them for the day, seeing at least 80% returned after the event. Not sure what she could offer the movement as an individual working as a family caretaker, she identified this art as activism project as one small way she could have a large impact. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

Less than a mile from the heart of the state’s government stands the historic site for the Brown Versus Board Supreme Court Decision. A court case that could have only happened in Kansas, because segregation in the state which had rejected slavery in its constitution was considered at the time the “gold standard” for the immoral act. Kansans relegated legal segregation only to large population centers and only by local control. While some cities outlawed it outright, others segregated children while spelling out in the law equal distribution standards for resources, in contrast to some of the more cruel forms of legal racism in the deep south.

It was for these reasons that the NAACP chose Kansas schools as their battleground to elevate the fight against state-protected bigotry to the nation’s highest courts. If the organization could prove that the midwest standard for the Plessy Versus Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine – which many people found acceptable – still created disproportionate harm to non-white students, then in contrast more violent forms in places like Louisiana or Arkansas couldn’t possibly stand.

Wherever they align ideologically, personal liberty is at the front of progressive movements in this central prairie state. Individuals find their place by measuring capacity and staying in their lane after it has been identified. Collecting impact statements from their neighbors and creating conversations on shared values, hoping to move them away from MAGA authoritarianism. Creating a pathway to political participation for ostracized weirdos or creating hundreds of handmade signs to distribute on loan at protests. Inside political party infrastructure or through autonomous grassroots organizing. In a moment that calls for many approaches converging toward a shared end, each individual voice creates a choir singing in chorus, though may be still finding the harmony.

_______________________________________

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.

______________________________

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.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Solidarity, Bipartisanship, and Satanic Protest in Kansas appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The clanking sounds of an espresso machine pulling its next shot swirls with the hissing steam, frothing oat milk for a latte ordered by the waiting stranger at the counter before you.

Stickers adorn the back of the machine – advocating for queer rights, stating that Black lives matter, calling for unity in their community. Nearby, murmuring voices get a little louder as those browsing the bookstand behind you find a title they’re excited about. In the cafe, teens relax on a couch while an older couple in the corner talks quietly over their small table. Walking in from the street, you may never know you’ve just stepped into a church.

A choice made deliberately by its founders.

Located just off of Old Market in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, The Urban Abbey is a Methodist Church, coffeeshop, book store, and gathering space for the city’s progressive community. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

The Urban Abbey is a gathering space, a safe place, for the marginalized and ostracized in Omaha, Nebraska. Deliberately established between the gentrifying luxury condos in the historic downtown and the spaces where the poor and unhoused gather and camp, the coffee shop and bookstore are set up to be a catch-all for anyone looking for a third place and community.

Walking through the door, you do see less-than-subtle hints of the house of prayer. Holy water sits in a baptismal font, there are bible verses hanging framed on the exposed red brick wall. On the neatly arranged bookshelves titles like A People’s History of the United States sit only feet away from Marsha P. Johnson’s biography, on a shelf next to the gospel according to Mary Magdalene.

Finding the inclusive restrooms, you stroll past a corkboard laden with fliers and notes including locations for anarchist-organized free kitchens, emergency contraception services, an upcoming 5K race in support of medical care and liberation for the Palestinian people, and the weekly Faith in Action services right there in the coffee shop chapel.

Founded by ordained Methodist minister Rev. Debra McKnight, Urban Abbey’s mission is to be “a space of radical hospitality connecting people to God and one another in everyday life.” They set out on a mission to not only reach people who felt disenfranchised or unrepresented by their church but to hear their needs and help see them be met. Even if it meant taking an activist’s approach.

Driven by a diametric division between conservatism and contemporary principles of acceptance and community, most religious organizations have seen a steady decline in active attendance and congregation attendance over the past 20 years.

While there has been a growth in polled people stating that they simply don’t believe in a monotheist almighty ruler, the majority of those who responded to Pew Research assert their lack of attendance is rooted more simply in feeling a disconnect between the teachings in their texts, and how they seem them wielded by church leaders.

“To see something vibrant and alive and growing and attracting younger folks and families, it’s the like mindedness of the passion for social justice and the progressive theology that people are looking for,” Reverend Dr. Jane Florence, the Abbey’s Spirtual Formation Pastor, said while sitting at one of the cafe tables under the Abbey’s picture window front after the morning’s services.

Reverend Dr.Jane Florence speaks from the lectern during the Faith in Action Sunday morning church services at The Urban Abbey, in Omaha, Nebraska. “I had my own, calling into ministry, and it was undeniable…my own spiritual journey led me and it’s been good,” she reflected later to Yellow Scene while remembering her path to this progressive pulpit. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene).

“People who don’t align, there’s lots of other opportunities, but for folks who have been wounded by the church in the past, or it just doesn’t make sense anymore, they are typically very grateful to find us.”

A growing group of those like-minded civically engaged worshippers come to the Abbey’s dual Sunday morning services. The small cafe overflows, kids playing amongst the bookshelves on laid-out cushions while strangers share their tables with one-another, making space for the folks still coming in the door.

Some found the Abbey when they saw them marching in Omaha’s PRIDE parade or organizing groups of parishioners to offer comments and testimony at their City Council and the State House in the nearby capital city, Lincoln. Another had moved to downtown Omaha three years ago and simply searched for the nearest church to a new home, now she drives past many to return every week, watching the live stream when she travels.

“One is not a Christian just for oneself,” the Reverend said, reflecting on the church’s mission of allowing scripture to build community and to motivate direct action. “It’s not about personal salvation. It’s about the care and wholeness of all, to let go of the notion of separation. We are not separate. We are one.”

While the Abbey has found a mostly peaceful existence in the River City, when topics like drag queen storyhour became an outrage flashpoint in conservative media, they faced backlash for hosting the events. Threatened with violence, including bomb threats, the staff and attendants prefer to stand by their principles.

“I have been labeled unchristian and a witch and everything else,” said Reverend Florence while reflecting on those times, some still recent in the memory. “You know, everybody’s where they are.I would like to think that people are doing the best they can with the information that they have, and that it is not up to me to judge them.”

The church focused their sermons this summer on the small screen, combining allegories from the Gospel of Mary with popular culture. Today, Reverend Florence talked to her flock about The Golden Girls, highlighting the groundbreaking strides the show had platforming queer storylines during Prime Time.

By using their privileges – “how can you censor grandma” a producer once quipped – Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia could model for the average American tolerance and kind curiosity, to learn about and not fear the new or unknown. A jaunty sing-a-long of the familiar theme song “Thanks for Being a Friend” transitioned the congregation from contemplation through communion.

The Director of Ministry took the lectern and the weekly political and news update was given. Updates on the threats to Omaha’s cultural institutions with a move in the U.S. House to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a workshop series centered on the city budget, an upcoming youth tour of a local news station, and a book discussion on urban planning; there were going to be opportunities provided to be engaged.

The service ended and conversation continued. Friends shared stories from their recent travels while other groups went to look one more time through the book stacks. Fliers were distributed to those curious about events, a space was set up for those who needed an ear or a shoulder. The coffee bar re-opened and the sounds of steam again filled the air.

This Sunday morning in Omaha, community came together to not just discuss hope, but to harness it for collective action.

With concerns of outgrowing their space, each service is now averaging an attendance of 50 congregants in the small coffee shop space, the spiritual leadership at The Urban Abbey is adding more service options and discussing expanding in to a larger space in tandem with the Abbey’s bookstore outreach. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene).

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.

______________________________

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.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Faith Drives Direct Action in Nebraska appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Earlier this month, the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted to censure one of its own members, Regent Wanda James. The decision followed an investigation into James’s opposition to a CU-backed marijuana education campaign, raising concerns among some observers about potential free speech implications. James, however, has stated she has no intention of stepping down and has already begun her re-election campaign.

“My term is not over until 2029, and I will not step down,” James told Yellow Scene Magazine.

The censure vote took place during a public hearing on July 2, with seven of nine regents voting in favor. Regent Nolbert Chavez voted against the resolution; James was asked to abstain.

In a prepared statement, the Board wrote:

“It was a difficult decision and one that none of us took lightly or without careful consideration. 

The resolution explains that a majority of the board agreed that Regent James had violated her duties to the University in her actions and statements concerning removal of funding for the University.”

The investigation focused on James’s criticism of “TEA on THC,” a Colorado School of Public Health campaign depicting the effects of marijuana on the brain. The campaign featured exclusively Black characters, which James called out as racist and harmful. She requested that funding for the campaign be revoked, a move some regents said was a misuse of her role.

James, who owns a cannabis dispensary, denied any wrongdoing. She maintained that her objections were about equity and representation, not personal or financial interest.

“After a $500,000 investigation I was found guilty of nothing,” she said. “Not conflict of interest. Not lobbying. Not skirting my fiduciary responsibility. The only thing that I was found guilty of was not showing care and loyalty to CU.”

Censure is a formal statement of disapproval. It does not remove a regent from office but can limit their participation in board matters. According to CU policy, censured members may face restrictions on committee leadership and other responsibilities.

During the hearing, James framed the board’s action as retaliatory.

James reading a statement during the hearing surrounded by supporters

“Today is not about a censure,” she said. “It is about censorship and retaliation. I was elected by the people of Colorado. I was not hired by this board, and I will not be silenced by its traditions or afraid of this vote.”

She argued that the board’s investigation targeted her instead of those responsible for approving the campaign.

“You didn’t investigate the firm that created the racist campaign. You didn’t investigate the executives that approved the racist campaign. You investigated the one person that stood up and said, ‘This is wrong,’” she said.

While James publicly questioned the board’s motives, other regents defended the censure as necessary for transparency and accountability.

“One of the most dangerous challenges I feel we’re facing today is not disagreement over values or policy,” said Regent Ilana Spiegel during the hearing. “It’s the contesting of basic facts.”

Spiegel said the board believed James either acted to influence the defunding decision without board input or misrepresented her involvement, either of which, she said, raised “serious concerns.” Regent Elliot Hood described the censure not as an effort to silence James but as “an act of self-governance and accountability.”

The investigative report included several public posts by James criticizing the campaign and CU administration. However, it did not suggest that she attempted to conceal her views or her ownership of a dispensary.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser took to X (formerly Twitter) to weigh in on the board’s decision, warning that it may violate James’s First Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment protects the right to free expression. Neither a White House executive order nor a public university policy can override this fundamental right. I am concerned that the CU Board of Regents’ action sanctioning Regent Wanda James did just that” Weiser wrote. “Leaving this action in place not only raises questions of fairness, it undermines CD1’s representation on the Board.”

James is currently the only Black member of the Board of Regents and the first Black woman to serve in the role in over four decades. The university has promoted her historic appointment on its website.

“I have already launched my reelection campaign,” James said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The board did not respond to Yellow Scene Magazine’s request for comment.

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The post Wanda James Speaks Out After CU Censure: “I’m Not Going Anywhere” appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

For the past several months, the family of Kilyn Lewis and their supporters have been a regular presence at Aurora City Council meetings—protesting, speaking out, and demanding accountability after the officer who shot and killed Lewis was cleared of criminal charges.

The calls for justice were sparked by the events of May 23, 2024, when Lewis was fatally shot by a member of the Aurora Police Department’s SWAT team in the parking lot of an apartment complex. Body camera footage shows officers confronting Lewis and issuing multiple commands as they approach with rifles drawn. Lewis appears to reach into one pocket, then another, ultimately revealing a cell phone. A single shot is fired. Lewis can be heard saying, “I don’t have nothing,” before collapsing. He died in the hospital two days later.

Attorney Ed Hopkins, representing the Lewis family, called the commands “unclear and confusing,” and noted officers never identified themselves or told Lewis whether he was under arrest. “Anyone in that situation would have reacted the same way,” he told CPR News.

In the months since, the case has become a flashpoint in Aurora’s ongoing reckoning with police brutality. The Lewis family filed a federal lawsuit, community members staged protests in public spaces and at city council meetings, and 9News sued to obtain the full, unredacted body camera footage. It all came to a head on June 10, when Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman announced that all in-person city council meetings would be suspended.

In a Facebook post, he accused Lewis supporters of “hijacking” meeting agendas and ignoring time limits during public comment, prompting the move to virtual-only meetings.

“We have listened to the protesters over and over again,” Councilmember Danielle Jurinski said during the discussion. “Now it’s in the court’s hands. If the court decides that the city had absolutely no liability in the death of Kilyn Lewis, then it’s over and there’s nothing to talk about.”

Coffman cited findings from the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT), which concluded that Officer Michael Dieck’s use of deadly force was legally justified. The report claimed it was reasonable to believe Lewis may have had a firearm and posed an imminent threat, though only a phone was recovered.

Some Aurora residents expressed support for the city’s decision to move meetings online, viewing it as an unfortunate but necessary step to restore decorum and productivity. Others are more critical, raising concerns about what the shift represents, and what it shuts down.

Advocate MiDian Holmes, a longtime voice for justice reform in Aurora, called the decision a violation of the First Amendment. Holmes, who was also involved in the fight for justice for Elijah McClain, has been a consistent presence at council meetings, organizing demonstrations and filing formal complaints against the city’s move to virtual-only participation. She argues that the policy is being used not to ensure order, but to silence opposing views.

In response to accusations that supporters were being “disruptive,” Holmes pushed back.

“When the city of Aurora has failed to protect its people, disruption becomes inevitable,” she said. “It is not the people’s resistance that disturbs the peace, but the state-sanctioned violence, the blood on our sidewalks, and the erasure of accountability that fractures it.”

“What’s truly disruptive,” she added, “is Aurora’s selective amnesia when it comes to the humanity of our people.”

Lewis’ mother, LaRonda Jones, has also expressed frustration over what she views as a lack of transparency and delayed action from the city. Advocates say this posture sends a deeper message: that the lives of victims like Kilyn Lewis are not a priority.

Their call is not just for acknowledgement, but for change.

photo credit: Denver Justice Project, who also provided the featured image.

“We are not interested in apologies or reform after the fact,” Holmes told Denver7. “We are demanding justice before another Black mother has to bury her child. The people deserve the truth, transparency, and transformation—not pacification.”

City officials have often painted demonstrators as unreasonable or unwilling to engage, but Holmes says the opposite is true. In her interview with Yellow Scene, she outlined clear demands: the creation of an independent body to investigate officer-involved shootings, greater access to victims’ services, and a space for sustained, resolution-focused dialogue between the community and city officials.

“There has to be a change in police reform across the country,” Holmes said. “Police cannot continue investigating themselves.”

Virtual-only meetings, she added, undercut the ability of citizens to fully participate in the democratic process. Physical presence in government spaces has long been a tool for marginalized communities to make themselves seen and heard. Without that, advocates say, it becomes easier for those in power to control the narrative and avoid difficult conversations all together.

Although no new protests are currently planned, Holmes emphasized that the work is ongoing. The group is now focused on engaging state lawmakers to push for more systemic reform.

“The council chambers may be closed, but our voices will not be quieted,” she said. “We will not be confined to city council calendars. We are working as a community to shift the soil beneath a city that still does not know how to say Black Lives Matter and mean it. We are building something ancient and urgent, and we are not done.”

Holmes says her fight, and the community’s fight, is also about how Kilyn Lewis is remembered. Not as a headline or a statistic, but as a whole person.

“He was ambitious, kind, and he loved to fish,” she said. “His death is a significant loss to all of us.”

She envisions a future where her daughter, her granddaughter, and others in Aurora grow up in a system that doesn’t treat Black lives as threats. A future where families don’t have to beg for answers, and where public institutions do not turn their backs.

“We all deserve the chance to live unapologetically and with purpose,” Holmes said. “Kilyn’s legacy should create different outcomes—for all of us.”

The post ‘We Will Not Be Quieted’: Aurora Protesters Push Back Against Virtual Meetings appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Walking through the King Soopers bakery, he approached the display where children were welcome to take a free cookie. Reaching in to select one, a hand suddenly closed on his wrist and the stranger asked what he thought he was doing, accusing him of stealing the complimentary sweet.

Ezekiel Quattlebaum was four years old, the intended consumer for the free treat. Something to munch on while his mom shopped for their family for the week. The white woman remained steadfast, insisting that the Black child she had touched without consent – and who had done nothing wrong – was guilty of a crime for something hundreds of kids across Colorado did every day. Something they were invited to do.

“I wasn’t putting the cookie into my mouth, I was grabbing it. In order to purchase the cookie, I still would have needed to grab it just like I did. This wasn’t just a misunderstanding,” Ezekiel reflected on the moment, twenty years later from his home in Denver.

A graduate of our nation’s first HBCU, Lincoln University, outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, he has returned to his home state to take the bar exam and begin his career.

“There’s more covert racism in Denver than overt racism in Denver,” he said while discussing his earliest memories of experiencing racially-motivated bias in Colorado.

In that Front Range grocery store so many years ago, his mother quickly rushed to his defense. He’d go on to experience more subtle clues of being unwelcome, considered suspicious, and having to navigate being Black in a place where white supremacy is one of the founding principles of his country. Being followed through stores, elementary school teachers teaching that slavery benefited Black Americans, the assumption of drug use or criminal activities.

Becoming a lawyer who could make the system more accessible, breaking the barriers of white-centered respectability and demystifying the processes for self-determination and advocacy, became his goal. He recognized that taking himself out of his comfort zone and learning how communities and cultures change with geography and history would be essential.

Ezekiel Quattlebaum (center) holds his just-received Juris Doctor from Drake University Law Degree aloft following the graduation ceremony with classmates Catherine (left) and Ouli (right). (Photo provided by Ezekiel Quattlebaum)

He studied for and received his undergraduate degree from a historically Black college and says that his eyes were really opened to the differences of opinion, experiences, and expectations within his own community. He learned to appreciate the sense of safety to grow in a space where he didn’t have to explain his own worth, it was anticipated without having to be demonstrated. He learned that integration in the United States didn’t have to mean assimilation, but it would mean that those who had never felt marginalized needed to step out of their comfort zones, too.

So, he headed to a state where teaching Black history through a Black lens had just been made illegal, for his law degree.

In 2021, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a law banning public schools from teaching the historic and cultural impact of systemic racism or sexism. In a nation founded under principles of systemic exclusion, where women were not afforded the right to vote, own property, or even open a bank account and where Black Americans were first legally recognized as only 3/5 of a human being.Teaching that important context was no longer allowed in the classroom.

MAGA Republicans had recently focused their ire on the scholarly and legal framework of critical race theory. Though decades old in academia, the term had been catapulted into the zeitgeist by then-former President Trump and his allies as an attack on the comfort of white Americans who – they believed – would be better served by not knowing about the rippling legacies of subjugation in this country.

Schools districts in the state have already ended their Black History Month programming as more teachers say they see self-censoring for fear of losing funding in their schools.

