LAKEWOOD — A leader of Women’s March on Colorado opened a summit for activists Saturday with a question for the movement against President Donald Trump.
“When all the fuel of hatred burns off, … will all this new enthusiasm for our politics disappear behind the smoke?” asked Lisa Cutter.
The dozens in the crowd at the inaugural Women’s Summit in Lakewood responded with an emphatic “No!” — echoing the voices that gathered at the same time in Detroit for a national convention designed to convert the outcry into action.
“I won’t be silenced. I’m fighting for democracy any way I can,” Sandra Anderson, from Broomfield, said in an interview from Detroit.
A year after Trump won the White House, and nine months after the Women’s March on Washington, the opposition born from the 2016 election of Trump and the Republican-led Congress is still maturing into a sustained movement ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
The summit in Lakewood is the first public event hosted by the Colorado organizers since the Jan. 21 march and featured discussions on how to talk about issues from a progressive perspective and caring for yourself in tough times. In essence, now that they have learned to walk, the organizers want to teach the newly engaged activists to talk.
The women and men who attended represented the more engaged segment of the marchers. Most in the crowd of roughly 40 raised their hands to say they contacted their congressional representatives in recent months. A handful even participated in “The Handmaid’s Tale” protest outside a recent event in Denver featuring Vice President Mike Pence.
“We want to re-energize people, we want everyone to get refocused,” said Tish Beauford, another co-founder of the Women’s March on Colorado. “This is a marathon, not a sprint.”
Mary Chase traveled to the nation’s capital for the march in January and came to the summit to get what she called “action steps” to stay involved. The 68-year-old retiree from Stapleton said she’s worried the energy is waning.
“I want this just to get people revved up again,” she said.
This is what concerns Morgan Carroll, too. The chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party rallied the activists by emphasizing what she sees as the early successes of the opposition movement, such as the failure to the repeal the Affordable Care Act and efforts to block the privatization of public lands.
“As we are going through infinite exertion against the appalling political reality right now, we do need to periodically remind each other that we are having successes, big ones, surprising ones along the way,” she said.
The former state Senate Democratic leader encouraged the men and women in the pews at Mile Hi Church to get involved in shaping policy at the state Capitol and volunteer for campaigns.
“We need to understand the levers of power as we do the arising and awakening,” she said. “Everything you are doing outside the building, there is a space for you inside the building.”
Pam Culig said she donated money and canvassed for political campaigns in the past. But since the march, she has become more active in local politics. She attended her first Aurora City Council meeting. And she’s volunteering on a council campaign ahead of the Nov. 7 election.
“I’m really frustrated with what’s going on in Washington, like many people, but I see hope at the local level that we can make some differences in the communities where we live,” she said.
Still, Culig said she understands the difficulty in keeping a new generation of activists engaged.
“For me, at least, you sort of become complacent because everything in your life is going well,” she said, “but there are people out there who don’t have the same supports and opportunities.”
