Nearly two months after the Boulder County branch of the NAACP appeared to attempt to dissolve — and after the ousting of leadership — local activists are hoping for stability and a concerted effort on social justice work.

The local NAACP branch long made it clear that it had issues with now-Boulder police Chief Stephen Redfearn, who was a chief with the Aurora Police Department when Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man, encountered police in an incident that led to his death in 2019. His presence and eventual hiring in Boulder led to increasingly tense exchanges between the city and the NAACP Boulder County, and reached a tipping point when the chapter’s then-leadership announced it would dissolve in late March.

The national NAACP quickly stamped out that flame, saying that local chapters do not have the power to dissolve. Darren O’Connor, a former committee chairman of the Boulder County branch who was at the center of the conflict, is suing the city and city officials in civil court. The national NAACP is currently searching for new leadership for Boulder County.

Area activists say that stable leadership from the branch is more important now, in part because of the social and racial policies of President Donald Trump.

“So much of the legislation that is being targeted by the administration directly affects the disenfranchised communities, and that includes rural communities,” Portia Prescott, president of the Rocky Mountain NAACP State Conference, which covers Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, told the Daily Camera.

“We have, now, a president who believes in the haves and have-nots, and the haves getting much more breaks than the have-nots. Having experienced what I’m experiencing now, our role is more critical than ever before.”

What happened to the Boulder NAACP

Issues the previous leadership of the Boulder County branch of the NAACP had with Redfearn are well documented.

Redfearn was a chief with the Aurora Police Department and was on duty the night of the incident that caused McClain’s death. Redfearn elevated the situation from suspicious person to assault on an officer, based on information relayed to him. He also was a police commander when the Aurora Police Department used smoke canisters to disperse a 2020 protest. Both events resulted in the city of Aurora settling civil cases. In the Camera’s previous reporting, Rivera-Vandermyde noted that there have been no allegations of misconduct against Redfearn related to the investigation of McClain’s death. The plaintiffs agreed to remove Redfearn and other defendants as part of a settlement agreement related to the 2020 protest lawsuit.

One major turning point was a mediation meeting between the city — including city manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde and Redfearn — and the then-leaders of the local NAACP branch. The meeting was tense and then-NAACP leaders recorded and eventually released excerpts from the meeting. The city claims it was a confidential meeting. In his lawsuit, O’Connor claims that branch leadership never agreed to such terms.

O’Connor’s civil suit targets the city of Boulder, Rivera-Vandermyde and Redfearn. In the lawsuit, O’Connor accuses the two officials of embarking on a “joint campaign against the Boulder Chapter of the NAACP” and O’Connor specifically, and points to Rivera-Vandermyde filing a complaint with the national NAACP in September 2024.

O’Connor, who is represented by former Democratic state lawmaker Joe Salazar, claims in the lawsuit that he had his NAACP membership revoked. He claims damages that include, “emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and other pain and suffering,” according to the lawsuit.

Yet, Prescott claims the controversy has only put the NAACP on more people’s radar. The state branch will be doing voter outreach at this year’s Longmont Juneteenth celebration.

“It’s tough for me to see there’s this disruption. But we’re in demand more, and all it did was give people more publicity, more notoriety that we exist and it’s made more people contact us to help, in a weird way,” Prescott said. “If they didn’t know we were there before, they know we’re there now.”

Steve Ricard, the president of the Kansas City branch of the NAACP and a national board member, was appointed to serve as interim president of the Boulder County branch until new leadership is found. The national NAACP did not respond to requests for comment.

Need for more work

Boulder is a bastion of liberal politics. Yet, local activists don’t think that means the area — Boulder County is nearly 90% white, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau — or other predominantly blue and white areas of Colorado are free of responsibility when it comes to social justice work in 2025.

And that starts with listening to the needs of the Black and underserved communities, Prescott said.

“If you look at the stories that have been done, you have (former NAACP Boulder County member) Jude Landsman and Darren O’Connor, two white allies, who have done no listening toward any minorities across the state,’ Prescott said.

“They don’t participate in anything in the Black community in Denver, they don’t participate in anything in the Black community in Aurora, the Black community in Colorado Springs, the Black community in Pueblo, the Black community in Longmont, the Black community in Fort Collins. And for them to take it upon themselves to not understand historically how important NAACP is, and to be ringleaders in its demise in Boulder without taking any stock in how valuable it is to the rest of the Black community in the state, is sad. Any allies should really get to know the organization across the state and not just in their neighborhood.”

O’Connor declined an interview request for this story.

Alan O’Hashi is a longtime Colorado resident and social justice author and filmmaker. He grew up as a Japanese-American in post-World War II Wyoming where assimilation was vital. He has long advocated for progressive policies in Boulder and is a member of Boulder’s Police Oversight Panel.

“People in Boulder are maybe aware and intellectually understand the problem of racial injustice, but I don’t know if they know what to do or how they can change their perspective,” O’Hashi said. “The American way right now is one of dominance, winning by one, accumulating as much as you can accumulate — material, money — and acceptance is by assimilation. What if we were to switch that American way around so it would be assimilation based on who you are?”

O’Hashi added that while organizations may have a purpose, advancing social justice requires more work.

“When you’re standing in the grocery store line and you hear an off-color joke, do you engage that person? Do you become an ally for the person who is the target or do you ignore it?” O’Hashi posed. “Where I think we need to get to is what I call the grocery store line-standard, where it is socially acceptable to confront people who make racially disparaging comments about somebody.

“Organizations are really great, but what are they doing to engage the dominant culture? What are they doing to help people understand what they have in their head, and balance that in and transport that into their hearts?”

Prescott said anyone interested in a leadership position for the Boulder County NAACP branch should reach out to her through the Rocky Mountain NAACP website.

“It’s time to take responsibility for whatever decisions they made, whatever relationships they had,” Prescott said. “We still have Trump in office. Nothing’s going to change. It’s only going to get worse and NAACP is only going to be more important than ever. It’s time for them to step aside and let new leaders lead.”