At Drake University, a young Black law student found an opportunity to be sure his peers in the law – at least – would graduate and enter their careers with the important historical context of the law with his instructor, retired Iowa Supreme Court Justice Judge Brent Appel.

Judge Brent Appel pauses in his office at Drake University, carefully contemplating the timeline of events connecting Black soldiers’ experiences in the military between the American Civil War and the first World War. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Walking into his office in the faculty bay on the first floor of the University’s law building, there is a sense of a man busy at work. Notes, papers, research are piled on every horizontal surface, neatly arranged for ease of access. Nothing is gathering dust, it’s clear that this office is not one set up to create an intimidating sense of grandeur and accomplishment.

Retired from the bench only because of age limits in Iowa courts, the accomplished jurist could hang accolades on the wall and use his new academic position as an opportunity to reflect his professional success. To project institutional authority. Instead, it is a space inviting collaboration, indicating the amount of work there was still to be done.

Born in Dubuque, Iowa, on the eastern edge of the state just before the state boundary with Illinois, the proud lifelong Iowan could see the need to be sure new attorneys from his state understood legal subjugation in context of American and Iowan history. To be sure that he, a white man, taught it with intention and care, he recruited Quattlebaum to help build a class he called Race, Law, and Iowa History.

Knowing that growth comes quickest in moments of discomfort, the law professor and Iowa historian asked his class to be ready to prepare to be a bit uncomfortable. And to think critically.

“I spent considerable time putting together the material for this course,” Appel says, peering over the piles of notes, dog-eared booked, and the stained well-used coffee mug on his desk. “A lot of questions being asked. We do a survey from historical beginnings, to the present day of how the law resources interact.”

With Ezekiel’s help during weekly, meandering, hours-long conversations, he built the course prepared to introduce completely new information to would-be attorneys. History their schools had omitted or ignored.

“Oh, I never know for sure. One never knows for sure,” the humble professor said in his Des Moines office, when asked if he anticipated measurable impact from teaching this course. “Perhaps one student at a time.”

In Denver, Ezekiel reflected on seeing that impact from one student in his class, the very first time it was taught, through a conversation about football and the Johnny Bright incident while having her own perception of reconstruction and racism were being challenged. She confessed that as an undergrad in Ames, Iowa, she questioned the need of Black clubs or support groups on the campus.

“During this class, she had a revelation. She said ‘wow, with that history, it makes sense why people of color would feel better with a safe space, when an institution has a history of beating or berating them. The whole class saw someone’s eyes just open up, realizing that maybe integration wasn’t perfect, because it fell on Black students to fix white schools.”

Systemic racism and cultural bias didn’t end with integration, nor with sharing water fountains, not even with the election of a Black president. Having her history books recontextualized by the intentional conversation presented by her law professor, with care and kindness, allowed the space for her to reach a new conclusion. To see the work that needs to be done to continue to address the legacy of legal racism in her immediate world.

A Drake University student walks across the pedestrian bridges from The Quads, the housing for first-year students at the college. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Judge Appel uses historic moments to highlight moments Iowans led the conversation around legal discrimination, from creating their Constitution to ban the practices of slavery and involuntary servitude (except as a punishment for crime), alongside moments of slow growth or even reversal of thought. He contrasts the Civil War, when Black soldiers became commissioned officers through a military academy erected in Des Moines, and World War Two when Black military members returned from serving their country to separate, but equal, doctrines of segregation.

“I do think, as a general matter, we all need to engage in more direct conversations and communications about the issues across racial lines and generational lines, too,” Judge Appel mused, finishing the private hour-long survey in his office of his semester-long survey course.”I think we make a mistake if we rush off to the merits of a particular controversy too quickly. What is going on underneath here really?”

In Iowa, law students are asked to absorb the full history, step outside of their comfort zone thinking critically, and are welcome to challenge their biases and assumptions in their classroom before they see the court room.

Ezekiel Quattlebaums poses with a classmate, Alli, after first-ever court appearance, with the Drake Clinic, which provides legal aid and representation free of charge to Polk County residents, with attorneys assisted by law students. (Photo provided by Ezekiel Quattlebaum)

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.

______________________________

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.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post In Iowa, Where Critical Race Theory is Banned, Retired Justice Teaches Race, Law and Iowa History appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Black Sparrow Media describes itself as “an award-winning full-service production company with a focus on narrative filmmaking.” Their catalogue—ranging from indie thrillers to R&B music videos—is available on YouTube and their website. Now, they’re turning their lens toward gaming with a new documentary, Gaming While Black (GWB), which explores race, representation, and access in the world of video games—from character creators to development teams.

I sat down with co-directors Jamal Page and Aaron Seaney, and producer Toni Yanez, to talk about the project and the conversations it’s sparking

Like many players, Seaney started thinking critically about representation at the character creator screen. “When I was growing up I loved the Elder Scrolls games. I always picked the Redguard” he said. “I liked how they looked and their stats.”

But only later did he start to question what it means for white players to adopt Black avatars, especially when design choices reflect shallow or stereotypical takes on Blackness. The Redguard’s aesthetic, for example, leans heavily on ancient Egyptian motifs. That’s a design decision that, while visually striking, risks flattening Black identity into exoticism.

Seaney’s reflection deepened when unprompted, his son created a Black character in Hogwarts Legacy. Unsure how to respond and a bit uncomfortable, Seaney turned to his co-director. “I asked Jamal if the question was offensive,” he recalled. “And I’ll never forget, he said, ‘I’d always rather have people ask and start the conversation.’”

And so, the conversation began about character creation, race, identity, and the very real ways these choices shape the gaming experience.

Representation doesn’t stop at skin tone. As gaming journalist Blessing Adeoye Jr. highlighted in his video, We Need to Fix Black Hair in Video Games, players are often faced with a sea of customizable options for white characters but only two or three for Black ones. Most often: bald, or afro. Some argue the issue is deeper than solely aesthetics. When you boot up a game and can’t even find a hairstyle that resembles yours, it’s a small but sharp reminder that the space wasn’t made with you in mind, and that lack of variety reflects broader biases. Adeoye references real-world examples to demonstrate the harm, a Black cheerleader dismissed over her hair being “too thick,” a high school wrestler forced to cut his locks before a match. These stories show how expectations around “acceptable” Black appearance aren’t limited to the digital world. When video games erase that diversity, they echo those same pressures. 

Of course, customization is only one part of the equation. Who gets to make the games is another key issue.

To explore that question, the Black Sparrow team went to the 2023 Game Awards. Page recalled, “It was an incredible time for the documentary. People lit up at the concept. They told us this film was needed. That kept us moving forward.”

The data backs up their instinct. As of 2021, only about 4% of professionals in major gaming studios were Black. Yanez spoke to the deeper issue: “Our aim is to shed light on often overlooked realities of Black gamers in an industry that can unfortunately be hostile and isolating at times. We also think it is just as important to elevate the voices within the industry that have already been doing the work to create space and challenge the industry to come up with solution”

Despite the support they received from many within the industry, the team quickly learned how contentious and vitriolic conversations about race could be within the gaming community. Online, coordinated hate groups, often branded “anti-woke” or linked to platforms like Kiwi Farms, have made it their mission to undermine diversity in games. “At the Game Awards, we had the privilege of speaking with Alyssa Mercante, a former senior editor at Kotaku with bylines in Rolling Stone,” Seaney said. “She’s been the target of a massive harassment campaign over the past year, and when we posted about our conversation on Twitter, we were immediately flooded with hateful comments—people hurling slurs at Jamal, mocking my appearance, and more.”

But instead of backing down, the team doubled down. “We learned we had our own thread on Kiwi Farms. That only deepened my commitment,” Seaney said. “I want to ask these people directly: Do you actually believe women and people of color are ruining games, or have they just found a new source of income through hate speech?

Despite the pushback, Black Sparrow is hopeful.

“There are people out there putting in the work,” Page said. “We want this film to help spotlight and support them. We need to build the space so the next Jordan Peele or Ryan Coogler of gaming has a place to thrive.”

And signs of progress are already visible. Kojima’s next horror game, OD, is a collaboration with Jordan Peele. South of Midnight, a game featuring a Black woman protagonist in the Deep South, has earned strong reviews. These projects show what’s possible when new voices are given room to tell their stories.

Gaming While Black isn’t just about critique. It’s about possibility and the belief that games, like all media, are better when everyone gets to play.

If you’re interested in supporting the film, follow Black Sparrow Media for updates and future releases.

The post Black Sparrow Media’s “Gaming While Black” Tackles Race and Representation in Games appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As the Fourth of July approached and House Republicans worked through the night to garner the necessary votes to pass President Trump’s landmark One Big Beautiful Act by his Independence Day deadline, some in Colorado asked themselves what there could possibly be to celebrate this year.

The bill’s impact is projected to hit Colorado’s rural communities especially hard. 

Estimates are that nearly 241,000 residents of the square state will lose their health care because of the bill’s $900 billion cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. Disabled and chronically ill residents will have to leap through new loops to continue to receive life-saving care. 

As protests were planned in the state’s urban centers, where the majority of the population lives and where s plurality gave Colorado to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, the question remained: What were people celebrating in this moment?

And where to go, to find out?

On a clear day, the Rocky Mountains are just visible in your rear view mirror. They serve as a subtle reminder that you’re still in Colorado, though the plains rising to meet you begin to mirror neighboring Kansas.

On the sunny Fourth of July, two children break away from the produced activities to fish together in the stocked pond of City Park in La Junta, Col. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene)

As the mountains fade behind you, with them go the majority blue leanings of the Front Range. With Democrats controlling every branch of the state’s government and the last 20 years of federal elections going to a Democratic president, it can be easy to forget that – federally – this is still a purple state. 

50% of Colorado’s representatives in the People’s Chamber are Republicans, and the two Democrat Senators are sure to make regular appeasements to GOP policies and appointments. Ostensibly they do this for the sake of bipartisan collaboration, it’s a reflection of the need to oscillate within the spectrum of political leanings they represent statewide. 

Turning East from Pueblo, where voters flipped then flopped between Presidents Trump, Biden, and Trump again you enter the counties represented in Congress by Republicans like Congressman Jeff Hurd.

Here, you’re entering Trump Country, CO.

In the fertile Arkansas Valley, where settlers once passed through on the Santa Fe Trail, you pass feedlots and huge commercial farms following the train tracks until you arrive in La Junta, the county seat for Otero County. 

Once a simple trading post, the small town reflects the natural beauty of the plains while preserving their historic past, the charm of centuries-old railtown buildings lining broad mainstreets as you head away from the railroad tracks. Commercial turns to residential as shady tree-lined streets lead you past parks, schools, and churches. 

The Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center said in a press release that “In Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District—our district—nearly 1 in 3 people (31%) rely on
Medicaid for healthcare. That includes over 228,000 individuals, 14,700 people with
disabilities, and thousands of children. Cutting Medicaid funding would have dangerous,
real-life consequences.” (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

La Junta is also home to Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center. A 25 bed critical access hospital, AVRMC is the area’s only option for immediate life-saving critical response. The next closest is 75 miles away in Walensburg, requiring those with urgent needs to travel back to the 1-25 corridor for their care. 

“Yes – ‘The Big Beautiful Bill’ will absolutely hurt AVRMC, other rural hospitals and the citizens in the communities we collectively serve,” stated a recent press release from the hospital. “It threatens emergency rooms, would force families to forgo essential care, and dismantle the fabric of rural communities like ours.”

In Congressman Hurd’s District— which includes Otero County — one third of the residents rely on Medicaid for healthcare, 228,000 individuals. 

In November 2024, there were 14,164 eligible voters in Otero County and 5,520 cast their ballot for President Trump and with only 8,926 people choosing to participate, it was enough to secure 62% of the votes for the MAGA candidate.

Now, though, everyone would be feeling the impact of the policies being enacted whether they voted for them, against them, or chose to abstain. 

In the Otero county seat, where the population has steadily declined as the poverty rate has risen – now more than 1 in 4 residents – still home to thousands of children and disabled Americans, the reality is they will lose access to necessary medical care leaving a significant portion needlessly vulnerable. 

As President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Act into law, paying for tax breaks for the über-wealthy by gutting the health care of the poor, it was time to celebrate America.

In Denver, while the 4th of July parade meandered through crowded streets, people marched and protested the decision, engaging in direct action voicing their opposition to the new law. 

In the Southeast, as the morning sun heated up the concrete streets leading into Trump Country, Colorado, it wasn’t immediately clear how the news was being received. 

There were no Make America Great Again billboards on the farms you passed nor were duallys with more Trump flags than axels rolling coal to ensure they were noticed. When asked directly about the bill, many admitted they were nervous about feeling the impact personally while asserting they support the stated “put people to work” intentions of the Medicaid rollbacks. 

When asked what they were celebrating that day, answers varied between general assertions of freedom to being compelled to wave a flag for a family member serving in the military. Not a single person said they were celebrating the trajectory of the federal government. 

Watching how this community came together, though, in the early morning air as the bill that would close their hospital became law, it became clear what the party atmosphere revolved around. Their town. Their people. 

Poet Toi Derricotte said “joy is an act of resistance,” though not a direct act, it is one which can offer a subterfuge to the hardships of living in a time when working people are seeing their safety nets removed for the sake of billionaires’ profits and to make Immigration and Customs Enforcement the largest federal law enforcement agency in the nation. 

On the streets of La Junta, the community greeted the Fourth of July was greeted with joy.

Chuck Mongregon poses with his family during the annual 4th of July Wet & Dry Parade through the mainstreets of La Junta, Colorado. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

County residents encircled the main street business district and the Chamber of Commerce hosted their annual Wet & Dry Parade, with the fire department using a large ladder truck to create a sheet of water through the central square as trucks and trailers carrying livestock water containers drove the loop. The people on the trucks tossed no candy and there weren’t the waving sign carriers ubiquitous with American parades. 

Instead, those on the floats used every style of squirt gun, bucket, or hose to combat the onslaught of water sent their way from the similarly aquatically-armed crowd on the sidewalks. Smiles, laughter, and the sounds of sloshing shoes echoed. 

Soaking, dripping and feeling the good sense of camaraderie from a game played with no stakes but to have fun, the event wrapped up as lunch time approached. Within an hour the streets and everyone’s clothes would be dry, compliments of the already-80-degree day. Some went to their homes to light the barbecue and begin their individual celebrations while many trekked to the city’s central park for the Stars and Stripes Festival. 

Produced by Trent Ryan and Ark Valley Entertainment, attendees were invited to listen to a Christian prayer service from local minister John Jaramillo and performance from local singer/songwriter Caitlyn Tibbles while strolling through a market which included a mobile veteran’s museum, the local free kitchen, and a Medicare/Medicaid help booth.

Roberta Caulkins-Mendoza, a Otero County community leader and insurance professional, answers questions about Medicare and Medicaid while President Trump signed in to law an act which will reallocate $900,000,000,000 to other federal efforts, mainly punitive immigration enforcement. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

Roberta Caulkins-Mendoza, a local licensed insurance agent and community leader – she directed the water fight many had just come from – was there to answer any questions anyone had about their healthcare. She tables locally regularly, working to ensure her neighbors have access to important information about their federally provided Medicaid. This year, she was fielding an uptick in questions about the possibility of losing coverage. 

That they wouldn’t be feeling the impact for a few years was the assurance many offered, when asked.

Cylus smiles and watches the sparks from a handheld firework pour over his head as he awaited the night sky to get dark enough for the fire department to begin the large 4th of July firework show with his mom in Rocky Ford, Colorado. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

The day would end with an incredible fireworks show in neighboring Rocky Ford, where first responders coordinate to produce an event which draws the county community together to culminate their celebration. As the sun sets, families play with the sparklers, smoke bombs, and firecrackers they brought from home. 

A little after nine, the music in the speakers is paused, vendors’ generators are silenced, and the national anthem is sung. At “rockets’ red glare” the audience is rewarded with the first large firework of the evening and for the next thirty minutes the oohs and aahs of the crowd were just audible above the incendiaries exploding above.

In Trump Country, Colorado, on the Fourth of July community was celebrated with uncertainty about what would come next as pungent as the sulfur in the ashes. 

—

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.

______________________________________

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.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Fourth of July in Trump Country, CO appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Megan Walrod, a women’s empowerment coach, seasoned speaker, and self-proclaimed lover of mermaids, recently released her debut novel It’s Always Been Me. It’s an emotional tale that follows Sabina, a woman confronting a crumbling marriage and the slow loss of her grandmother. With the guidance of mythic Selkies, a paintbrush in hand, and grief in her gut, Sabina begins to reclaim her voice—and her life.

I met Walrod on a sunny afternoon at a café tucked into the west end of Pearl Street. She smiled warmly as I joined her. In the spirit of abundance, she paid for one cacao drink but was gifted two. It felt like the universe already knew what kind of conversation we were about to have. We talked about her new book, of course, but also about the deep inner work she believes women must do to reclaim their own narratives, the mystical symbols that have guided her, and how Boulder, with all its beauty and baggage, became both a backdrop and a mirror for her healing.

Walrod’s love of storytelling began in a second-grade creative writing class in her hometown in New York. She never imagined her path would wind its way to Boulder, Colorado let alone lead her through one of the most transformative chapters of her life. After earning her Master’s Degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology at Naropa University, she faced what she called an implosion: the collapse of her marriage and the internal reckoning that followed.

“Boulder was this place where I have been the most devastated. Losing my sister was devastating. I was devastated, got to grieve, and got to be supported in the beginning of that journey here.

So when Walrod returned to Boulder recently for a reading at the top floor of Boulder Bookstore, several weeks ago it represented a full circle moment for her. She was stepping back into a space that had been a source of both pain and healing. If the weight of the past still burdened her, Walrod didn’t let it show. The room lit up as she arrived, hugging old friends and greeting new readers. There was something magnetic about her presence: grounded, joyful, inviting. She made a point to personally welcome everyone and fostered an atmosphere of warmth and connection. Then, as the crowd settled, she began to speak, first about the novel, and then about the truth underneath it.

“I lived this story here. This is where my husband came to me and said, ‘I want to explore something with this other woman,” She said.

In many ways, It’s Always Been Me is a retelling of Walrod’s own unraveling and rebirth. Sabina, like Walrod, must decide whether she’ll continue silencing her own needs or finally choose herself. That message about choosing oneself is the foundation of Walrod’s life’s work. For over 16 years, she’s helped women undo what she calls the “good girl programming”, the cultural script that teaches women to shrink themselves, to serve others before daring to dream for themselves. 

Walrod speaks candidly about the emotional toll society’s expectations take on women. The promise of a “happily ever after” often leaves women feeling trapped between expectation and desire and ashamed for wanting more than the role they’ve been handed. According to Walrod, that chronic self-sacrifice wears on the spirit and the body. Research shows that women make up 80% of autoimmune disease cases, and many of those conditions have been linked to suppressed emotions and unmet needs.

