The anti-war encampment on Denver’s Auraria Campus is now empty after pro-Palestine protests first began 23 days ago.

Removal of the encampment by demonstrators started around 8 p.m. on Friday, with most of it gone by Saturday morning, said Auraria spokesperson Devra Ashby. “The encampment was dispersed in a relatively calm manner, except for blocking Speer and Auraria last night,” she added.

The Auraria Campus announced the dispersal of the Tivoli Quad encampment on Saturday near 1 p.m., citing that cleanup starts today. However, access to the campus buildings remains limited to “critical personnel and operations,” with Tivoli Quad and other green spaces also closed for repairs, according to a statement issued by the campus.

“Leaders have worked diligently towards finding a peaceful resolution,” the statement details. “We hope this will end more than three weeks of unauthorized occupation that has increasingly escalated into dangerous activities, taken significant time, resources, and dialogue with student protesters to resolve, and has pulled us away from our academic mission and goals.”

Protesters first pitched their tents on April 25, with the goal of pressuring the University of Colorado system into cutting ties with Israel, including by divesting from corporations in the Middle Eastern country and ceasing study programs abroad.

Ashby didn’t immediately respond to a question asking whether any of these demands were agreed to by university officials.

On Friday, the University of Colorado Denver told students that classes would take place online “until further notice” due to the encampment, and events held on the Auraria Campus were canceled through next week.

“The encampment was a tool of our protest,” said student activist organization Students for a Democratic Society in an emailed statement. “We are picking up a new one to continue the fight for Palestine.”

Similar protests continue to occur on college campuses nationwide. The latest related developments include a University of Chicago campus building occupied on Friday, the arrest of 19 protesters who tried to occupy a University of Pennsylvania building on Friday and an agreement reached between protesters and Sonoma State University administration on Tuesday in California.

From left, six-year-old Arlo Darham, left, hangs out in the bleachers with his family, grandfather Joe Bahr, sister Ettie Darhumb, 6, and mother Ali Darhumb at the CHSAA Track and Field Championships at Jefferson Country Stadium in Lakewood, Colo., on Saturday, May 18, 2024. (Eli Imadali/Special to The Denver Post)

Sally Johnston, mother of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and co-owner of the Christiania Lodge at Vail, passed away May 17, with the mayor joining her for a final goodbye.

The city leader announced his mom’s passing in a LinkedIn post on Saturday.

“Yesterday we said the final good bye to my mom,” Johnston wrote. He depicted her as selfless, joyful and “a tireless force for goodness.”

Sally Johnston grew up in Port Leyden, N.Y., alongside three sisters. Her father worked as a school principal, while her mother was an arts and music teacher, according to a 2010 article in the Vail Daily.

She followed in their footsteps — teaching music in Boston in the 1960s, her son Mike recalled in his social media post. There, she spearheaded a Head Start program, the Vail Daily reports.

She married her husband, Paul Ross Johnston, in 1970 — the former mayor of Vail, who passed away in 2015. The pair bought a boutique hotel in Vail in 1976.

With her experience in education and psychology, Sally Johnston served as a board member at Third Way Center, a nonprofit that helps youths resolve trauma. She also had a spot on the Vail Mountain School Board and was involved with the Vail Religious Foundation.

“She loved people for their beauty and their brokenness alike, which always had the power to make each of us feel unafraid, unashamed, perfect again — the way we were once before the world taught us to doubt,” Johnston wrote. “She changed my world, and she convinced me with a ferocity I will never surrender that we can all change the world, because I watched her do it every day.”