Earlier this month, Tufts students joined hundreds of local Massachusetts residents in a “50501” protest against the latest actions of the administration of President Donald Trump. Born on social media, the 50501 movement encompasses the simultaneous occurrence of 50 protests in 50 states on a single day.
“When I saw that this was happening, I took it as a sign that it was finally time I could start fighting back and feeling like I was helping in some small way,” Kira Sutcliffe, a first-year student who participated in the Boston 50501 protest on Feb. 5, said. “We are now the generation that must demand change. We can’t sit back and watch the world happen anymore.”
Another first-year who attended the protest, Analiese Christenson, said that the 50501 protest was the first she ever intended to go to alone. But as soon as she got on the train to Boston, Christenson said, she met three other Tufts students planning to participate in the protest.
“I want to see what’s going on from a real-life perspective because I feel like so much is online. That just makes me feel really disconnected, and I didn’t feel like there was anything positive happening,” Christenson said.
Christenson said she was also motivated by the protest’s many objectives, namely to advocate “for immigrants and against transphobia.”
One student Christenson met on the train was first-year Eli Stettner. Stettner said that one of the main reasons he decided to participate was because he was upset by the tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico.
“I thought they had no basis in any kind of rational policy. … I think it really did a lot of damage to the position of the United States.”
Sutcliffe said she was initially unsure about attending the protest because she found it hard to find information online.
“It was a completely random flyer that I saw on Instagram,” Sutcliffe said. “It was very unclear if it was real. It was very hard to get information about it.”
Stettner also tried doing further research after initially seeing a digital flyer posted on the anonymous app Sidechat. “I really tried to dig into it to see if it was a legit thing.”
The students talked about how disorganized the protest felt, in part because of 50501’s decentralized structure. “There wasn’t a particular group that was spearheading it,” Christenson said.
“It was just incredibly disorganized, but it didn’t really feel like that, and everyone was very kind. It was incredibly peaceful.” Sutcliffe said. “It was just incredibly unique in that way. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Sutcliffe described how she felt a strong sense of community at the protest as well.
“It felt very good to know that I wasn’t alone in my fear, in my despair, but also in my hope,” Sutcliffe said. “Part of me had felt like we had given up and the general feeling was that we were just going to have to let it happen. And so I was really glad that there were people out there that also wanted to keep fighting.”
In the past, Sutcliffe has attended #MeToo protests, pride parades and reproductive rights protests. She noted how the 50501 protest was unique in not having just one particular focus.
“It was just a group of people coming together to advocate for those that are being actively cast to the side by the current administration and who are being attacked because of their identity,” Sutcliffe said, “It was also a group of people that were just there because we believe in the American ideals and we believe in our civil rights. It was really a range of people. There was no one kind of person that was there.”
Both Christenson and Sutcliffe chose attendance at the protest over some of their other obligations. Sutcliffe chose to miss class, which she said was “definitely worth it.” Christenson said it was “a little hard” to miss a meeting at her internship but ultimately decided to go after receiving encouragement from her boss.
Despite the success of the 50501 movement and the protest, Stettner thinks the movement needs to move beyond protesting.
“It’s a pretty narrow vehicle of political activism. It can bring awareness to something, but it can’t be the last stop,” he said. “I think it’s important to show that there’s pushback. Protesting is a first step toward building something more sustainable for resistance.”
“I think it’s an important time to get out there right now,” Stettner said.