“When a woman is basing her choices on this usual archetype, there’s frustration, there’s guilt, there’s always the anxiety of ‘Is this all it is? I should be grateful, but I feel completely desperate, like there’s more for me.’ There’s that constant pull because so many women feel ashamed or guilty, so we don’t talk about it as much.”

Now on a cross-country tour with her book, Walrod is bringing that message to readers in Colorado, California, and New York. Her mission is simple but radical: Help women identify what they genuinely desire and give them permission to begin pursuing it before it’s too late.

“Why are we coping when we could be living?” she asked, smiling again. “That’s my whole thing—authoring your own life. Break free of the freaking narrative and what society says.”

It’s Always Been Me is available in paperback and e-book. More about Megan Walrod and her mission can be found on her website. 

The post Megan Walrod’s Novel Is a Love Letter to Women Who Are Done Shrinking appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Portions of comments from Erie residents who spoke at last night’s Town Council meeting have been interwoven into this story to honor their dedication to Erie’s LGBTQ+ community.

Being Better Neighbors Erie Pride Day

The air in the room was tense and stiff, as members of the Erie community showed up in force to voice their frustration with the removal of Pride flags from government buildings across town. The issue wasn’t originally on the agenda, but after an outpouring of public pressure, the town council amended it to allow discussion and public comment. The vote to amend the agenda was a six-to-one vote, with only Mayor Moore voting “no.” Dozens of residents took the mic to denounce the removal, pressing the council to change Erie’s Flag Policy and protect inclusive symbols moving forward.

“These are meaningful tokens to people. Some might say there’s going to be a slippery slope. I don’t think it’s going to be. I think it’s good for us to fly the pride flag at Town Hall, because it’s going to foster a sense of belonging and safety to a historically discriminated against population, and that can only have a positive impact on the rest of our community and lead to more economic prosperity.” – Marcie Lord, Erie Resident 

The removal followed a resident’s complaint that flying the Pride flag was out of compliance with town policy. The Town of Erie’s Flag and Street Décor Policy dictates that only the US or CO Flag may flow by the flag. However, this rule can be bypassed with an official proclamation or order from the President or the Governor. At the start of Pride Month last year, Governor Polis issued a proclamation that allowed municipalities like Erie to fly Pride flags in compliance with the state’s Flag Policy. This year, no such proclamation was made. So after a resident filed a complaint, Mayor Moore and Town Manager Malcolm Fleming had the flags taken down.

This decision was met with a mix of anger and confusion from Erie residents, culminating in a packed and emotionally charged town hall. Community members, young and old, shared personal stories and expressed concern about the message the flag’s removal might send.

 One passionate resident, Skylar Weitzel, an Erie, spoke with emotion:

“These are real people. It’s in these victims memories that we celebrate Pride and with that outward public support, we honor our brothers and sisters as God’s children, regardless of what gender they identify as or what pronouns they prefer, we should want to fly the flag to ensure the future safety and inclusion of those in the LGBTQ plus community who we live with seconds and worship with as our friends and neighbors and hopes they feel supported, included and safe in their own communities.”

Weitzel’s concerns reflect broader realities. Research from The Trevor Project shows that bisexual youth face disproportionately high rates of depression, bullying, sexual assault, and physical harm often tied to social exclusion and stigma. When communities fail to create inclusive environments, LGBTQ+ individuals can face real, measurable harm to both their mental and physical well-being.

Given the seriousness of the matter, many in the community hoped for a swift resolution. But that didn’t happen. The Town Council voted 4–3 to delay any update to the Flag Policy, with Anil Pesaramelli, Emily Baer, and Dan Hoback voting in favor of revising it, and John Mortellaro, Brandon Bell, Brian O’Connor, and Mayor Andrew Moore voting against. Mayor Moore added that he preferred to discuss the issue in executive session, a meeting closed to the public.

“This meeting isn’t just about a flag or a group of marginalized people. This meeting is also about doing things ethically, morally and transparently the right way, not in the dark of night. If the policy is lacking, then the policy needs to be changed.” – Janet Brown, Erie Resident

In the days following the vote, advocacy group Rocky Mountain Equality stepped in to help resolve the issue. The organization, which supports LGBTQ+ individuals and communities across Colorado, reached out to Governor Polis’s office requesting clarity. Within 24 hours, a new Pride Month proclamation was issued.

“We reached out as an organization to the governor’s office to look for clarity,” said Bruce Parker, Rocky Mountain Equality’s Chief Operating Officer. “And the proclamation came out the same day.”

As of yesterday, the Pride flags have been restored. Following Tuesday’s town hall, Mayor Moore reaffirmed his commitment to the LGBTQ+ community:

“I want to reiterate my unwavering support for the LGBTQ+ community. I understand that this situation has generated significant emotion, and I acknowledge the importance and symbolism of the Pride flag for many in our community.”

The combined response from residents and the swift issuance of Governor Polis’s proclamation helped bring the issue to a resolution, allowing the flags to fly once again as a symbol of inclusion and support. However, the victory was marred by an alleged incident involving Mayor Moore’s wife and an Erie resident, which has left some residents concerned about how the town listens to and supports LGBTQ+ individuals.

Among the residents who spoke was Kim Salvaggio, CEO of The Center on Colfax, the largest LGBTQ+ organization in Colorado. Her public comment echoed the passion and concern shared by many attendees. Speaking candidly, Salvaggio urged Mayor Moore to follow through on his commitments:

“I shouldn’t have to do this, but here is what I’m going to ask you to do: rebuild trust. I’m asking you to stand by the words that you said at Pride, and I’m asking you to adopt a formal resolution and ordinance protecting the right to display inclusive symbols.”

After public comments ended, many attendees left feeling satisfied they had voiced their concerns. Kim Salvaggio was among them. As she walked through the parking lot with her wife, a woman who identified herself as “a member of the community”, but whom Salvaggio did not recognize, asked to speak with her privately. During their conversation, Salvaggio’s comments were described as “scary,” and she was told she was the only person whose remarks had been perceived that way. The woman also urged Salvaggio to show more empathy toward Mayor Moore and the council, citing the scrutiny they face in their roles.

After the exchange, Salvaggio learned the woman was Mayor Moore’s wife. Disturbed by the encounter, Salvaggio sent a letter Tuesday night to the mayor and council, calling the interaction an inappropriate attempt at intimidation. For transparency, we have included Salvaggio’s full letter, which offers her unfiltered perspective on the incident. It is Yellow Scene’s hope that this letter sparks greater communication and understanding, fostering more open conversations rather than shutting them down.

Dear Mayor Moore and Members of Council,

I was one of the speakers this evening during the public comments. I feel it necessary to report the following. After my wife and I left the building, we were walking with a small group towards our car. We were approached by a woman asking if she could speak with me. She asked me to walk with her, which I was not comfortable doing. We went roughly 10 feet away from the group.  

Once we were slightly removed from the group, she identified herself as a ‘member of the community’.  She did not tell us her name. She told me that I was “scary” and the only speaker this evening that was “scary”. That my comments were direct and scary to the Mayor.  She asked me to consider or if I could have empathy for what our elected officials endure putting themselves out there.  She appeared almost to be trembling.  At this time, I made the decision to not engage, I said “noted” and walked toward my car, leading my wife with me.

After she turned to walk to her car, I was approached by the group that was only a few feet away and was informed the woman was the Mayor’s wife.  I had no further interaction with her, but at least two other community members did walk to her car and continue the conversation.  I was not part of that interaction.

Needless to say, this was inappropriate at best. Labeling someone as scary is a common tactic used to silence Queer women as well as other marginalized identities. In other words, its coded language is used to inflict violence on the person who is willing and able to speak truth to the people in power. I would ask the council to be aware of this situation with Mrs. Moore and consider the impacts on members of our community. Speaking out against people in power is never comfortable, we are putting ourselves at risk in ways many of you may have never had to consider, and this was a blatant use of power, on behalf of the Mayor, to shame me into silence. 

If the Mayor and the Council want to listen and learn from our community, you must take our safety seriously. 

I would hope our council and especially our Mayor are able to sit in their own discomfort as many of us have lived our entire lives in real danger and discomfort from real scary people.  Many of our committee members relayed information to you this evening about the real danger that exists towards us for just existing.  If the Mayor or any member of council cannot sit with discomfort for one evening, I would ask IF you should be the Mayor or on the Council. 

I recognize we have members of our council who have repeatedly displayed their solidarity with our marginalized communities and have their own identities and lived experience for consideration.   I know where you stand and thank you. 

I would ask you to consider that I am a strong, thriving Queer woman. I have had access to resources for decades to process the comments and attempts to silence through demeaning interactions — what if Mrs Moore spoke to one of our younger adults after the public comments  because she is concerned for her husband’s feelings?

For those who want to explain this interaction away or belittle it, I would ask you to consider what it means to be complicit.    

Regards,

Kim Salvaggio

The post Pride Flags Returns to Erie After Community Outcry and Governor’s Proclamation appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Water was passed out and space shared in the shade of a tree-lined Capitol Hill street as hundreds of people paused their peaceful protest through Colorado’s capital to listen to messages from community members and those impacted recently by the violence against trans Americans.

The flashing blue and red lights and clanking of militarized uniforms from the police were notably absent. Different from the mass mobilizations and parades held this past weekend on these same streets, the autonomous action was patrolled by community members, negotiating patiently with motorists to wait their turn as important words were shared in an occupied space.

Organized by Bread & Roses Legal Center and ACLU of Colorado in response to the recent SCOTUS U.S. v. Skrmetti ruling upholding Tennessee’s rejection of medical science and well-documented evidence that gender-affirming care saves lives, the Proud & Free: United for Trans Power rally and march brought together Coloradans from across the state.

Unity and belonging, even during the most trying times, was the theme of the day. As marchers caught their breath, the call was made to surpass the superficial societal divides – look beyond rural or urban, red or blue – and to remember that genderqueer people exist everywhere. They see the rhetoric and deserve to feel safe and supported wherever they are.

Event organizers Z Williams and Maya Blasingame play a verbal game of call and response as they lead an autonomous protest of hundreds through the streets of Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood during the Proud & Free: United for Trans Power rally and march. Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene

Z Williams, an attorney and community health advocate, read an emotional statement from Cherilynne Gratton-Camis, the mother of Jax Gratton, a Denver trans woman who was found dead this month in Lakewood after an extended missing persons search.

“My heart is broken,” Cherilynne wrote in her statement, “but I know this: My child deserved to be seen, respected, and protected. All of our children do. Please, educate yourself. Listen, love, and help build a world where every child can grow up safe and supported.”

Addressing the reality that the highest court in the United States has said it is acceptable to reject medical science on the grounds of personal animosity toward a marginalized group, seeing the difficult and deadly moment in history the queer community is facing, without despairing was the tightrope speakers, organizers, and attendees were navigating together in the sun that Saturday.

Hours earlier, the crowd growing on the Capitol’s west steps as speakers delivered their messages of community and hope, constant reminders were offered that even on the darkest day, progress has been made and there’s a swell of support which still exists.

“That’s why trans lives are under attack,” said Julian Camera, Lead Organizer for the ACLU of Colorado in his speech. “We see the injustices in our communities and we’re fighting, and we show up not just for our community but for all people.”

Medical professionals and caregivers shared stories of denied care, of people suffering first-hand because of the decisions made by policies meant to control bodily autonomy. Miss Trans Florida 2025 Freya Misdemeanor shared her personal experience with watching overreaching and controlling policy creep across state lines.

Colorado State Representative Brianna Titone, who represents HD-27 and is Colorado’s first openly transgender state legislator, took to the microphone to address the hyperbole in the general zeitgeist about trans youth and healthcare risks. Too often, she asserted, extremely rare – at times invented – stories are elevated disproportionately above the menial, at times boring, reality that more often gender affirming care can save an individual life without anyone noticing.

Colorado State Representative
Brianna Titone – who is running to be State Treasurer – speaks on the steps of the Colorado Capitol during the Proud & Free: United for Trans Power rally and march brought together Coloradans from across the state. . She speaks on the reality of hyperbole in the general zeitgeist about trans youth and healthcare risks. She quotes Justice Sotomayor in her recent dissent. Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene

The real risks, she said, is to deny medical science and to withhold care through government control. Harnessing the community and continuing the movement of radical self love, supporting peer-reviewed medical science, and by building with open hearts and arms, speaker after speaker painted the picture of success despite difficult.

“I want you to love what you see in the mirror every day,” co-host and emcee Maya Blasingame told the crowd on those Capitol steps as folks began limbering up for the march. “As the Black, indigenous, queer, trans goddess I am, do I love what I see in the mirror every day? Yes I do. The question is what can we do to get you there.”

With applause and enthusiasm, they streamed off the steps and in to the Summer sun. The familiar soft colors of trans pride moving through the sky as flags shimmering in the wind, bobbing on painted signs, and the pattern echoing across clothing and makeup.

Colorado’s Parasol Patrol moved with the group, coordinating closures at intersections and helping marshalls calmly navigate the loud and proud crowd through the business and residential streets surrounding the seat of the state’s power.

Chants were led demanding equitable access to hormone care, calls made for people to drop what they were doing and join. Denverites honked horns, hung from windows, cheered from bar patios and some did – indeed – step off of the sidewalk and into the streets.

After resting and reflecting in the shade on Logan Street, the march continued with voices raising in remembrance of Jax Gratton and community members who led in the movement for queer equality, but who are now gone too soon.

Seeing the size continue to grow, some people grabbing signs still stashed from last week’s No Kings from their back seats, served as a reminder that so long as a voice remains steady the chorus can continue. Ralliers stepped toward the Capitol once more, a bride pulled her groom and photographer in to the fray – making photos which will last a lifetime on the mantel and in marchers’ memories.

“Trans youth are not a threat, they are a gift,” said Emily Stout, founder of the Parenting the Rainbow. In the shade of the trees on the hills of the Capitol, the tone returned to next steps. “They deserve more than survival. They deserve safety, celebration, and freedom.

An activist marches in the Proud & Free: United for Trans Power rally and march brought together Coloradans from across the state to support sensible medical-based policy around gender-affirming care.

Organizers thanked the crowd for remaining loud and high-spirited despite the heat. The reminder was given that all struggle was interconnected and calls were made to continue conversations today with intention of protecting immigrants, stopping genocide, and in solidarity with marginalized groups from Gaza to Tennessee.

“The action was a first step in what needs to be an ongoing grassroots led trans liberation movement,” Z Williams told Yellowscene, reflecting on the event. “We have to demand more than the opposite of the Trump Agenda. We have to fight for trans futures.”

The post SCOTUS Denies Gender Affirmative Care: Colorado Rallies in Capital appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Racial tensions in the University of Colorado system are under public scrutiny once again, and this time with one of its own regents at the center. In March 2025, CU Regent Wanda James, the first Black woman elected to the board in over 44 years, called out a university-backed health campaign for utilizing racist tropes about the Black community. The campaign, titled “TEA on THC,” was produced by the Colorado School of Public Health and framed marijuana use in ways James said were offensive and unethical. Each image depicting the impact of THC on the brain used a Black character. James demanded that the images be removed and the funding for the campaign pulled.

The fallout was swift. 

James became the subject of a formal investigation by her own board, was targeted by a smear campaign website, and faced accusations of a conflict of interest due to her ownership of a cannabis dispensary. 

Following the aftermath, she framed the response as part of a broader national pattern: “We are watching book bans, attacks on reproductive rights, efforts to erase Black history, and the suppression of Black and women leaders, all fueled by a national Republican agenda. And now, in Colorado, Democrats on the Board of Regents are standing with them.”

James wasn’t the first to allege that CU had a racism problem. Just 2 years earlier, a 48-page “shadow report” was circulated alleging that four tenure-track women of color in the School of Education had been pushed out due to persistent bullying, surveillance, and institutional neglect. The report was signed by dozens of students and faculty who alleged that CU Boulder fosters a hostile work environment for faculty of color and described the treatment of Black women professors as “excessive, obvious, and undeniable.”

“The University of Colorado Boulder has a continual history of rampant and unbridled antiblackness,” the report claimed. “The systematic bullying, denigration, and surveillance of Women of Color faculty, and Black women faculty, in particular, was excessive, obvious, and undeniable. To obfuscate the reality that their treatment within this school has been anything other than horrific, unprofessional, and inhumane is both fatuous and fictitious. We bore witness and were made privy to countless examples of institutional disrespect and disregard against the Women of Color faculty in both formal and informal settings.”

Together, these incidents paint a picture of a long-standing pattern of racial tension and institutional failure across the CU system. To understand how CU got to this point, it’s worth tracing the roots of faculty discontent back over a decade.

Greg Cronin, a white former professor who spent over 20 years at CU Denver, now runs a blog where he documents what he calls a pattern of institutional racism within the university system. But his relationship with CU wasn’t always adversarial. His concerns began after a 2010 travel ban that the university issued in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

“The University of Colorado Denver put out a public announcement on Facebook that forbid faculty, staff, and students from going to Haiti to help,” Cronin told Yellow Scene Magazine. “I think the excuse they used was that it was a dangerous situation.”

At the time, Cronin found the ban troubling but didn’t initially think of it as racially motivated.

“It didn’t even cross my mind that it was racist,” he said. “It crossed my mind that this is just wrong. Of course, when there’s a natural disaster, it’s dangerous. That’s what natural disasters do, they create a dangerous situation, but it’s wrong not to go there and want to help.”

According to Cronin, CU Denver had never issued a travel ban like this before and never has since. He spoke out publicly, and within a week, the university lifted the restriction. In 2018, CU praised a group of students for traveling to Nepal to aid earthquake recovery efforts there. The contrast raised difficult questions: Why were students encouraged to help in Nepal but outright banned from helping in Haiti? The implication, some argue, reflects broader systemic issues namely, that compassion and institutional support often follow racial lines. Scholars have long criticized the way institutions implicitly treat whiteness as the default, or even as more “worthy” of care. For instance, in 2022, Black refugees fleeing war in Ukraine were repeatedly turned away at borders while white refugees were welcomed. Likewise, CU seemingly treated Haiti, a predominantly Black country differently than other countries in crisis sending a subtle but damaging message about who deserves aid.

After the ban was lifted, Cronin and several colleagues traveled to Haiti. He speaks fondly of the experience, saying he learned more from Haitian students and faculty than he could have ever expected. But he also believes that his decision to speak out marked a turning point in how CU treated him.

“The first time in my entire career that I failed to meet teaching expectations was the year I taught in Haiti and advised the first Haitian to earn a master’s in Marine Conservation,” Cronin said.

