Howard Michael Paul

My history
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America, I was but nine years old and did not understand the tumult. I believe we are at another pivotal moment in our history, and I am documenting it—so that a nine-year-old of today might understand the protests of 2025 in sixty years.

Relevance
Historians seem to agree on this moment's significance. Political history professor Heather Cox Richardson recently said 2025 is like no other year in American history for more than 100 years. Erica Chenowith of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government Crowd Counting Consortium likens today to "an American spring."

Work
Having started this project in February 2025, this movement has drawn me to more than 50 rallies, protests and marches. I have made more than 25,000 photographs. While the breadth of this "movement" is geographically enormous the majority of my work has been in the greater metropolitan Denver area, with some forays to far-southern and near-northern Colorado.

Project Need
This project requires broader coverage to capture its full social, cultural, and political dimensions. Travel is the primary expense of documenting distant-to-me communities across Colorado’s plains (which make up roughly one-third of the state), mountain towns and Western Colorado cities. This grant will allow expanded travel for on-the-ground documentation, ensuring the geographically diverse record of the 2026 protests for future historians, educators and that nine-year-old kid of today.