50501 CO Update - 5/4

Bringing Coloradans the latest protests and actions

May 04, 2025

Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of our 50501 CO newsletter!

In this newsletter you’ll find information on upcoming activities from the 50501 calendar, actions you can take outside of protesting, and also find out about additional ways to connect with us.

See you on the streets! ✊✊✊

Actions and Activities

(The below list contains details on all actions this week which have been submitted to our 50501 CO calendar; click the link above for more details and the full calendar)

All cities
- 5/6 - 5/12: Amazon Boycott
Aurora
- 5/5: 6:00 - 8:00 PM - Cinco de Mayo Cancelled! (ICE Detention Center in Aurora, 11901 E 30th Ave, Aurora, CO 80010)
- 5/5: 6:00 - 8:00 PM - Jeanette Vizguerra Vigil (Geo Group Inc/ICE facility, 3130 N Oakland St, Aurora, CO 80010)
Greeley
- 5/9: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM - Protest Gabe Evans (Gabe Evans Greeley Office, 3400 West 16th St, Building 1S, Suite C, Greeley , Colorado 80634)
Northglenn
- 5/9: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM - Protest Gabe Evans (Gabe Evans Northglenn Office, 10701 Melody Drive 80234)

Non-Protest Actions Bingo

The below bingo card contains a list of actions you can take (other than protesting) to help further the cause. If you get a bingo (or heck, a blackout), tag us on social media to let us know!

1. SB25-276, a bill that provides greater protection for immigrants in the State of Colorado, is in the final days of consideration. The push right now is on getting as many people as possible to voice support by sending an email to their state House representative and Governor Polis. To simplify the process, our friends at CIRC have created a SB25-276 letter writing link.

Time is of the essence! We expect a final House vote & reconciliation with the Senate version by May 7, then on to the Governor’s desk. Please note - although we have a Democrat-led legislature and Governor, this is absolutely not a guarantee of the passing of this bill. We cannot be complacent and we must act with intentionality and speed!

3. If you don’t have a yard sign, buy one! Or a flag if you have somewhere to fly it. By demonstrating your support of the communities the current administration is targeting (Latines, Federal Employees, LGBTQIA+), you encourage others to support them. Visible markers such as signs and flags also help those in marginalized groups feel welcomed in communities.

3. At the grocery store (or really any store), find out which of your usual staples come from districts that support Trump. If you can, skip out on these brands/products and choose others from blue areas instead. Note: Since most agricultural districts support Trump, it also counts for this space if you switch from a brand from a deep-red area to a brand from somewhere more purple.

Decentralized by Design: How Today’s Protest Movements Resist Surveillance, Co-optation, and Collapse

To be decentralized is to move without a head, to organize without a center, to resist without asking for permission.

In today’s social movements, decentralization doesn’t mean disorganization — it means evolution. From youth-led uprisings to spontaneous campus occupations, protest in 2025 doesn’t wear a uniform or follow a singular voice. Instead, it spreads like water, adjusting to resistance, shaping itself around obstacles, and thriving through collective intention. In a world where institutions are either complicit or collapsing, decentralization has emerged not as a fallback but as a strategic, powerful form of resistance.

I remember sitting in a church basement with twelve strangers, planning a protest we didn’t know would grow legs. No one was in charge. Everyone brought snacks. Someone had printed a zine. Another offered childcare. We argued for hours about safety protocols, but when the night came, we moved like breath: quick, coordinated, unknown to power. That was the first time I understood what it meant to move without permission.

What Decentralization Means (and What it Doesn’t)

Decentralization is not the absence of leadership; it’s the diffusion of it. It does not mean a lack of vision, but rather the refusal to centralize power into the hands of a few. A decentralized movement operates through a network of autonomous organizers, mutual aid networks, and consensus-based groups. Instead of a pyramid, think mycelium: sprawling, resilient, and deeply interconnected.

This model directly contrasts with historical movements that were highly centralized, often relying on a charismatic leader or hierarchical structures. While these past movements achieved remarkable victories, they were also vulnerable. The loss, silencing, or discrediting of a single figure could unravel years of work. Today’s decentralized protests deliberately refuse that vulnerability.

A Brief History of Decentralized Resistance

Decentralization is not new. Indigenous communities have long practiced forms of collective leadership rooted in consensus, respect, and relational power. The Zapatistas in Chiapas created a horizontal, anti-capitalist resistance that centered the voices of the community. SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, began with centralized direction but increasingly prioritized grassroots autonomy as it grew. Occupy Wall Street’s intentional rejection of hierarchy was not a flaw, but a choice—a refusal to repeat the patriarchal, white-led structures of prior generations.

Each of these movements, in their own time, practiced something the 50501 movement teaches: power that is shared is power that lasts.