Cronin says the Haiti ban was the first time he personally witnessed what he would later come to see as institutional racism at CU but it was far from the last. One of the most glaring patterns, he argues, is how CU evaluates faculty work: especially work that engages with communities of color. In academia, the distinction between “research” and “service” carries weight. Research advances a faculty member’s chances of earning tenure. Service work, while valuable, is not typically counted in the same way. Cronin alleges that CU often labels community-engaged scholarship with BIPOC communities as “service,” while similar work with white communities is classified as “research.”

This trend has been especially visible in cases like that of Dr. Lupita Montoya, a latina former assistant professor at CU Boulder who was denied tenure in 2016. Montoya had been recommended by both colleagues and experts in her field, but the university claimed her work did not meet the research requirements. Supporters say Montoya’s work was undervalued because it focused on issues affecting marginalized communities, such as air quality in Navajo Nation, labor conditions in Colorado nail salons, and educational access for first-generation BIPOC students. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montoya worked with frontline workers and vulnerable communities to improve air safety, so for many, it was frustrating and disheartening to see her work dismissed as falling outside the bounds of “real” research or service.

A subsequent investigation recommended that her case be re-evaluated, but the university refused. 

In an interview with Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, Dr. Angela Bielefeldt, an engineering professor who served as one of Montoya’s primary tenure reviewers, said the dean’s handling of external letters was “non-standard” and called the decision to deny Montoya a second review, “baffling.” Montoya herself has publicly stated that she believes race and gender played a role in her denial. As reported by the Boulder Daily Camera, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that CU Boulder discriminated against her based on her race and sex.

In the end Montoya was denied and her concerns about discrimination were mostly dismissed. However, this was not the first time concerns about the treatment of POC staff was raised nor would it be the last. Just seven years later, the aforementioned shadow report signed by dozens of students and faculty would be released that documented the departures of four women of color from CU. The report paints a picture of vitriolic hostile culture that made remaining at the university untenable for the professors to remain. The authors wrote:

“We bore witness and were made privy to countless examples of institutional disrespect and disregard… which include but are not limited to public attacks on their personhood and their scholarship; installments of surveillance disguised as protection; harassment, bullying, and gossiping by students, faculty, and staff; downplaying of their achievements and their deep-set commitments to their students.”

It is easy to draw connections between Montoya’s fight for tenure and the alleged hardship faced by these professors. In each instance, women of color had their work devalued, their role undermined, and their departures quietly swept aside. However, some argue the shadow report highlights a more specific tendency of CU: antiblackness.

“CU has an antiblackness problem,” Regent Wanda James told Yellow Scene. While she acknowledged racism across the system, she was clear: when it comes to Black faculty, the hostility is more untrenched and unquestioned. Her concerns echo the shadow report, which decried CU Boulder’s “continual history of rampant and unbridled antiblackness.”

It may not be obvious why the distinction between racism and antiblackness matters, but Montoya’s story helps clarify it. Women of color who aren’t Black can absolutely face racialized barriers in academia. However, what many advocates say they are trying to name is how Black faculty in particular face a set of deeply ingrained patterns that often go undiscussed. In particular, many have flagged a lack of black leaders..

In her interview with YS, James was direct,  “CU has failed to hire Black leadership forever.”

She’s not alone in her concern. In March, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb called for an investigation into the university system’s hiring practices and its failure to elevate Black leaders.

“What leads to this is the fact that since 1876, only two Black chancellors have been appointed at CU, which is a disgrace of 149 years,” Webb wrote in an email to the Board of Regents.

The numbers tell a stark story. In 2023, CU Denver Anschutz had more than 110 white tenured faculty members for every one Black faculty member. Among professors working toward tenure, the gap was 43 to one. CU Boulder’s 2020 data revealed a similar imbalance: over 45 white faculty for every Black professor. 

Dr. Hillary Potter, a Black associate professor who’s spent over two decades at CU Boulder seems to believe that the numbers reflect the reality of the black experience.

“At least in my experience, for me, there has been this disregard of my voice,” she told 9News. “It just feels like we’re going backwards.”

Potter went on to say that she still hears painful stories from Black students, staff, and faculty, stories that, when brought to the administration, are routinely “ ignored.”

In response, to Webb’s email and the resulting discourse, the Board of Regents issued a formal reply emphasizing that all hiring policies undergo a comprehensive review and pointing to a recent vote affirming those procedures:

“All regent laws and policies are reviewed using a comprehensive and transparent process that includes input from regents, legal, the campus communities, and members of the public… Our laws and policies reflect adherence to state and federal laws. We appreciate your interest in this matter.”

But Webb said the response fell short.

“My disappointment in the chairwoman’s letter is she does not acknowledge that there’s a problem,” he told 9News. “You can’t fix a problem if you don’t acknowledge there’s a problem.”

CU’s response was not out of character for the university. Students and faculty have reported a perception that any criticism or conversation about race fall on deaf ears to administration

During Cronin’s era, he was asked to join the African Student Union because of his willingness to “go to bat” for his students. 

“Black students would often say that they felt unheard in the classroom when they worked up the courage to speak up,” he said. “I’ve heard Black students say that they felt uncomfortable or intimidated to raise their hand and speak up in class.”

Cronin formed the student group Wake Up, Speak Out with his students. The purpose of the group was to “speak out” about the challenges that students of color faced at CU. The leadership was composed of four white males who came together to create the group. Cronin shared that students of color were nervous to serve a leadership role in the group or raise complaints against the university due to the possibility of facing negative consequences. 

“Our black students feared retaliation if they spoke out about racism at CU Denver,” he said. 

According to Cronin, CU Denver is shaped by white leadership and those who do speak out about racist actions are punished. Students of color are intimidated into staying quiet, instructors who strive to be allies are pushed out, and leaders who expose harmful behavior are undermined. The impact of such a culture goes beyond just harm to mental health as universities where students of color experience frequent microaggressions and exclusion tend to see worse academic outcomes for those students.

It’s a pattern Cronin says he witnessed firsthand. He told Yellow Scene that during his time at CU Denver, Black students failed at far higher rates than their white peers.

“Our Black students get Ds, Fs, and Ws [withdrawals] at a rate 50% greater than our white students. A contributing factor to the failure of Black students is that they don’t have Black faculty role models to help them navigate the difficulties of getting an undergraduate degree.”

The greater context and culture surrounding are what push many to react so strongly to Wanda James’ ongoing dispute with the university. What began with a Black regent raising concerns about a racist graphic has now escalated into calls to censure her rather than a candid conversation about race. This conversation is also colored by tensions on the national stage as higher education responds to crackdowns on DEI. 

In January of this year, Colorado Public Radio reported that the CU system had removed its Diversity, Ethics, and Inclusion webpage following an executive order from the Trump administration. More than 50 universities, including CU Colorado Springs, are now under federal investigation, some for so-called “race exclusionary practices,” others for allegedly “failing to rein in antisemitism”, as part of a broader crackdown on DEI efforts.

As of writing this, CU’s DEI webpage remains down.

CU Boulder has quietly renamed its diversity page the “Office of Leadership Support and Programming.” CU Boulder and CU Denver did not respond to email requests for comment.

The removal and rebranding efforts come at a moment of contradiction. On one hand, DEI is being targeted nationally and painted as divisive or even illegal. On the other, faculty and students at CU say efforts to support and retain people of color have never been more urgent. The question, then, is not whether DEI is controversial. It’s whether CU will stand behind the people who say they are being harmed.

“We want to help,” said Regent James. “Black leaders want to engage. We want to bring different conversations and see CU do better. But too often, we’re put in the position of being the only Black person in the room, and when that happens, it’s only a matter of time before we’re blamed for the problems we came to fix.”

However, before CU can fix anything, it has to admit something’s broken.

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The post Will Colorado Universities Step Up for Faculty and Students of Color? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Upon entering the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, you are welcomed in warmly by “I am worthy of tending,” written on the wall. Divine Rest Nests: An Invitation, running from May 22nd to September 1st of this year, lives up to its name, and offers even more once experienced. The guest curator, Cristina Aguilar, says this exhibit is a continuation of last year’s exhibit, Sacred & Soft Landing/Soñar y Descansar. Plans for the current exhibit began long before the U.S. federal election results, which only exacerbated the indispensability of the collectives’ black, brown, indigenous, trans, and queer artists’ messages. You may have heard the phrase “Rest as Resistance” as coined by the founder of the Nap Ministry Tricia Hersey, and wondered how to take the concept out of the theoretical, into the substantial. You may have asked how a bubble bath can create social change, and  how rest is even possible when the political climate is so relentlessly urgent. Each of the artists featured tackle these questions head-on, transforming them into embodied, immersive spaces where rest becomes both a refuge and a form of defiance.

Cal Duran, a two-spirit mixed-heritage artist from Colorado, looks to his ancestors and teachers, past and present, to construct his rest nest. Curtained with beads and bells, the vibrant, patterned room is crowned by a large papier mache heart, retrieved from its co-creator in Santa Fe. Duran reminds us with his nest, weaved with the teachings of White Spider and elaborate ojos de dios watching over, that the heart is at the center of our beings and that, “The heart travels.” 

Lilian Lara, a garment artist, glows in a sea-glass-looking castle, which is actually made out of organza fabric. It’s her largest project to date, taking over 300 hours to sew, and it evokes dreamscapes where place, time, and familiarity blur into something both inextricable and interchangeable. Lara says, “Dreams let us fail in ways that we never would have in reality,” and shares that the two large doorways through her nest are meant not only for wheelchair accessibility, but also for those who struggle with the concept of rest and may need a way to gently step away.

Lares Feliciano, a collage and animation artist, washes you in nostalgia with her interactive nest: a day-bed framed by twinkle lights laid before a TV playing 80’s and 90’s infomercials, surrounded by boxes of toys that invite the guests’ inner children to play and find rest they may not have been afforded in childhood. 

Samantha Hutchinson-Ouranos, who goes by Sammiotzi, is a Mexican-American mother and graphic designer who answers the questions “What keeps you from resting” and “what helps you rest.” The translucent curtain panels leading into her piece have scrawled on them reasons for unrest: white supremacy, violencia, ecological collapse and more. Once having acknowledged the very real restrictions to rest many of us face everyday, Hutchinson-Ouranos invites us to lay in the peaceful and weighted embrace of a nonbinary, watched over by a projection of a cosmic guardian. 

The exhibit totals seven nests, each in conversation with one another. Curator Aguilera says that “Before we even opened these doors, the show was already existing” suggesting that these seven artists’ manifestations of rest had grown outside of the gallery doors and had already begun to touchand change the world. The invitation extends to you now, to experience, to let yourself be changed by rest, and to carry that transformation into all you create in these exhausting times.

The post Rest as Art: BMoCA’s Divine Rest Nests Invites Reflection appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As corporations, big box stores, and even beer brands pull away from commitments made to the LGBTQ+ community, Full Expression! Dance Collective and New Belgium Brewing are partnering again to recognize PRIDE.

As fears of backlash from the federal administration continue to spread, causing rippling concerns about corporate support for marginalized communities, independent artists are still organizing in communities to provide safe and accessible spaces to socialize and recognize love.

Full Expression! Dance Collective founder Savannah Svoboda poses for a portrait at Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins, CO. (Photo by Vince Chandler)

Well-funded corporate PRIDE parades, which have recently accepted money from sponsors
who have torn taps from gay bars and who facilitate war crimes and genocide, are panicking
about their ability to generate the necessary revenues from these again-retreating brands.
For many longtime residents and queer activists, Colorado’s Hate State moniker echoes again with the reminder of the tense position, our more liberal relationship to the queer community today. In 1992, Amendment 2 was approved by 53% of Colorado voters making it illegal to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

It was overturned the following year by the Colorado Supreme Court and only 30 years later our state would elect the nation’s first openly gay Governor. Of course, it was only last year in 2024 when 64% of Colorado voters approved Amendment J to repeal the definition that states only a union of one man and one woman is a valid or recognized marriage in Colorado.

It is in this context that independent artists and community-first artisan brands affirm their
commitment to the original spirit of the first LGBT civil rights movements, recognizing the
necessity to continue in spite of it.

“It’s so important for us to more centralize queer artists every single day, but especially today while we’re being so targeted,” says Full Expression! founder Savannah Svoboda. “If your intentions are to uplift and support, if your intentions are to be curious and educate yourself, and if your intentions are to be part of the community and not leave the community as an ally, then I would say this event is for you.”

Brazilian drag queen Krisa Gonna performs for a sold-out crowd at the Center for Creativity in Fort Collins, Colorado, during the Full Expression! 2024 Winter Showcase. (Photo by Vince Chandler)

Founded in 2018, Full Expression! Dance Collective is a queer-owned studio “dedicated to creating more safe and equitable experiences through movement, education, and community investment.” Their leadership and members unite in a mission to stand boldly and proudly as community which upholds the liberation of targeted and marginalized people.

According to their website, this includes but is not limited to race, gender, disability, age, immigrants/DACA recipients, people who are pregnant or seeking abortion support, religious minorities, socioeconomic status, and being part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Collective founder Savannah Svoboda is a CSU graduate, whose eight-year career in corporate recruiting, HR, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion prepared her to found Full Expression! She says her experiences as a queer woman, dancer, choreographer, and entrepreneur culminated in the collective’s goals of creating safer and more equitable experiences for performers.

“It’s pretty special that we get to tap into, not only the beer drinkers, not only people who are from Full Expression!, not only people who are for PRIDE, but also people who just care about what’s going on in our community. It’s perfect,” Svoboda said in a statement.

The ongoing partnership with Fort Collins community fixture New Belgium to celebrate the arts during PRIDE offers a welcome sense of comfort for artists and performers. Join them on Saturday, June 7th from 12pm to 7pm for a day of belly dancing, traditional Chicano ballet folklorico, Brazilian Beats, tap dance and more, all emceed by Krisa Gonna. Headliner Nini Coco, along with artists from across Colorado, will celebrate the intersection of queerness and the many cultures who today call Colorado home.

“When we partner with this space, that was founded on other values that come into alignment with our own, there is intersection there and so maybe the beer drinker who isn’t queer – and isn’t ever going to go to a parade – will find us here,” said Svoboda.

“We are proud to be the very first craft brewery recognized as one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality by the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, with a score of 100%, once again earning a perfect score earlier this year,” said New Belgium Programming Coordinator Sydney Milner. “Additionally, each year we brew a unique batch of Biere de Queer with unwavering support of the LGBTQ+ community, with this year’s local release benefiting Rocky Mountain Equality.”

Brewed for All is a fundraising program created to capture the unique, vibrant, diverse, thriving voices of the LGBTQIA+ community and promote their inclusion within the beer industry. New Belgium created The Brewed for All program to support the efforts of local non-profits working for equal rights and visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community. During the month-long program, for every New Belgium Beer sold, New Belgium donates $1 to continue investing in communities that promote equity and inclusion for ALL.

“I love what Full Expression! stands for, they have welcomed not only my queerness, they also invited all my other identities,” says Krisa Gonna, a Fort Collins drag performer originally from Brazil. “You know, I bring Brazilian culture, Brazilian dance, and I think they are a very good example of how we can work together, within our differences, celebrating what makes us unique.”

Jessica Erickson, Kamryn Berry, Lex Loutzenhiser and performers gesture for the stage crew to receive recognition and applause during curtain call at the Full Expression! We’ve Got Magic To Do Showcase at the Rialto Theatre in Loveland, Colorado, in May 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler)

The second annual Full Expression! Pride at New Belgium Brewery is taking place this Saturday, June 7 as a celebration of being queer in the Colorado creative scene. Full Expression! PRIDE at New Belgium is both a performance and community celebration generating sustainable connections and partnerships. The Brewed for All program works to support the efforts of local non-profits working for equal rights and visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The post Northern Colorado Beer Community Doubles Down on Queer Community appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

How game designer Rasheed Abueideh took Playdead’s Limbo and elevated it into a call for action. 

The following article contains spoilers for the games Limbo and Liyla and the Shadow of War. 

Shakespeare didn’t name Romeo and Juliet.  He didn’t even come up with the overall plot.  What he did was add layered characterization and elevated poetry to the dialogue.  The adage amongst creatives when desiring to make something meaningful is “don’t borrow, steal.”  Rasheed Abueidah, who developed Liyla and the Shadow of War, adopted this approach when he heavily aped from Playdead’s critically acclaimed Limbo and created a powerful experience, conveying what it feels like to live in wartime Palestine.

For the uninitiated, Limbo is simply a 2D, side-scrolling platform puzzler with a film grain noir aesthetic.  Think Mario, but in black and white.  However, instead of a beloved plumber, we follow the journey of the “Boy.” Further, the upbeat music of a Mario game is replaced with tones reminiscent of a horror series like Silent Hill, while real-world sounds—trains rolling across tracks, the leaking drip of pipes, whirring cicadas, and industrious whistles help bring life to this “other” world.  

The game opens to this black-and-white color palette with the Boy rising to his feet in a field of grass.  His figure matches much of the world around him, as he is more shadow than person. The only sign of personality is his tiny blinking white eyes. As he pushes forward, he must sneak past giant spiders, empty pits, water pits, pits full of jagged sticks created by ill-meaning humans—it’s in the title, Limbo, as in there might be one place worse than this, but only one. To further this idea, much of the background of Limbo appears war-torn: hollowed buildings in disrepair, teetering neon signs with flickering letters. 

When the game ends, the Boy is upon a grassland that eerily resembles the game’s beginning, only this time there is a treehouse with a little girl picking flowers beneath it.  Then, without warning, the screen fades to black.  When the image lights back into frame, the treehouse has been decimated; the two children are nowhere to be seen.  However, in their place are two small heaps of loosened dirt with two distinct and separate swarms of flies circling what many interpret to be their graves.  

When Rasheed Abueideh created Liyla and the Shadow of War, he took many of the elements established by Playdead’s work—monochromatic film grain aesthetic, silhouette player characters, war-torn settings full of perilous traps.  Where Liyla becomes its own game is that it narrows the scope to say this: Palestine in 2014 is simply a lived Limbo. You begin Liyla as a father looking for his daughter across a backdrop of dilapidated houses.  Instead of giant spiders presenting themselves as obstacles, it’s abandoned excavators and husks of flaming cars.  Instead of kids setting traps off in a distance, it’s men with rifles firing wildly in the player’s direction, bombs igniting mere feet away from where the player and Liyla attempt to flee.  The most tragic theme, however, is still exactly the same: there is no escape. 

Both games end in hopeless death. Liyla will often give the player the illusion of choice: as the player and Liyla dash across the Gaza Strip, you’re given the option to hide in a school you come across—but the school is struck by a rocket moments after you choose to go that way.  Another choice has you deciding if you should take four brothers playing soccer on the beach with you as you try to escape the carnage—the result is that the debris from an explosion will take out the four boys, the only thing that changes is whether or not you are with them.  The game ends with an ambulance offering to take Liyla to the hospital, where she’ll be safe, only to be hit by a rocket. Game over.  Everybody lost.

