Prelude: Bad Bunny, Good Questions

Our “Bad Bunny, Good Questions” campaign helped spark the conversations that led to the 250/125 Campaign. When Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance sparked controversy and debate, we used the moment of national attention to ask deeper questions: What does it mean to be “American” when you come from a U.S. territory? By using the cultural moment to highlight the lived experience of over 3 million people in U.S. territories, the campaign helped introduce wider audiences to the realities of U.S. colonial rule today.

Those conversations made clear that what many people see as a historical issue is in fact a present-day one. That realization set the stage for the 250/125 Campaign, which connects two milestones in U.S. history to highlight an ongoing contradiction.

250/125 Campaign: Colonial Rule is a Now Problem

In 1776 – 250 years ago – the United States declared its independence and rejected the idea of colonial rule. In its place, the United States affirmed “the consent of the governed” and “all … created equal” as its foundational values. Yet, for the last 125 years, as a result of the Supreme Court’s decisions in the Insular Cases, the United States has denied democracy, equity, and self-determination in its overseas U.S. territories. These decisions created legal and moral justifications with which the United States could reject its foundational and constitutional values and disregard them when it came to the “alien races” whose communities “belonged” to the United States as “possessions”. This all has ultimately impacted not just the 3.6 million people who live in these island communities, but also a territorial diaspora of over 6 million. 

How can we square the foundational values of 1776 with the practice of colonial rule in 2026? 

Juxtaposing the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence alongside the 125th Anniversary of the Insular Cases presents a unique opportunity to create an “aha” moment that colonial rule is not just a 1776 problem, it is a now problem.

Background

The undemocratic reality of what conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch calls “American colonialism” is all too apparent today. While people in Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands live under the full force of the federal government, they are denied both political representation and the right to self-determine their political future. The consequences of 125 years of colonial rule are stark. 

Veterans in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are forced to travel thousands of miles to Hawaii just to receive basic healthcare. Disabled and low-income Virgin Islanders are forced to leave their families and communities to relocate stateside in order to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The federal government is opening American Samoa’s waters to exploitive deep sea mining over the objections of its people. Puerto Ricans remain governed by an imposed, undemocratic fiscal control board whose membership is subject to presidential whim. The U.S. ignores its UN obligations to promote self-determination and decolonization in its “Non-Self-Governing Territories” despite repeated calls by people in the territories and their diasporas. Poverty rates are two to five times the national average, and in the last census they lost 11% of their population. All without any possibility of political accountability or recourse.

This undemocratic relationship finds its foundation in a series of widely criticized Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases. They established that people in so-called “unincorporated” territories have no promise of political rights or self-determination and that Congress can act in these places outside the constraints of the U.S. Constitution. The basis for these decisions were, according to Justice Gorsuch, “ugly racial stereotypes, and the theories of social Darwinists.” Justice Sotomayor echoed these views, saying the Insular Cases “were 

premised on beliefs both odious and wrong.” In 2024, even the U.S. Justice Department rejected “the racist language and logic of the Insular Cases.”

250/125 Campaign 

Right to Democracy, which works to build a movement to advance democracy, equity, and self-determination in U.S. territories, is bringing together allies from all five territories and across the United States to co-create together a new 250/125 Campaign focused on creating a reckoning and call-to-action that U.S. colonial rule over people in U.S. territories is (1) real; (2) wrong, and (3) needs to end now. The campaign will contrast the rejection of colonial rule in 1776 with its embrace from 1898 to the present, using themes that resonate across political ideologies and status preferences. The experience of people in U.S. territories under colonial rule also provides broader lessons as the United States confronts growing authoritarianism and expansionist impulses. 

The 250/125 Campaign will focus on engaging three key audiences: (1) the broad swath of people who know little about U.S. territories or how the United States denies democracy and self-determination in these communities; (2) natural allies who have some understanding of the problem but who have yet to take action; (3) people in U.S. territories who may not fully understand the nature of the undemocratic colonial framework that governs them or fear the idea of change. Its values will center on the importance of building common ground, respecting differences, provoking change, staying focused, and avoiding toxicity. The campaign will not put its thumb on the scale of any particular status option, and will seek to engage people regardless of their status preferences.

At a national level, the 250/125 Campaign will focus on elevating diverse voices and stories from people in U.S. territories to present compelling, human-level narratives about how the undemocratic colonial framework governing U.S. territories violates the principles of “consent of the governed” and “all created equal.” At a territorial level, the 250/125 Campaign will ensure relevance by focusing on opportunities/issues that are already getting attention, such the 10th Anniversary of PROMESA in Puerto Rico, the 75th Anniversary of the Organic Act in Guam, the 50th Anniversary of the Covenant in the Northern Mariana Islands, the 125th Anniversary of Flag Day in American Samoa, and the 6th Constitutional Convention in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Want to learn more? Check out our list of resources here!

Want to test how much you know about the relationship with the U.S. and its territories? Fill out our survey here!