A Student Oral History of the Auraria Solidarity Encampment for Palestine 2024
This oral history project documents the Auraria Solidarity Encampment for Palestine as remembered by seven of the students involved in the encampment. The Auraria Solidarity Encampment for Palestine ran from April 25th to May 17th, 2024 on the Tivoli quad of the Auraria campus. The students demanded the University of Colorado Denver and Metropolitan State University divest from companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine along with demands for the end of study abroad programs to Israel and the disclosure of their financial ties. These oral histories capture a small bit of the varied experiences of the encampment, which involved hundred of students and community members over the three weeks it was on the campus.
In these oral histories, students discuss the building of relationships and community at the encampment, their universities complicity in the genocide in Palestine, the complexities of having a protest encampment on a commuter campus, the process of negotiating with administrators, experiences of repression from the universities and the state, the interpersonal nature of liberation struggles, and the importance of taking action in solidarity with Palestine. They speak to the nuances of the encampment made visible through their lived experience.