After playing both games, one could make the shallow argument that Liyla is a truncated, unrefined interpretation of Limbo because of the substantial overlap in aesthetic and design choices.  But the only art worth stealing is that which haunts you. 

Abueideh saw something in that shadow of a boy presented in Limbo and extended that metaphor—the shadows of war, forgotten, left behind things that were once fully human.  He uses Limbo’s contrast to show the humanity lost in Gaza during the military strikes in 2014.  When Abueideh lists the number of deaths of Palestinians at game’s end, it impacts the player because we’ve interacted with them.  We’ve seen the school explode and witnessed the deaths of four boys playing soccer.  Four boys who shared a last name.  A whole generation wiped from the earth in an instant.  In fifteen short minutes, Abueideh distills all the trauma from Limbo and grounds it within real-world experience.  The game marks you, indelibly making you want to be an agent for meaningful change.  The way good art should.

The post The Only Art Worth Stealing appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder NAACP, which announced its dissolution earlier this month, has been at odds with the City of Boulder and its new Chief of Police, Stephen Redfearn. In a recently filed civil lawsuit, former Boulder NAACP member Darren O’Connor alleges that Redfearn, the City of Boulder, and City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde violated his rights to free speech through retaliatory actions.

For a more comprehensive look into the dissolution of the Boulder NAACP and its members’ battle with the city thus far, see our previous coverage. The abbreviated version goes like this: due to Redfearn’s less-than-favorable history as a captain of the Aurora Police Department, specifically his post-mordum involvement with the wrongful death of Elijah McClain, members of the community spoke out against him taking the role of the Boulder Chief of Police.

Many formal complaints were made to the city of Boulder, specifically the city manager, Rivera-Vandermyde, urging them to reconsider his appointment in light of already deep-seated mistrust of the police. After much back and forth, which is covered in detail in our previous article, a mediated meeting was held between the Boulder NAACP and Redfearn in July 2024.

While the city of Boulder and Redfearn attempted to make members sign a confidentiality clause, they refused. Though the meeting did little to ease the minds of either party, things really began to escalate when Redfearn and Rivera-Vandermyde became aware that a member of the NAACP had recorded the meeting.

From there, according to O’Connor, Redfearn, and Rivera-Vandermyde began a smear campaign against him, leading to the Boulder NAACP’s falling out with the national organization, and other personal harm. Which brings us to the most recent lawsuit, filed April 29, 2025.

The suit alleges that Darren O’Connor faced retaliation after publicly opposing the appointment of Defendant Redfearn as Chief of Police for the Boulder Police Department. The complaint outlines seven claims of relief, asserting violations of both the Colorado and U.S. Constitutions.

The seven key allegations are as follows:

1. Retaliation for Freedom of Speech: Plaintiff contends that after voicing concerns about Redfearn’s appointment, Redfearn retaliated by disseminating false information about O’Connor, targeting his NAACP membership, filing complaints with the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel (OARC), and seeking criminal charges against him.
2. Retaliation for the Right to Association: The lawsuit claims that Redfearn’s actions led to the revocation of O’Connor’s NAACP membership, which infringes upon his constitutional right to free association.
3. Civil Conspiracy: It also alleges that Redfearn and Boulder City Manager Rivera-Vandermyde collaborated to discredit him through media misinformation, complaints to the NAACP, and attempts to initiate criminal proceedings, all in response to his protected speech and association.
4. First Amendment Retaliation (42 U.S.C. § 1983): The complaint asserts that Rivera-Vandermyde, acting under color of law, retaliated against Plaintiff’s free speech by spreading misinformation, targeting his NAACP membership, and seeking criminal charges.
5. Retaliation for Right to Association (42 U.S.C. § 1983): It is alleged that Rivera-Vandermyde’s actions, including filing complaints with the NAACP, led to the revocation of O’Connor’s membership, violating his right to free association.
6. Civil Conspiracy (42 U.S.C. § 1983): O’Connor claims that both Redfearn and Rivera-Vandermyde conspired to retaliate against him for exercising his First Amendment rights, resulting in harm to his reputation and associations.
7. Failure to Train: The lawsuit alleges that the City of Boulder failed to adequately train its officials, particularly Redfearn, on constitutional rights, leading to the violations experienced by O’Connor.

O’Connor seeks compensatory damages for physical, emotional, and mental injuries, as well as other relief deemed appropriate by the court.

Yellow Scene Magazine is no stranger to litigious battles with the city of Boulder, having won a civil suit concerning the timely and unedited release of body camera footage after an officer-involved shooting that left 51-year-old Jeannette Alartorre dead. These types of legal battles, though not as electrifying as the marches in the streets, are equally crucial in holding those who are charged to “protect and serve” accountable.

The post City of Boulder Faces Yet Another Lawsuit appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

On March 28, the executive committee of the Boulder NAACP branch announced that it was dissolving. The message landed as both unexpected and, in some ways, inevitable. Tensions between the branch, city officials, and the police department had been building for years, culminating in disputes that left many relationships strained. While some community members were aware of ongoing disagreements, few anticipated the abrupt shuttering of the organization. 

In recent years, the City of Boulder has taken visible steps to align itself with marginalized communities, including the creation of a racial equity department and the launch of a “Reimagine Policing” initiative. Despite these efforts, the city now finds itself navigating a rupture with one of its most prominent civil rights organizations. The breakdown raises difficult questions: What went wrong? And how did efforts at collaboration give way to mutual distrust? 

Adding to the confusion was the way the local NAACP branch made its announcement, with no clear coordination or communication with state or national leadership. Within days, higher-level NAACP officials entered the public conversation to push back. In a March 31 Instagram Live, Colorado NAACP President Portia Prescott stated, “We have a Boulder branch that actually is thriving,” and emphasized that “the only body with authority to dissolve a chapter is the national board.” The public contradiction left many uncertain about the branch’s status and marked a rare instance of open disagreement between local and national leadership.

What is clear is that, within a matter of days, Boulder’s NAACP went from being a key player in the city’s civic landscape to being at odds with both the local government and the national organization. Through exclusive interviews, Yellow Scene Magazine is unpacking what led to this breakdown and what’s at stake for the community moving forward.

The Shadow of Elijah McClain

Any effort to understand this conflict must begin with the legacy of Elijah McClain.

In 2019, McClain died after being violently detained by Aurora police and injected with ketamine by paramedics. The incident sparked national outrage and led to lawsuits, criminal charges, and renewed demands for police reform.

At the time, Stephen Redfearn was a captain in the Aurora Police Department. Although he was not involved in the physical confrontation that led to Elijah McClain’s death, he was present during its aftermath and played a role in the administrative decisions that followed. Among those actions was the reclassification of the incident report—from “suspicious person” to “assault on officer.” While the change drew little attention at the time, it would become a focal point of controversy years later.

In October 2024, the Boulder NAACP published a press release criticizing City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde’s decision to promote Redfearn to Chief of Police. They described his alteration of the call log as tantamount to a “cover-up” and emphasized his connection to the McClain case:

“He was the Nightshift Duty Commander overseeing the officers responsible for Elijah McClain’s death, as well as the leader of a brutal assault with chemical weapons against violin vigil participants honoring Elijah McClain’s memory.”

By that point, Redfearn had served three years in Boulder and had acted as interim chief. To city officials, he was a seasoned candidate with local experience, and they continued to support him despite the criticism. Redfearn defended his reclassification of the logs as a procedural decision made after speaking with the officers involved in the incident. According to him, the change aligned with department policy. But to members of the Boulder NAACP, it reflected a deeper cultural concern: a willingness to adjust official records in ways that could obscure or minimize misconduct.

Their concern extended beyond a single form or call log. Redfearn’s tenure in a department with a well-documented history of excessive force raised broader questions about the values and priorities he might bring to leadership. For the Boulder NAACP, this was not just a matter of personnel. It was a matter of trust, transparency, and the kind of leadership the city was choosing to endorse.

The Meeting That Changed Everything

In July 2024, before the press release, Boulder’s NAACP hosted a public town hall on criminal justice, where they publicly discussed their concerns about Redfearn. City officials responded by proposing a private mediated conversation to repair trust and build a collaborative relationship.

It didn’t go as planned.

According to those present, what began as a cautious conversation quickly unraveled after Redfearn commented on the NAACP president’s facial expression. She pushed back, asserting her right to respond and process information in whatever way came naturally. Other members jumped in, calling the comment a form of hyper-surveillance and an example of racial policing in interpersonal spaces.

The exchange derailed the meeting. Criminal Justice Chair Darren O’Connor, who attended, later described Redfearn’s reaction: “It seemed like Redfearn lost it and refused to talk for a while. A mediator actually told him, ‘This is the kind of thing that gets people killed.’”

In the aftermath, NAACP members left the meeting convinced Redfearn lacked the temperament and perspective to lead. Redfearn, by contrast, was reportedly frustrated and blindsided by the confrontation.

The Fallout

Unbeknownst to city officials, a member of the NAACP had recorded the meeting. Shortly after, the group informed the city: if Redfearn was promoted, they would consider releasing the video. To the NAACP, this was a matter of accountability. They felt a responsibility to the community to release evidence they believed demonstrated that Redfearn was unfit to act as the Chief of Police. However, the city viewed the move as an underhanded threat to use a private conversation as leverage. What began as a chance to rebuild trust now appeared, to some officials, as bad faith.

From that point forward, collaboration gave way to confrontation. City leaders began referring to the Boulder NAACP as uncooperative and untrustworthy—no longer a partner but a problem.

In a public statement, city manager Rivera-Vandermyde wrote:

“What I cannot tolerate is unethical behavior by people who purport to stand for progressive community values but then act in intentional ways that break trust, undermine public processes, and distract us from our collective mission.”

The NAACP did not back down. In an interview with the Denver Post,  O’Connor responded:

“It’s very troubling that the city manager is more upset that we recorded her than about what her now-selected police chief had to say. She’s more worried about the fact we’re sharing that information than about what she heard, which was disqualifying.”

In the weeks that followed, Rivera-Vandermyde would file a formal complaint with national NAACP leadership. As a result, the Boulder branch was required to submit all public communications for pre-approval to avoid what national leaders called “inflammatory or unsubstantiated rhetoric.” Local leaders rejected the characterization that their communications were unsubstantiated but agreed to comply. As national leadership became more hands-on, city officials allegedly became openly hostile.

Chief Redfearn allegedly made disparaging remarks about NAACP members and reportedly targeted O’Connor’s law license.

“He claimed I had gone to the media, that I was acting as an attorney, and that I was asserting privilege and confidentiality about who recorded the meeting—or whether I did it myself,” O’Connor told Yellow Scene. “He provided a link to a completely unrelated article from two years ago,[…] where I wasn’t mentioned at all. […] He submitted that as proof to get my bar license revoked or sanctioned.”

He continued:

“He may have done it willfully and maliciously to try and get my life taken away […] in retaliation for our First Amendment activities.”

O’Connor also recounted a separate incident in which Redfearn reportedly told others he had flipped him off at a candidate forum, an accusation he said he only heard secondhand but came across to him as needlessly petty and directed. Both incidents pushed O’Connor to file complaints with the city manager. Both, he said, were dismissed as unactionable.

To the NAACP members, these attempts to undermine his legal standing were more than personal. They represented a dangerous trend: the normalization of silencing dissent not through dialogue but through institutional retaliation. 

NAACP President Annett James told Yellow Scene, 

“We were systematically undermined by city officials. I think that’s what we want our community to understand. […] This community just does not allow one to disagree and have that discussion in the public sphere.”

In the weeks following the failed mediation, the situation only continued to unravel. Darren O’Connor was suspended by national leadership after publishing an op-ed criticizing the city’s policing transparency dashboard. The official reason: the piece was not cleared by the national office and was considered “inflammatory and unsubstantiated.”

O’Connor disagreed with that characterization.

“You know, I had listened directly to Redfearn,” he told Yellow Scene. “What I wrote about was true. And I think the NAACP had just decided that, despite them saying the restrictions were narrow, pretty much anything we were going to put out was going to be flagged.”

O’Connor, President James, and VP Jude Landsman all said the national restrictions went far beyond avoiding defamation. To them, it felt like silencing.

Following O’Connor’s suspension, the Boulder branch entered a series of tense meetings with national leadership. According to members, the message was unmistakable: the national office had no intention of supporting the Boulder branch in its fight for transparency or in defending it against retaliation from the city.

“Everyone was completely dismayed and in disbelief,”  said President James. 

“ think that it was the straw that led the Executive Committee of the NAACP, the county branch, to see for themselves that basically, we had no rights, no opportunity to express ourselves. […] There was just no due process.”

No one from the national office, members said, reached out to hear Boulder’s side.

“There was absolutely zero effort to say, ‘Okay, what’s going on in Boulder? Tell us what happened.’ There was nothing.”

Instead of mediating or cooling tensions, the national office seemed focused solely on controlling the branch’s messaging. In the aforementioned Instagram Live session, Prescott dismissed news of the Boulder branch’s possible dissolution as “fake news.” The legal or administrative questions surrounding the branch’s future were arguably less urgent than the pragmatic ones: Why wasn’t the national NAACP standing up for its local leaders, and what guidance did it have for the community?

The Boulder branch told Yellow Scene they felt the national office had been weaponized by the city to paint them as uncredible and unruly. They argued that the assertion of control from above failed to grasp that the decision to dissolve came not just from pressure but from disillusionment. After meeting after meeting with national leadership, it became clear there was no real support system in place, no path forward where their advocacy would be protected.

The NAACP is an organization that has experienced growing pains as it transitions into the modern era. Reports of declining membership and struggles to remain relevant have plagued it in recent years. Likewise, past issues with local coordination and support have led to public and destructive episodes similar to what we’re now seeing in Boulder. In 2013, NAACP members in Connecticut criticized national leadership for caring more about “brand names and fundraising” than about the health of its local chapters. That comment followed a series of branch seizures, forced resignations, and restructurings—many of which, critics argued, could have been avoided with proper support.

As recently as last May, D.C. broadcaster Roland Martin interviewed half a dozen former NAACP local leaders, each describing their own experiences with what they saw as mistreatment and villainization by the national office.

Former NAACP president Betty Williams recalled:

“My branch was threatened. […] If they said anything in support of me, the entire branch would be shut down. So there are these bully tactics meant to silence people.”

These stories don’t amount to bulletproof evidence of wrongdoing, but they do offer context. They position Boulder’s experience not as an isolated incident but as part of a pattern of national leadership failing to lead and protect its grassroots advocates.

Are Boulder branch members beyond critique? Of course not. At times, they may have overplayed their hand, and the decision to record and later threaten to release footage of the mediated conversation warrants scrutiny. But that’s not the full story. So far, little attention has been paid to how leadership at both the city and national level contributed to the escalation and, ultimately, the implosion of this conflict. 

National leadership offered little in the way of guidance, focusing instead on punitive measures. They seemed uninterested in the specifics of the branch’s concerns about Redfearn or transparency in community policing. The city, meanwhile, allegedly responded to dissent with retaliation verbal harassment, threats against legal licenses, and what branch members described as a concerted attempt to delegitimize them entirely. These incidents were brought to the city’s attention and brushed off as unactionable.

City Manager Nuria Vandermyde has said it was never the city’s desire to see the branch close. But intentions aside, it’s hard to ignore the throughline between the city’s actions and the current situation. When it became clear that the branch would not be easily controlled, both the city and national office took steps that, intentionally or not, undermined the branch’s ability to function.

This is the crux of why Boulder leaders told Yellow Scene they felt dissolution was necessary. They feared the city’s endgame was to turn them into a symbolic entity, something that bore the name of the NAACP but had none of the autonomy or power to challenge real systems of harm. Given the city’s hostility and the national office’s dismissiveness, it’s hard not to see where that concern came from.

What’s Been Lost

Amid the political battle between the city, the local branch, and the national office, the biggest loss may be to the community itself.

The Boulder NAACP organized voter registration drives, legal aid workshops, and educational forums. In a political climate where DEI efforts are increasingly under attack, the collapse of a local civil rights institution leaves a visible and painful gap. Beyond their political advocacy, the branch hosted annual Freedom Fund celebrations, supported Black-owned businesses, and threw graduation parties for Black students. They were more than just activists—they were community builders.

Still, President James and her peers insist their work is far from finished.

“We’re not quitting,” she said. “We intend to continue, with or without the NAACP name.”

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The post Inside the Collapse of Boulder NAACP appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Four women are transforming the streets of Longmont and Boulder, Colorado, by charting their paths in a male-dominated industry: real estate development. Each one has a unique vision they want to bring to life, but what they have in common is a passion for enhancing the communities they call home. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up only 11% of the overall construction industry, and four of Colorado’s real estate developers are part of that statistic. 

Sarah Carillo began her development career over a decade ago with The Speakeasy bar, Jennifer Peterson recently broke ground on the mixed-use Casa Lou Cardenas, Greeley Sachs pivoted into real estate development after years working in construction, and Danica Powell founded the Trestle Strategy Group consulting firm after losing her job in 2008.

Carillo, owner of The Imperial 301, opened The Speakeasy bar on her own, despite having no formal training in development. As someone who handles a lot of the work on her own, Carillo has had to stand strong to make sure her voice is heard. 

Sarah Carillo at the 301 Imperial

“I’m doing this all by myself,” Carillo said about her work on The Speakeasy.

When working with investors, Carillo noticed that a majority of them were men. This is one part of the industry where she has experienced the most challenges. 

“Ninety-nine percent of all the personal investors that I have met with, and toured and gone down the path of potentially having an investor, has been a man,” Carillo told Yellow Scene Magazine. “It always gets to the point where they want to redirect the vision.”

However, she has continued to stand firm in her vision for the project. 

Ground broke on Peterson’s Casa Lou Cardenas development in 2022. When she decided to open the mixed-use building, she wanted to honor a powerful voice in Longmont’s Latino community, Eloyda “Lou” Cardenas.

“She had been very significant to the Latino voice being heard in the community at a time when things were very segregated and, frankly, there was a lot of racism,” Peterson, who owns JSY Properties, told Yellow Scene.

Cardenas was a trailblazing community member in Longmont who died in 2017 at 99 years old. She was pivotal in establishing bus transit services in Longmont, served on Longmont’s Senior Citizens Advisory Board, and established the first small Senior Opportunity Center.

When Peterson chose to open her recent mixed-use building, she wanted to memorialize Cardenas. Naming the building after one of Longmont’s trailblazers was a way to preserve her legacy. 

For Peterson, her career is about fostering communities that appreciate their cultural differences.

She started without any prior development experience and found it rewarding to learn from those she worked alongside. 

“The relationships are the best part of it,” Peterson said. “And to see when you’re finished, something beautiful and useful.”

“I think [male contractors] respect the fact that you’re doing this work,” Sachs said. “Every guy that I’ve worked with has been incredibly kind. I have two different teams that I’ve worked with downtown, and each one has been wonderful to work with. They understand the vision I have. I think they’re proud of the buildings they’ve worked on.”