Why It Works in 2025

The modern surveillance state has made centralized leadership dangerous. Visible leaders are surveilled, arrested, or smeared. Movements that depend on one figure or centralized communication channels are easier to dismantle. But a movement with no fixed point is harder to kill.

Decentralization thrives in an era of disillusionment. With collapsing trust in institutions — from the courts to universities to the press — many activists no longer seek approval or legitimacy from traditional gatekeepers. Decentralized movements don’t wait for permission. They act.

The digital landscape has also empowered decentralized organizing. Messaging apps, livestreams, and encrypted platforms allow individuals to act in sync without ever meeting in person. Ideas spread rapidly, organizing happens in real time, and power remains fluid.

As organizer Harsha Walia once said, “Movements need not be unified to be powerful. They must be principled, strategic, and rooted in the communities they claim to serve.”

Case Studies: Protest Without a Head

What does it mean to protest without a head? It means there is no single face to arrest, no HQ to raid, no spokesperson to discredit. These movements resist linear narratives because they are living organisms: messy, adaptive, and leader-full. Here are a few vital examples:

Black Lives Matter: What began as a hashtag became a global force. Its power was not held by a single figure but dispersed through a constellation of local chapters, digital campaigns, and public grief. This leader-full approach allowed it to survive attempts at political co-optation, smear campaigns, and burnout. When asked who leads BLM, the most honest answer remains: everyone who shows up.

Hong Kong's "Be Water" Uprising (2019): Protesters took inspiration from Bruce Lee's famous phrase: "Be formless, shapeless, like water." There were no named leaders. Instead, decentralized teams communicated quickly, dissolved when needed, and flowed around police lines. What looked like chaos was highly adaptive strategy. The invisibility of its leadership was its strength.

Stop Cop City (Atlanta, Georgia): A coalition of environmental activists, abolitionists, students, and forest defenders has resisted the construction of a massive police training facility. There is no centralized command. Instead, the movement grows horizontally: community members build barricades, lawyers file injunctions, students organize teach-ins. The resistance refuses to funnel its legitimacy through traditional institutions.

Campus Protests for Palestine (2024–25): University occupations across the U.S. have functioned as decentralized encampments. Mutual aid tents, collective safety protocols, and community decision-making spaces replace singular leadership. One student at Columbia said, "We don’t need a president—we need a circle."

Rojava (Northeastern Syria): In the midst of war, Kurdish people have created a functioning, decentralized society grounded in direct democracy, ecological sustainability, and gender liberation. Their council-based governance shows that decentralization is not just a protest tactic but a model for building a society beyond the state.

Women's Uprisings in Iran and Chile: These mass mobilizations have been coordinated by encrypted chats, viral videos, and mutual trust. With no singular leadership, they resist easy dismantling. Their rage echoes through anonymity—and their coordination stuns authoritarian regimes.

These examples don’t just showcase effectiveness. They embody an ethic: power should be distributed, movements should be hard to kill, and liberation should not depend on charismatic few. They are not mistakes in structure. They are the future.

Accountability Without Hierarchy

A common critique of decentralized movements is the fear that harm goes unchecked. Without a vertical chain of command, who is held accountable?

The answer lies in intention. Decentralized does not mean unaccountable. It means we build shared principles, not rulers. We develop conflict resolution tools, transformative justice circles, and collective agreements that make safety a communal responsibility.

We do not protect abusers behind titles. We build networks where harm is named, addressed, and healed through process, not punishment.

Poetic Glossary: Unsaid Words

Leader-full: A refusal to centralize authority. A protest where everyone brings a match.
Affinity Group: A small, self-organized pod of people with shared trust, acting independently while aligned in purpose.
Consensus: A process that values deep agreement, not majority rule. Built slowly, sustained through trust.
Horizontalism: Flat power structures where all voices are valued equally.
Direct Action: A public act of resistance meant to disrupt or challenge unjust systems without intermediaries.
Mutual Aid: Community-based support that meets material needs without charity or saviorism. Food, rides, medicine, bail—all given freely.
Unco-optable: Something too wild to brand. Too alive to sell.
Mycelium: The underground network that feeds the forest. The structure we build when no one is watching.
Permissionless: A politics that doesn’t ask nicely. That doesn’t knock. That builds its own door.
Rage: A sacred refusal. The moment a body becomes a barricade.
Illegible: What the state cannot decode, and therefore cannot destroy.
De-center: To stop narrating from your own gaze. To make room. To listen harder.
Pod Mapping: A visual map of who you turn to in crisis—built not through hierarchy, but intimacy.
Spokescouncil: A decision-making gathering where representatives of small groups coordinate actions collectively.
Liberatory Infrastructure: The invisible scaffolding—like bail funds, childcare, and hot meals—that makes resistance possible.