Sachs has worked in construction for years and feels it is a great space for women to find a career.

“I don’t see it as a disadvantage at all to be a woman and doing real estate development,” she said. “I think sometimes people are surprised by it.” 

Sachs and Carillo have found support through their relationships with the community, including groups such as the Longmont Downtown Development Authority. They shared that the LDDA executive director, Kimberlee McKee, has been a big help behind their projects. 

Powell is the founder and owner of Trestle Strategy Group and has spent her career crafting a diverse portfolio. She has been a consultant for schools, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and more. In the past 15 years, Powell has grown used to working in a male-dominated industry. 

After being laid off in 2008, she began her firm as a “small but mighty team ” and worked to cultivate her voice in the field. 

“I think when people hire me, they know I have strong opinions and have good experience,” Powell told Yellow Scene. “I tend to have really great working relationships with my clients because they do listen.”

For Powell, it is important that her clients understand the challenges that come with real estate development, especially at a time when the field is just becoming more complex. 

One of her most rewarding and challenging projects was her work on the Ponderosa Mobile Home Park. Throughout the development process, she worked from a non-displacement premise to keep people living in their community. 

Despite difficulties, families were able to stay in their mobile homes. Now, Habitat For Humanity has joined as a partner to build homes in the community.

Danica Powell at the 2023 Chamber Leadership Awards

“About four or five families are already moved into new Habitat homes,” Powell said.

She shared that she notices being one of a few women in her field and encourages young women to get involved through programs and education. 

“I always encourage people to just be really scrappy,” Powell shared. “I think a lot of my success has come from having defeats.”

Despite the construction industry being male-dominated, it is clear that Longmont and Boulder have a supportive community of women working in real estate development right now. They have forged unique paths in the field, and there is plenty of room for other women to do the same.

Like journalism like this? Support the local press that’s been telling the truth for 25 years. Become a sustaining member and get our monthly print edition at home. We’ve weathered 9/11, floods, fires, economic crashes—and some deeply chaotic years. With your support, we’ll keep going. Because democracy still depends on journalism.

The post Building More Than Spaces: The Women Shaping Colorado’s Future, One Development at a Time appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Trailhead Community in Littleton emphasizes the importance of housing access and independence for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The area’s first-of-its-kind housing project encourages “A Community of good neighbors” with the opportunity for residents to build independence and connections.

Trailhead Community’s journey was not an easy one. The team had no federal funding or county money; they were continuously turned down or had partners back out at the last minute. Despite the obstacles they faced, they pushed through and broke ground in August 2022.

Construction ended, and the building opened at the end of 2024 with 83 independent living units. Half are allocated for individuals with developmental disabilities, and the others for full-time professionals and seniors. It has 24/7 staffing and a long list of amenities, including a community kitchen and communal dining room, to facilitate social gatherings. A sports court, a theatre, and a craft room are just a few of the features available to residents.

“The whole intention is to form connectedness and to form community and break down social isolation, which is what is rampant in IDD folks and seniors,” Treasurer and Secretary Beth Rodriguez told Yellow Scene Magazine.

Just a few weeks after its opening, the team began to see shifts in the way the community was working together. They watched their residents take ownership of the building, just as they had hoped. 

“Our focus is helping our residents find that independence and empowering them to know that they are able to do this. I think that message is one that’s not commonly talked about – that many, many, many of our individuals with disabilities have the ability to live independently, successfully, and flourish,” Executive Director Jeans Mobley said. 

Trailhead Community could not have come to fruition without its beloved founder, Barb Ziegler, who dedicated her life to serving her community. She was described as a “visionary” who began her career as a teacher and started a charter school before co-founding Stepping Stone Support Center – an organization offering employment services, life skills training, and more to adults with developmental disabilities. 

When Ziegler’s husband suddenly passed away, she was left as the sole caretaker of her daughter Lexi, who has a disability. She wanted to ensure Lexi would have somewhere stable to live as they both grew older. A week later, Ziegler met with the Stepping Stone team and a group of parents to discuss what would later become Trailhead Community.  

Ziegler passed away following a lengthy health battle on October 21st, 2024. Her decade-long dream welcomed its first residents shortly after. Her spirit is embedded into the community with a team that exudes the same unwavering passion and dedication she did.

With love filling her voice, Worbley said, “In her lack of self-serving ways, [Ziegler] did not take enough credit for this project.” 

“She was the heart and soul of this project. I think it’s important to call out that she has a thread throughout this entire project,” Co-Board President Ken Wilkinson added. 

Trailhead Community is the first of its kind in the area and has already begun making waves. They have connected with families globally and spoken to people from France, India, and more. The team’s passion for supporting the community is only growing as the development does too.

As for the future of Trailhead Community, Wilkinson said, “One of the things I’m most excited about is to see how the multigenerational community comes together when we have neurotypical people and active seniors along with the IDD community come in and integrate, build community, and cross. I think it’s such a beautiful connection that I hope to see get replicated elsewhere.” 

Even with the rapid growth that they have had so far, the team made it clear that their work is far from over. They are actively trying to build resources and partnerships to expand accessibility to housing. 

Mobley reflected on their mission as a whole, saying, “There is a need for communities like this to be successful so that we can continue to build upon this and build upon being accommodating for more levels of care needs.” 

A strong support system is vital for projects like this to thrive. There are several ways to contribute to the cause, most of which are on their website. They are celebrating their milestones with a Grand Opening Gala on April 10th.

Trailhead Community is a testament to the power of perseverance and compassion. Barb Ziebler’s legacy will continue to shine and inspire future projects. The residence opening its doors is just one of its numerous milestones, and there are many more to come.

Listen to McMullen’s podcast called The Art of Construction.

Like journalism like this? Support the local press that’s been telling the truth for 25 years. Become a sustaining member and get our monthly print edition at home. We’ve weathered 9/11, floods, fires, economic crashes—and some deeply chaotic years. With your support, we’ll keep going. Because democracy still depends on journalism.

The post Trailhead Provides More than Just Housing: How one couple’s dream became a diverse community  appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Outrage is mounting across Colorado as community organizations and elected officials demand the immediate release of Jeanette Vizguerra, a respected immigrant rights advocate who was forcibly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday, March 17, 2025.

Without warning or legal justification, ICE officers took Vizguerra from her workplace and transferred her to the GEO immigration detention center in Aurora, CO. Her detention, which was confirmed by her attorney, has been widely condemned as a politically motivated attack on an outspoken leader in the fight for immigrant rights.

Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of four and a long-standing pillar of Colorado’s immigrant community, has been fighting deportation since 2009. She has spent decades advocating for labor protections, immigrant rights, and family unity, earning national recognition for her efforts.

“Jeanette was able to briefly call her daughter on March 17 before facility officials cut off phone access for unknown reasons,” wrote Rebecca Shelley from Our Saviour Lutheran Church in a Press Release.

In 2017, she was named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people for her fearless activism against unjust immigration policies.

Despite having no valid deportation order, ICE detained her without prior notice to her legal team. Community leaders and legal experts argue that this action violates due process and serves as an intimidation tactic against those who challenge the deportation system. Vizguerra’s sudden detention also aligns with a troubling pattern of ICE targeting immigrant activists, including Mahmoud Khalil and Leqaa Kordia, who were also unlawfully detained in recent weeks.

Protestors gather outside the ICE detention facility in Aurora. Photo by Shavonne Blades.

Within hours of her detention, community members mobilized to demand Vizguerra’s release. Concerned for her safety, her family and supporters gathered outside the GEO detention center for an all-night vigil. Despite freezing temperatures, crowds spent the night engaging in chanting, drumming, and candlelighting until the morning hours of Tuesday. Activists also reached out to congressional offices, urging lawmakers to intervene.

“Jeanette belongs with her family, not in a for-profit detention center,” said one advocate at the vigil. “Her detention is a direct attack on the movement for immigrant justice.”

Supporters have launched a petition and a fundraising campaign to assist with legal expenses.

Jeanette Vizguerra’s activism extends beyond her personal case. She has co-founded several grassroots organizations, including Dreamer’s Mothers in Action-Colorado, Abolish ICE Denver, and Sanctuary4All. She has also worked with groups such as the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, SEIU, and the National Domestic Workers Association, advocating for the dignity and rights of all immigrants.

Her detention has sparked a wave of solidarity from organizations and elected officials across Colorado, including the ACLU of Colorado, Colorado People’s Alliance, Denver Democratic Socialists of America, and numerous city council members and state legislators.

Daughter of Activist Legend Corky Gonzales speaks at Monday’s rally. Photo by Shavonne Blades.

Their collective demand is clear: ICE must immediately release Jeanette Vizguerra and halt its campaign of intimidation against immigrant activists.

As the community rallies around Vizguerra, her supporters remain steadfast in their commitment to justice. They refuse to allow ICE to silence her voice or separate her from her family and the movement she has dedicated her life to building.

The post Community Rallies for Immediate Release of Jeanette Vizguerra Following Unjust ICE Detention appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

DHS Arrests Columbia Student Who Led Pro-Palestinian Protests Last Spring

Palestinian-American Mahmoud Khalil, who played a critical role in the student-led protests at Columbia last Spring, has been arrested and detained by Federal immigration agents for the crime of criticizing Israel.

According to his lawyer, Amy Greer, Khalil was inside his university-owned apartment on Saturday night when ICE agents entered and detained him. Originally, it was believed that Khalil was in the country on a student visa, which ICE agents claimed would be revoked; however, when Greer informed agents that he was an American citizen with a green card, they said they’d be revoking that instead.

This comes as a direct response to Trump’s executive order to combat anti-Semitism. A spokesperson for Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed that the arrest was directly connected to Khalil’s involvement in the protests, alleging he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

Outraged by the blatant violation of Khalil’s constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly, the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace occupied the New York Trump Tower earlier today. The group said it was “taking over the Trump Tower to register our mass refusal.”

“We will not stand by as this fascist regime attempts to criminalize Palestinians and all those calling for an end to the Israeli government’s US-funded genocide of the Palestinian people,” the group said in a post on X.

Of the 150 protestors occupying Trump Tower, NYPD arrested 98. Kaz Daughtry, the deputy mayor for public safety, said on Fox News that there were no injuries and all the protesters had been removed from the building.

Perhaps most troubling was the lack of clarification given by the Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar when pressed by NPR journalist Michel Martin to explain exactly what Khalil’s crimes were.

See an excerpt of the interview below: 

Martin: Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?

Edgar: Let me put it this way, Michel, imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, ‘I want a student visa.’ They asked him, ‘What are you going to do here?’ And he says, ‘I’m going to go and protest.’ We would have never let him into the country.

Martin: Is protesting a deportable offense?

Edgar: You’re focused on protests. I’m focused on the visa process. He went through a legal process …

Political commentator and Twitch Streamer Hasan Piker, a staunch advocate for Palestinian emancipation, felt that Deputy Secretary Edgar purposefully kept his answers vague.

“What makes you think tomorrow they’re not going to do this [to] gay students, trans students, Black students, anything they want,” Piker said on his live stream. “What makes you think they’re not gonna do this because [schools] have too much DEI, for example. That’s also an intentionally vague definition.”

This sentiment echoes another point in history, one best described by the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

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Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post “Is Protesting a Deportable Offense?” appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The far-right-packed Supreme Court will hear a case that challenges Colorado’s ban on the practice of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is defined as the practice of attempting to change one’s sexual orientation or gender identity and has been found to cause serious psychological harm to those who are subjected to it.

Bans of the harmful practice began cropping up across the country in 2013 after a U.S. court of appeals ruled that therapy is a form of professional conduct and, therefore, not protected as free speech. Colorado joined 18 other states, four in that year alone, in banning the practice of conversion therapy.

Today, 30 U.S. states have conversation therapy bans in place, but those could be challenged, depending on the ruling from the Supreme Court, expected in 2026. The challenge is being brought by the conservative law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of Kaley Chiles. The suit argues that Chiles, who practices therapy in Colorado Springs, is limited in what she can say to clients who want to “affirm their biological gender and sexual orientation.”

ADF has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and abroad, defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad, stated that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia, and claimed that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society.

Colorado Springs Councilor, Kaley Chiles

In interviews and podcasts, Chiles claims she is fighting a “censorship” law that infringes on her free speech. This line of argument has quickly become a conservative dog whistle for any law or policy that stops them from publically spreading hate speech or discriminating against queer people. Similar suits filed by the ADF utilizing this tactic have been successful in Colorado, such as the Christian graphic artist who refused to create marriage websites for same-sex couples.

Organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have condemned the practice of conversion therapy on the basis of negative mental health effects, such as depression and suicide, that often come from attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The United Nations Human Rights Council classifies the practice as tantamount to torture.

The Supreme Court rejected to hear a similar case in 2023, also filed by the ADF, against Washington State’s less strict ban on conversion therapy on persons under the age of 18. The law also contains a carve-out for conversion therapy practices “under the auspices of a religious denomination, church, or religious organization.”

Legal Journalist Mark Joseph Stern suggested that while the 2023 decision was technically a win for LGBTQ+ rights in the movement, it could spell danger for the ban in the future, like what we’re seeing now.

“Why didn’t Roberts, Gorsuch, or Barrett cast the fourth vote to take up the conversion therapy case? Maybe to avoid another controversial dispute, or maybe because Washington State identified a standing problem that makes this case an imperfect vehicle.” Stern wrote on X in 2023.

Does this mean Chiles’ case is a better vehicle for the court’s anti-gay agenda? States with bans on conversion therapy have often argued that free speech is not a valid defense against malpractice. Lawyers, doctors, and even therapists cannot argue that telling clients to commit crimes or engage in abusive practices falls under their right to free speech.

Whether the SCOTUS will keep the ban in place or strike it down as an infringement of free speech will likely come down to language in the 2018 case, NIFLA v. Becerra. NIFLA contains arguments that can be utilized by both sides, such as “speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals,’” which will certainly come in handy for the ADF. However, the NIFLA ruling also says, “[s]tates may regulate professional conduct, even though that conduct incidentally involves speech,” and it added that regulations of professional malpractice “fall within the traditional purview of state regulation of professional conduct.”

How will the court rule in hearing this case, and more importantly, how will Democrats protect LGBTQ minors in their states should the ban be lifted?

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post SCOTUS Will Hear Case Challenging Colorado’s Conversion Therapy Ban appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Rodolfo Gonzalez, c:1967-70, John Gordon_The Denver Public Library-Special Collections

Remembering One of Denver’s Pioneers of Chicano Rights 

When Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales passed away on April 12, 2005, he left a lifelong legacy of trailblazing Chicano civil rights movements in Colorado. He founded organizations that still stand as a determined, resilient political activist and community leader. Gonzales contributed to Mexican American empowerment through facets like boxing and poetry all while championing boycotts, walkouts, and protests for social justice. 

Gonzales was born the youngest into a family of seven in Denver on June 18, 1928  – just a year before the Great Depression. He and his siblings were raised in poverty in eastern Denver by his father, Federico Gonzales, who had immigrated to the city from Chihuahua following the Mexican Revolution. His mother died when he was just two years old. 

His father worked in the coal mines while he and his siblings worked in beet fields. Despite this, Gonzales graduated from Manual High School at 16 years old. His uncle commented on his fiery personality, describing him as “…always popping off like a cork.” The nickname stuck and “Corky” was born. 

Gonzales married Geraldine Romero in 1949 and the two had eight children who carried on their father’s pursuit for Chicano equality. 

Before fully transitioning into politics, Gonzales was a notable boxer. He retired in 1955, ranked as the fifth-best boxer in the world with 63 wins, 11 losses, and 1 draw. He used the sport to empower himself, and his passion landed him in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame inductee in 1988. 

Gonzales began his political involvement when he joined the campaign for the Democratic mayoral candidate in 1947. He later registered Latino voters for the Democratic party and led Colorado’s “Viva Kennedy” campaign to increase Latino turnout at the presidential polls. 

His passion only continued, and he began to imprint himself in Mexican American history as he tackled issues like educational inequality, police brutality, and systemic racism. In 1966, Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice – a community-based organization that offered educational programs, legal assistance, and cultural enrichment. 

Picture of Corky Gonzales with donors and other founders of the Crusade for Justice, c. 1966-1970

It brought attention to the discrimination faced by Chicanos in almost every facet of life.

The group also supported students in walkouts and protests. Gonzales and other members joined Denver West High School students in organizing a three-day walkout after the school didn’t hold a teacher who used racial language accountable. 

A year after founding the Crusade for Justice, Gonzales wrote “Yo Soy Joaquin,” a genuine poem that captures the struggles of being a Mexican American. It spoke to the importance of cultural identity in a society trying to minimize and erase it. The poem became a rallying cry, inspiring generations of activists and artists who continued the fight to preserve Chicano pride and history. 

Gonzales continued to write throughout his life. He delivered speeches, drafted plays, and wrote impactful letters. Message to Aztlán, a compilation of his writings, was published in 2001. 

The first National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference was held in 1969. The event welcomed approximately 1,500 Mexican Americans who discussed oppression, discrimination, and injustices in the community. 

It was here that Gonzales helped draft “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán,” a foundational document outlining its goals. It encouraged self-determination and liberation by focusing on unity, the economy, institutions, and self-defense. The plan was also based on the importance of education, cultural values, and political liberation. 

Intertwined with Gonzales’ political activism was his advocacy for accessibility to quality education. He pushed for school curriculums to include Chicano history and literature.

“The walk for a “Revolutionary memory of Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales” founder of Escuela Tlatelolco”, by Dennis Schroeder, 04-17-2005

He began to build his vision on Downing Street when he founded Escuela Tlatelolco in 1970. The school used a dual language approach, giving Spanish speakers the opportunity to receive an education. Its mission was rooted in liberation for students through holistic education focused on academics, confidence, and cultural expression.

Escuela Tlatelolco adapted with the area and targeted the community’s needs by offering a variety of programs and activities for 46 years. The school shut its doors in 2017, having served over 7,000 students and families at its closing.

Gonzales passed away on April 12, 2005, at 76, in his Denver home. Just five days later, hundreds of people gathered to march in his honor. The Denver Public Library opened the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Branch in February 2015 to commemorate his fight for Chicano civil rights. 

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales is embedded in Denver’s history and the broader Chicano community. His neverending passion and perseverance left an undeniable mark on the city, and his efforts will continue to inspire generations.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Legacy Spotlight: Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A friend once told me, “I believe everyone on the planet should have one day a week to do whatever they want.” I think they said this because they know I work way too much. I chose journalism as a career, which means I work. A lot.

Yesterday, I decided to take their advice and go for a walk through Sandstone Ranch. It was great to get out in the sunshine, and it made me grateful for the treasures right in my backyard.

One of those treasures is Chautauqua. But Chautauqua is more than just the Dining Hall, the Auditorium, and the Flatiron’s Loop hike. (All pretty great things.)  Recently, I managed to take yet another rare day off with a weekend stay in one of the cottages — which, by the way, have no TVs. But who needs a TV when you’re staying at Chautauqua?

While I wish I could have stayed longer in that adorable cottage, it was a perfect mini-staycation. And it reminded me that I don’t always have to get on a plane to get away. I can drive just 17 miles from Erie and find a retreat that people from all over the country fly in to see.

Today, I joined a faith-based group that is organizing to protect the rights of all. As part of our gathering, we did a community exercise where we moved around the room without speaking — first quickly, then slowly — until we stopped and faced the person in front of us. While there was some awkwardness in staring into a stranger’s face, as the host narrated the purpose behind the exercise, I could see everyone not only connecting to the message but also to each other.

The United States is not in good health right now, and the future of democracy looks increasingly uncertain. But being in this room with others, many of whom have a different take on faith than I do, was deeply moving. Connecting in this way reminded me of something important:

Right now, more than ever, we need connection. Humanity is not lost among America’s citizens. It’s under siege. But as humans, we do, in fact, need each other. We are more than data points.

The Colorado Chautauqua is hosting its All-Inclusive Women’s Retreat. The first one scheduled for 2025 is April 10th-13th. If you hurry, you can get a spot reserved. They do take the time to talk with you before signing up so you can feel confident about the experience before committing.

 I have to admit, when I first heard about it, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve truly come to understand the power of sisterhood. As a younger woman, maybe I lacked the maturity to see it, but now, I know that my female friendships have been my anchor, carrying me through even the hardest times.

They’ve been hosting this retreat three times a year for the past four years, and it’s now selling out regularly. The groups are intentionally small, just 18 women per retreat, and guests have ranged from their early twenties to their eighties.

While it takes a bit of bravery to commit to a three-day weekend retreat, the staff at Colorado Chautauqua Association work hard to ensure everyone feels comfortable with their decision, even before purchasing a ticket.

I spoke with Liz Purvis and Rohini Grace to learn more about this experience. While I was a skeptic at first, I now hope to gift myself this special opportunity.

I could hear the passion in Rohini’s voice as we spoke over the phone. They described a place where women can reconnect with themselves — beyond the roles of mother, wife, or professional. A space where they can remember who they are outside of life’s daily demands.

But what they were most excited to share was the curriculum. They carefully design experiences that take women out of their everyday routines, offering opportunities we rarely get in our normal workspaces.

The retreat includes yoga, nature walks, forest bathing, a fully customized menu tailored to each woman’s needs (without having to do the dishes!), a concert, and an inspirational talk. All activities are curated for spiritual, emotional, and mental well-being. But everything is optional. If you’d rather curl up under a tree with a book, you can.

The goal is simple: to create a safe space where women can nurture themselves, reconnect with nature, and truly experience it, something we in Boulder County often live close to, play in, and marvel at, yet sometimes forget to pause and embrace.

I spoke with Lori Harrison, a three-time returning retreat participant. Her first time attending was a gift from a friend, and she wasn’t sure what she hoped to gain from the experience. But since that first retreat, she has returned twice more and, in the process, she has built a circle of friends she now considers her rock.

These friendships were formed at the Women’s Retreat, but what truly came out of it was the deep bonding and connection that extended far beyond the weekend itself.

“Having the freedom to let go of all of that and just remember who we are — without our job title, without our partner, without our kids. There’s a part of us that is more than those things.”

While participants have the choice to bunk solo or stay in the larger shared cabin, she highly recommended the latter, or at least staying with a buddy. Letting go in this way can bring moments of vulnerability, and having a friend nearby can offer support through those experiences.

What got Lori the most excited was talking about the Mala beads they each create. Mala Beads per The Monestary Store, are described as; From the Sanskrit “heavenly garland,” malas are used in Buddhism to count repetitions of mantras—short sacred phrases—or prostrations. Traditional malas have beads crafted from seeds, gemstones, or wood, and are often finished with an additional “guru” bead and a special knot and/or tassel. The size of our beads and the length of the string varies to accommodate different practitioners. Full malas have 108 beads; most wrist malas have 21 beads, but it can vary.” She lit up as she described crafting the Mala Beads — at first struggling to make it, but eventually laughing it off and realizing it all came together once she let go of the outcome.

Rohini summed it up perfectly: “It is so beautiful to watch strangers come together and leave as sisters.”

Fortunately, Chautauqua isn’t reserved solely for women. They offer corporate retreats, family retreats, and any gathering where people want to come together to create community. It’s a perfect destination for both locals and visitors alike.

https://www.chautauqua.com/chautauqua-womens-retreat

https://www.chautauqua.com/group-retreats

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The post Rest for Revolution; Find yourself at Chautauqua appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat Colorado

President Trump’s targeting of transgender rights as he begins his second term is raising questions about the potential impact on Colorado laws meant to protect transgender students, including a new one that requires educators to use students’ chosen names.

Several school districts, the Colorado Department of Education, and the state Attorney’s General’s Office provided a variation of the same answer when contacted by Chalkbeat: We don’t know yet whether there will be an impact but we are searching for answers.

While experts said executive orders of the kind Trump is using can’t override state laws, they conceded that the legal landscape under Trump is uncertain. Meanwhile, advocates said the orders are seeding fear in the transgender community, which they said was likely the intent.

“I’m receiving a lot of emails from the community about, ‘What does it mean? How does it impact us?’” said Jax Gonzalez, the political director at LGBTQ advocacy organization One Colorado.

“And that is the point of those executive orders,” Gonzalez said. “Those are about scaring people and repressing movement-building.”

Trump has acted quickly to enact his political agenda, including trying to unwind protections for LGBTQ students. An executive order the president signed last week, on the day he was inaugurated, says that the United States only recognizes two sexes, male and female, and that the sexes “are not changeable.” The order rescinded Biden-era guidance on supporting LGBTQ students.

Already, one Colorado school board has passed a resolution echoing that language. On Wednesday, the Woodland Park school board directed the district’s superintendent to update any district policies, procedures, and facility usage guidelines “to be consistent with knowledge that there are only two sexes, male and female.”

This week, the Trump administration froze — and then potentially unfroze, after legal challenges — all federal grant funding to purge the government of what it called “wokeness” and “transgenderism.” Trump signed another executive order on Wednesday blocking federal funding from K-12 schools that teach “gender ideology.”

Ian Farrell, an associate professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, said that while the power of the president is limited and Congress ultimately controls U.S. spending, “we live in a weird time where the correct legal answer and what the [U.S.] Supreme Court will say is the correct legal answer are potentially massively different things.

“We’re in an era where there is genuine uncertainty about whether the rule of law will be upheld,” Farrell said. “That should concern everybody.”

Some districts adopted name change policies begrudgingly

Colorado has in recent years extended legal protections based on gender identity. In 2021, a state law protecting people from harassment and discrimination was expanded to explicitly cover gender identity. The state’s bullying law also includes gender identity as a protected class.

Last year, lawmakers approved and the governor signed a bill that protects K-12 public school students who request to use a name other than their legal name at school. Under the law, it is considered discrimination in Colorado for an educator to refuse to use a name chosen by a student to reflect their gender identity.

The idea came from students. The Colorado Youth Advisory Council, a group of 40 students from across the state, helped draft the bill. Both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s office are controlled by Democrats, and the bill passed mostly along party lines.

“Colorado prides itself so much on being welcoming, where people are free to be themselves and how they live,” state Rep. Stephanie Vigil, a Colorado Springs Democrat, said at a legislative hearing last year. “We feel like it’s important to act on that.”

Many Colorado school districts have adopted policies to comply with the name change law.
But some did so begrudgingly — and with caveats.

The Woodland Park district, which drew national attention in 2023 for becoming the first district in the country to adopt the conservative American Birthright social studies standards,
was one of the first districts to discuss adopting a policy in the wake of the name change law.

One school board member, David Rusterholtz, made clear at the May meeting in which the policy was discussed that the district was “forced.”

He called HB24-1039 “a very bad law” and a violation of his virtues, values, and “Biblical worldview.” He questioned how the law would help a child who he said had been taken up by what he termed “social psychosis.”

It’s unclear whether the resolution adopted by the Woodland Park school board Wednesday that echoes Trump’s language about two sexes will affect the district’s existing name change policy. Neither a district spokesperson nor school board members responded to questions from Chalkbeat seeking clarification.

“We need to stick with science, and the science has always been that there are two sexes,” Rusterholtz said during Wednesday’s meeting. “We need to teach our children the truth. It doesn’t mean we’re going to accept any kind of bullying.”

Other school boards shared Woodland Park’s concerns about the state’s name change law.

Several board members in El Paso County’s Widefield School District 3 said at a meeting in September that the law amounted to “compelled speech” and “government overreach.” A district spokesperson said last week that district leaders had not yet discussed the potential effects of Trump’s executive orders on district policy.

Members of the District 49 school board in Colorado Springs had similar objections to the law.

“The state apparently feels that it can hand down this unconstitutional mandate and tread upon the First Amendment-protected rights of teachers and staff by compelling them to say things that may be against their personally held conscience-based religious beliefs,” District 49 board member Deb Schmidt said at a meeting in November.

District 49’s policy has several caveats. It says a student’s parents must consent to a non-legal name change by signing a form. It limits students to one name change per year and says the district can say no if a name “is vulgar or offensive, obscene, or is used for misrepresentation.”

The policy also allows what it calls “an accommodation to conscience-based objections to compelled speech” — that is, exceptions for those who object — as long as the accommodation does not result in “substantial increased costs” to the district.

Lori Thompson, president of the District 49 school board, said in an email to Chalkbeat that the board was discussing with the school district’s lawyer how Trump’s executive orders might impact the name change policy. She noted that District 49’s policy has a clause that says it will be “immediately voided in its entirety” if the state law is found to be unconstitutional.

“The one thing that will not change,” Thompson wrote, is that “D49 will not withhold information about a student from their parents or legal guardians.”

The post Trump’s targeting of transgender rights creates uncertainty about Colorado laws protecting students appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A brief look at how far the depiction of Black characters has come in animation.

About thirty-five years ago, I had a fever dream that began with me drool-lipped and caulk-eyed.  I was a nearly blind child, eyes still dream-hazed, flailing an alarm off at 7:17 am. The bus left for school at 7:50, with the stop still a ten-minute bike ride away.  I still needed to shower. 

I was already the only Black kid in class, so I couldn’t be the gross one, either. So, despite a bruising series of stumbles from someone in the middle of their adolescent coordination, I managed to get a short shower and change of clothes before placing Pop-Tarts to warm in the microwave. 

Backpack swung on over shoulders, Pop-Tarts searing the roof of my palette, I catch an image on the TV of something I wasn’t meant to see, something that threatened that I’d miss the bus and have to call my mom from work in the middle of the week.  

“Sorry, Mom,” I would have said with deepest sincerity. “I didn’t mean to be late, but I saw this cartoon on TV.  It was called ‘Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs.’ Can you believe it, Mom? Cartoon-like Snow White! But everybody is Black!”

The Honestly Good Intentions Behind Coal Black

In truth, however, I didn’t stay. I shut it off after I saw Coal Black dance with a man who had dice for teeth.  I remember asking anyone at school back then if they had ever seen this cartoon. “Sounds like something you made up in your sleep,” was a common response. And, it had felt like a dream. Aside from Fat Albert, I had never seen an animation with an all-black cast.  

There was something intriguing about a magical world where people looked like me, having their own stories. Many years later, while researching an article covering the work of the late Akira Toriyama, I stumbled upon a grouping of cartoons known as The Censored Eleven. The Censored Eleven, according to the Museum of Uncut Funk, is “a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists (US) in 1968. 

UA owned the distribution rights to the Associated Artists Productions (AAP) library at that time and decided to pull these eleven cartoons from broadcast because they are based on racist depictions of Blacks and are deemed too offensive for contemporary audiences.” Among the Censored Eleven was the catalyst for my fever dream, Coal Black.  

After finding it on YouTube, the fever and the dream had officially snapped. I had only been able to see the open minutes when I was younger and couldn’t reconcile that this was how people like me were being seen by the creators by my own memory of the cartoon.  It wasn’t until seeing again nearly a century after it had been created that I saw all the problematic depictions were steeped in minstrelsy.  

Minstrels’ common features, such as thick lips that don’t match the rest of the skin, broad tablet-like teeth, and massive, wide eyes, are the fundamental elements of these caricatured designs. These designs were popular during the Jim Crow era, and many of these depictions can still be seen on the Jim Crow Museum website.  

The twist is that even though the depictions are minstrel-inspired, Coal Black originated as an attempt at meaningful representation. As reported by Open Culture, the story goes that director Bob Clampett was approached in Hollywood by the cast of an all-black musical off-Broadway production called Jump For Joy while they were doing some special performances in Los Angeles. 

They asked me why there weren’t any Warner’s cartoons with black characters, and I didn’t have any good answer to that question. So we sat down together and came up with a parody of Disney’s Snow White, and ‘Coal Black’ was the result. These performers provided the voices (credited, out of contractual obligation, to Mel Blanc), and Clampett paid tribute in character designs to real jazz musicians he knew from Central Avenue.

Yet, and still, many elements celebrated stereotypes: Coal Black’s Betty Boop figure, the insinuation that she was a sex worker, and the lips, faces, and teeth of all the characters. Good intentions considered, it’s still a frustrating animation to watch as an adult.

Coal Black is a misfire. It is a well-intended, sadly accurate reflection of how non-marginalized people interpreted blackness in a style meant to ridicule, not celebrate, the richness of the culture. However, the animation of characters of color has evolved significantly since then. 

Obviously, designs like Coal Black’s are unacceptable in the modern era, so the conversation shifts. Coal Black wasn’t an original character.  She was what is commonly known as a “race-bended” or “race-swapped” version of Snow White done horribly wrong. What happens then when the criteria are changed?  What happens when the race-swapped character is done well?  How do certain audiences react? 

For instance, in the case of Annette in Netflix’s sequel series Castlevania: Nocturne. Nocturne is a follow-up to the surprise success Castlevania, which took elements from stories within the old Konami video games and piecemealed them into a cohesive narrative that spanned 28 episodes.    

While season 1 of Nocturne has many flaws, one, in particular, rattled with the loudest buzz:  Annette, whose original design was Euro-centric fair-skinned damsel, was changed to a Haitian woman skilled in magic powers inherited from the Yoruba, a religion with deities from West Africa.  A Forbes article placed the backlash in an all-too-familiar box: 

I was perplexed by the 52% audience score, literally half of the 100% and “rotten,” as it were. I wondered what was going on here, and ah, it’s another one of these. Having watched nearly all of the series now, I cannot agree with the “bad writing, bad characters” complaints at all that you see in the user reviews, but instead, a lot of focus is put on what else, its prevalence of black characters and other characters of color, altering a few origin stories to make that work. There’s a throughline of oppression and the horrors of slavery in the plot, and outside of that, a focus on gay characters as well.

It’s an infuriating game.  When looking back at a piece of work like Coal Black, it feels like history asks us to look back at the “attempt” to represent Blackness despite almost none of it is done with a sense of love or reverence.  Then, about a century later, when animators have learned and listened, a wonderfully designed character with richness and nuance gets dragged because they changed the race and role of the character from a white woman in the back background to a Black woman doing work on the frontlines.

To make something your own and watch it, too. 

The reason companies like Marvel or DC choose to race-bend and not create something new is glaringly simple: recognizable Intellectual Property. Why use a lesser-known character or an original character as the face for a new animation or Hollywood franchise? 

Simply put, the more recognizable the name, the bigger the audience. For instance, DC has the rights to characters of color like Icon and Martian Manhunter. In terms of power, either one is equivalent to Superman within the universe. Both have enough backlog content to make a Superman-like movie with a Black male lead. However, since neither one of these characters will be recognized by the general public, the chances of them being used in film will forever be relegated to deleted scenes on YouTube.  

This, sadly, is the bad news.  However, as Self-proclaimed “Blerd” Tony Weaverly Jr. often posts on his social media, the future is bright just over the horizon.  Further, the time for Black-created content is now.  The world of indie comics is burgeoning with titles like Kesha: The Demon Eater, Crescent City Monsters, Killadelphia, and Harriet Tubman: Vampire Slayer. Sometimes, the success of these can become animated series of their own.

The fever from thirty-plus years ago has broken. And so is the dream of what I hoped Coal Black would be, but in reality, there are so many people out there aiming to uplift Black culture through representation and storytelling, and I can’t wait to see what they and others are going to do next.   

Here’s a list of a few shows that have recently released or are slated to release later this year: 

Iyanu: Child of Wonder

Similarly to the revision of Annette in Castlevania: Nocturne, Iyanu is a character whose power comes from the Yoruba, the deities found within the West African religion.  Iyanu lives in Yorubaland.  She’s lost her memories, but in their place, she finds that she has incredible powers that rival the gods of her land.  The journey is a classic one that leans into the idea of confidence and belief.   

The Invincible Fight Girl

Protagonist Andy, born on Accountant Island, wants to be a wrestler. One day, when wrestlers come to Accountant Island to do their taxes, Andy ends up failing their tax return because she shirked off her accountant studies to watch self-help wrestling VHS tapes.  Now, she has to fight for her life.  The show is a love letter to Shonen, anime and wrestling.  The show uses the general idea of “wrestling” as a magic system. Instead of objects of power like broomsticks and wands, the fights have to take place in a ring.  Instead of casting spells, she has to shout the name of her wrestling moves.  It has the quirkiness and charisma that is akin to Anime like Inuyasha or epic journey narratives like Fellowship of the Ring.  This currently airs on HBO Max and Cartoon Network.

 

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Rule 56

A forthcoming project from Creative Theory World, Rule 56 is inspired by the nearly unheard-of history that details the existence of the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes (CHLM), which was founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1895. According to On the Shoulders of Giants, many black men who would play baseball in the spring and summer would opt to play hockey to stay in shape.  Rule 56, the rule that allows for fighting in hockey, gives this anime the space it needs to create a truly unique anime that, with any luck, can be mentioned in the same breath as Hajime no Ippo and Blue Lock. 

The post Where We’re Going, Not Where We’ve Been appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

The entire Northern Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble, made entirely unlivable. After over 15 months of harrowing genocide in Gaza, Israel has reluctantly agreed to a ceasefire. Palestinians on the ground ignited in joyous celebration with the confirmation that the prolonged bloodshed was finally coming to an end. 

Beyond Gaza, the Palestinian American experience since October 7 has been a chaos of emotions. Many Palestinian Americans felt completely abandoned while dealing with the lingering effects of survivors’ guilt as well as the challenges facing them in the belly of the beast. Zionist organizations and institutions intend to destroy the livelihoods of any Palestinian American or ally that dares to speak out against Israel’s genocide. 

We’ve seen this play out through threats of deportation to individuals on student or work visas who are pro-Palestine or attend pro-Palestine protests. We have seen it through the vilification, blacklisting, and doxing of thousands of Palestinians and allies on hinky Zionist websites. Not to mention anti-BDS laws and genocidal and racist statements made by American politicians and senators. The list tirelessly goes on. 

I took the time to speak to a couple of Palestinian Americans in Colorado to get their reactions toward the recent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and whether or not there is still hope for the future of Palestine.

Through engaging with dena harry saleh, a queer Palestinian artist and writer, saleh reflects on the inevitable fact that Israel will break the ceasefire but that the hope lies in the momentum that is shifting on Palestine.

“It’ll be broken, but what I am hopeful for is that because of the world’s knowledge now about what is happening and the settler colonial project that is Israel, especially related to the United States, we are starting to see a more widespread awareness of the violence of settler colonialism,” saleh says. 

Haythem, a Palestinian American engineer from Denver, says, “I think the thing about the ceasefire deal is that it’s nasty and meticulous in a way that still absolves Israel in their own eyes from continuing to murder innocent lives.” He expands, “It is a chance of relief and respite, but it’s not like Palestine is free. People get to go home, but the north is completely unrecognizable from what it was before.” 

Since Donald Trump’s win, he has gone out of his way to take credit for initiating the ceasefire deal and putting an end to the mass killing—something Biden endorsed and funded, and the Harris administration wholly ignored.

Even after countless interruptions and political demonstrations made against Harris, she refused to acknowledge the continued death sentence she and her constituents signed off on for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Saleh says, “We can’t just fall along the lines of this binary of Republican and Democrat because, ultimately, they are all capitalists. We need to understand that it’s really a class war on a global scale.”

Haythem says, “It doesn’t help when Trump says, it’s good land, it’s good real estate, I don’t think the new administration cares much for Palestinian people so much as they care about Palestinian land just as Israel does and that’s always been the thing about the American government if anything with this new administration I’m worried with the new risks.”

Donald Trump recently spoke at a press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, revealing that the actual death toll of Palestinians in Gaza could be 500,000. More so, he declared that America was going to purchase and take over Gaza, turning it into a hot hub for Americans, ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the strip entirely.

Trump still stands firm in his decision, as he told reporters on February 9 that he was still dedicated to purchasing Gaza, saying that Gazans would not have the right to return under his new plan. On the same day, Israel shot and murdered two young Palestinian women in the West Bank, 23-year-old Sondos Jamal Muhammad Shalabi and 21-year-old Rahaf Fouad Abdullah al-Ashqar, who was murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces in her home. Shalabi was 8 months pregnant. 

When asked what they feel about the recent increase in international support for Palestine, Saleh says, “The tide has turned, and people are now aware that it’s much more than a ceasefire that we need; we need an end to the state of Israel which did not need to be created in Palestine in the first place, and then an end to settler colonialism.”

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has reported that since the ceasefire deal, Israel has killed over 110 Palestinians. Launching airstrikes and attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as Palestinians returning to their destroyed homes in Northern Gaza. 

Israel refuses to abide by international law; in fact, Israel believes it is above the law; why wouldn’t it if it thinks it can get away with slaughtering over 17,000 Palestinian babies with no repercussions? Why does this foreign entity get a pass every time? The American people genuinely need to wake up and smell the coffee – Israel is America’s 51st state, profiting off you to continue committing its genocide against the Palestinian people. 

What we allow to happen in Gaza will happen everywhere. This is the holocaust of our time; act accordingly or live with the consequences forever.

The post Palestine is Still Not Free appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Thousands of Coloradans gathered at the State Capital building in Denver on Wednesday for a massive day of protest. Protesters and speakers expressed their many grievances with the current presidential administration, from Elon Musk’s unelected power to major cuts in funding for federal programs. However, deportation and immigration took precedence, as ICE began raids in Denver, Aurora, and the greater metro Area earlier this week.

This month, a series of ICE raids targeted immigrant families across the Denver metro area. Over 100 federal and local agents, including those from ICE, FBI, and DHS, participated in these operations.  According to immigration advocates and volunteers on the ground, the raids occurred without presenting judicial warrants and left communities terrified and in turmoil as individuals—some of whom were actively seeking asylum—were detained without cause.

Busloads of students and staff from APS and DPS attended Wednesday’s protest.

The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) and other advocacy groups condemned the raids as unjustified and indiscriminate, describing them as a direct attack on immigrant families trying to build better lives.

“These raids are a disgraceful abuse of power, an attack on families, and a direct attempt to criminalize immigrants,” said Andrea Loya, Executive Director of Casa De Paz.

Caitlin Trent, Political Director of CIRC, decried the raids as “indiscriminate shows of force” that violated constitutional rights and only served to instill fear in the immigrant community. Several reports indicated that ICE agents went door to door, destroyed property, and used excessive force, including rubber bullets, to pursue tenants in apartment complexes.

Advocates emphasized the misuse of public resources in these operations, which they argue are politically motivated. “This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and an insult to law enforcement officers who should be working on real investigations,” said Henry Sandman, Co-Executive Director of CIRC. They also noted that communities are safer when law enforcement isn’t engaged in immigration enforcement and when immigrants feel secure enough to report crimes without fear of deportation.

The raids sparked a powerful response from the community, with volunteers stepping in to inform residents of their rights, preventing further detentions. “An informed community is a protected one,” said V Reeves, a local organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver. ICE agents left a raid at the now infamous Edge at Lowry complex empty-handed after residents refused to open their doors.

Coloradans express deep disdain for Trump administration

Community members rallied by the thousands at the Capitol to demand an end to these raids and to call for the protection of immigrant rights. The advocacy groups continue to push for justice, with upcoming marches and rallies planned for Saturday, February 8, to show solidarity and resist the criminalization of immigrants.

In the face of fear and intimidation, Coloradans are united in their determination to protect immigrant families and fight for a future of dignity and democracy.

The post Colorado Shows Up for Migrants in Midst of Rampant ICE Raids appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

After Donald J. Trump was sworn back into the office of President on Tuesday, he immediately went to work trying to single-handedly rewrite the law by issuing a flurry of very controversial executive orders aimed at everything from transgender rights to the death penalty to birthright citizenship. The problem with Trump’s executive orders is the fact that the government doesn’t work that way. The U.S. government has a series of checks and balances like the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches that ensure that no one person has too much power and, were it possible to simply sign an executive order into instant law, those checks and balances wouldn’t be that effective. Any president would have the power of a monarch or a dictator, which is the exact opposite of what the Presidency of the United States is supposed to be.

What is an Executive Order?

The American Bar Association (ABA) defines an executive order as, “a signed, written, and published directive from the President of the United States that manages operations of the federal government.” While it’s true that Congress can’t overturn an executive order, it’s also true that executive orders aren’t really laws. Rather, they are directions on how the federal government is supposed to interpret and enforce existing laws. As the UMASS Amherst Library points out, executive orders are only applicable to employees of the federal government and they can be challenged in court after the fact.

The Constitution of the United States actually doesn’t have any stipulations that say that presidents have the power to issue executive orders, and yet every president (except William Henry Harrison, who died after a month in office) has issued executive orders, almost as a matter of tradition. George Washington issued the first executive order on June 8, 1789 when Congress had yet to establish executive departments and the old Confederation departments were in place that Washington didn’t have a lot of information on. So his first executive order was a request for information to acting Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Jay. It read: “For this purpose I wish to receive in writing such a clear account of the Department at the head of which you have been, as may be sufficient (without overburdening or confusing a mind which has very many objects to claim its attention at the same instant) to impress me with a full, precise & distinct general idea of the United States, so far as they are comprehended in, or connected with that Department.” Washington subsequently sent additional copies of the same letter to the fledgling nation’s acting Secretary of War, Board of Treasury, and acting Postmaster General.

For the most part, that’s what executive orders have been used for: minor things, formalities, instructions on procedure, etc. In 2009, Barack Obama signed an executive order saying that the federal government had to take stronger leadership in preventing texting while driving. He signed another executive order that year establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls. Bill Clinton signed an executive order in 1993 establishing a President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities within the Department of Education. A lot of executive orders are about establishing committees or establishing a priority within the government, and rarely do they make sweeping changes. That being said, it’s not entirely unheard of for an executive order, in rare circumstances, to make a major change like the ones that Trump is proposing. The most famous executive order in history, officially called Proclamation 95, certainly implemented sweeping changes on a grand scale. You might have heard of it under a different name, though: The Emancipation Proclamation.

During his first term, Donald Trump tried to do a lot of governing through executive order, and a lot of them were struck down by the courts. The difference now is that the highest court in the country, the Supreme Court of the United States, is heavily conservative with three justices who were appointed by Trump. It’s possible that Trump thinks that he’ll fare better this time around with a court that’s mostly in his own pocket. But a lot of the executive orders that Trump has issued so far stand on extremely shaky legal ground, such that it’s hard to imagine a court, no matter how biased, ever upholding these orders. The best example is Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship which seems unlikely to be held up by any court.

Can Trump revoke birthright citizenship?

The most flagrantly unconstitutional order that Trump signed on Tuesday is titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The order attempts to deny citizenship to those born in the United States whose parents are not United States citizens. If you feel like there’s something wrong with that idea, then you’re right because it’s a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The executive order tries to get around the entire 14th Amendment by playing with the ambiguity of the term “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and trying to make that out to mean that only those born to U.S. citizens meet the qualifications of being born in the United States and being subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The ACLU explains that, under current interpretation of the law, the only people considered not to be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are foreign diplomats who are protected by diplomatic immunity.

The only thing that can override a constitutional amendment is another constitutional amendment, such as the 21st amendment which was made to nullify the 18th amendment, thus ending prohibition. Executive orders certainly don’t have the power to overturn a constitutional amendment, especially considering how flimsy the power of an executive order truly is.

Can the courts uphold the executive order?

The ACLU has already launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging this order, as have 22 different states. It seems likely that any judge with even the slightest bit of integrity would strike down such an executive order, but with so much of the Supreme Court indebted to Trump, is it possible that the SCOTUS is so corrupt they might uphold a clearly unconstitutional order?

One thing to keep in mind is that, while three of the justices on the SCOTUS are Trump appointees, all three of them have defected from the conservative wing of the court on at least one occasion. In the trio of cases in 2019 which established that someone couldn’t be fired from a job due to sexual orientation or gender identity, Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch voted with the liberal wing in favor of LGBTQ+ rights. Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh voted with the liberal wing of the court in gerrymandering case Moore v. Harper and in the case of Allen v. Milligan about voting discrimination against Black people, leading SCOTUSBlog to label him the court’s “center.” And Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, dealt Trump a major disappointment when she voted with the liberal wing against delaying Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case. Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, has also been known to vote with the liberal wing from time to time. Now, none of that is a guarantee of anything, but it would seem that all of Trump’s appointees have at least some allegiance towards something other than voting along party lines, which means they have at least a shred of integrity. And, while I have no doubt that Justices Alito and Thomas will stay in lock-step with Trump, I don’t see something as preposterous as single-handedly tearing down a constitutional amendment ever being taken seriously in a courtroom.

So where does that leave us?

So, while it’s very likely that Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order will be struck down, his other executive orders have been only slightly less preposterous. Almost all of them are a clear overreach of what the executive order is supposed to be capable of, but I’m a little less certain that a conservative court will see it that way regarding transgender rights, for example. Still, I expect some, if not many, of Trump’s executive orders will not survive judicial scrutiny. At the very least, I think the 14th Amendment is safe.

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The post Will Trump’s Executive Orders Hold Up in Court? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

photo credit: Vince Chandler

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Vince Chandler – 919-971-2112

On Eve of Inauguration, City And Community Leadership Discuss How Denver Can Support Marginalized Communities In Second Trump Administration and Reflect On Lessons Learned From The First

Denver, COLO – City and community leadership will hold a public conversation, hosted by the Honorable Auon’tai Anderson, at brother feff’s Cultural Center in historic 5 Points, discussing how the City of Denver and the people who live here can support communities targeted by President Trump’s second federal administration. The panel will include District 9 Councilman Darrel Watson, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas, Denver School Board At-Large Director Scott Esserman, and Spirit of the Sun Executive Director Shannon Francis. Topics will range from what can we learn from the past to prepare for the future, to can local policy be safeguarded from federal interference, and building community through mutual aid. The event will feature introductions from CU Regent Wanda James and Denver City Councilwoman Shontel M. Lewis, and will feature a curated exhibition of photos from the first Donald Trump era by Denver storyteller and photographer Vince Chandler.

Exhibition opens at 11:00 AM and programming begins at 2:30 PM, press is asked to arrive at 2:00.

“While city leadership in Aurora and other Colorado towns prepare to double down on the kinds of systemic and legal harms perpetuated on Black and brown people, here in Denver we’ve found a rallying cry in mutual aid and community,” says Auon’tai Anderson. “While there is still generations of work to be done, we’ve made progress in our city taking the important first steps, being brave enough to make mistakes and learn from them. This event is an opportunity to come together, reflect on where we’ve been and continue to build toward where we’d like to be.”

Denver, a national bellwether for policy and the cultural anchor for the Rocky Mountain Empire, provides meaningful illustration and insight into how average Americans can impact D.C. encroachment. Once a libertarian cowfolk town, its Wild West personalities pushing and pulling from both ends of the spectrum, the increasingly liberal Queen City of the Plains saw discord and dissent in city streets, community spaces, legislatures, and homes. The “Donald & Denver: Discord & Dissent” exhibition features moments from Candidate Trump’s first public appearance in Denver through the city’s celebration of the inauguration of President Biden. Chandler is a documentary photographer and filmmaker with twenty-five years of professional experience creating art and documentary visuals across the United States whose photos have featured in national newspapers, cable networks, magazines, and international advertising campaigns. Sales from the exhibition will benefit Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center.

“I want to be sure that everyone who is feeling anxious about the immediate future will be able to see and remember one simple thing: We’ve been here before,” says photographer Vince Chandler. “Denver’s positioning as a national political bellwether means we have an inordinate amount of local expertise and experience responding to change. I’m grateful for this opportunity to look back on what the Mile High City has accomplished as we continue to lead and reshape what it means to be progressive in the United States.”

brother jeff’s Cultural Center, Five Points, Denver CO

Located at 2836 Welton St., Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center is located in the historic Five Points District in Northeast Denver and is a space committed to fostering growth, strength, and voice in the community. The center hosts a free community food pantry, as well as a variety of special events and celebrations that serve to ground community throughout the year including Juneteenth, Kwanzaa, and Black History Month activities.

Donald in Denver: Day of Run Of Show

Location: Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center
Contact: Vince Chandler (919)-971-2112

10:00 AM Load-in Begins
11:00 AM Doors Open
1:00 PM Food Arrives
2:00 PM Press Arrives
2:30 PM Programming Begins

Individual Adresses

Introduction and Welcome
brother jeff (5 minutes)
Thoughts on Sankofa:
Councilwoman Shontel M. Lewis (5 minutes)
Promoting Diversity in Higher Education:
CU Regent Wanda James (5 minutes)
Gallery Statement & Panel Introduction:
Vince Chandler (5 minutes)

3:00 PM Panel Begins
40 minute discussion
10 minute Q&A as time permits

Moderator
Honorable Auon’tai Anderson

Panelists:
Councilman Darrell Watson, City of Denver
Director Scott Esserman, Denver Public Schools
Chief Ron Thomas, Denver Police
Shannon Francis, Spirit of the Sun

4:00 PM Event Ends
5:00 PM Complete Clean-Up & Depart

The post Donald in Denver: Community Prepares for New Trump Admin appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This Valentine’s Day, Big Richard will take the Boulder Theater stage to celebrate love with traditional bluegrass and old-time tunes. The four-piece band joined forces in 2021 for a festival and has stuck together ever since. Now, Bonnie Sims, Joy Adams, Hazel Royer, and Eve Panning are taking up the music industry with brilliant genre mashups and a little bit of irreverence. 

“In the bluegrass world, there’s a lot of tradition, which is wonderful. I love those aspects. We honor them and kind of ramcom them in the same moment. It’s definitely a contradiction, and I recognize that,” Sims told Yellow Scene, “We don’t have the same bowed head good girl approach. There’s a lot of traditional things in the way of other things like gender. So we’re breaking those by being four women who aren’t behaving or presenting in the way you might expect.” 

Royer added, “Also, we’re playing music that isn’t traditional. That, in its own way, is irreverent. We’re playing pop covers and really pushing the genre.”

Big Richard has been on the road full-time for the past two years and will continue the trend into 2025. “It’s been a lot of driving,” said Sims. 

Now, the group is using the momentum it has gained over the past few years to usher in a new chapter. The band’s debut album will be released on January 24th. Although they formerly released a live record, this is their first studio offering. 

Sims explained that the band creates a big party for the audience members, which can make the atmosphere a little rowdy, “but this record is more of a vulnerable moment. It’s a more mature offering, if you will.” The band’s ability to explore the capacity of human emotion is one thing that’s led to their success. 

With decades of collective experience between the bandmates, Big Richard’s rise to success doesn’t feel sudden to Sims and Royer. Yet the group has garnered national attention in just three short years. The band’s biggest struggles have been a flat tire, questionable Google Maps directions, and the general finesse it takes to adapt to a tour’s needs. 

“Touring is just a challenge in itself. Imagine you’re in a car with 5 people, and you’ve driven 17 hours, and everyone has to share a bed and a hotel room. You have to choose to have a good attitude at that point,” said Sims. 

Big Richard performs at the Ogden Theater on Jan 20th, 2024

Royer added, “You also have to carry like 75 pounds of instruments.”

In the same breath, music is the platform on which the group explores universal themes. It’s such a powerful outlet that the division between the self and music can become blurry for some bandmates. Sims said, “I feel like music has always been very much a huge piece of my identity. Growing up and through my life, I’ve always been associated with it. It’s my livelihood. It’s how I make money. But – don’t tell anyone, I’d do it for free.”

Artistic expression is not just an emotional outlet; it’s a societal need, “It’s where we turn in our moments of need as a culture and society,” said Sims. “People scratch notation on concentration camps in their darkest moments. That is so powerful. I love being a part of something bigger than me. It’s as close to magic that I’m ever going to get.” 

The Colorado-based band is excited for its tour as well as a number of un-released events in its home state. Releasing its debut album is a significant step in the band’s evolution. Royer also noted that the group’s momentum is picking up, “Our new album isn’t released, but we actually just were in the studio making another album.” While the days begin to grow longer, Big Richard continues to concoct new dreams and plans for their future. 

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The post Denver Bluegrass Band, Big Richard, Takes the Stage | Spotlight appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.