Black History

60 years after the Civil Rights Act, ‘the activism continues’

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

60 years after the Civil Rights Act, ‘the activism continues’ Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2024 - 00:00

Rachel Sauer

CU �鶹ӰԺ scholar Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders reflects on what has and hasn’t changed since 1964

Over a five-year span between 1865 and 1870, following the end of the Civil War, three constitutional amendments were ratified to end slavery (the 13^th), make formerly enslaved people U.S. citizens (the 14^th) and give all men the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (the 15^th).

In the decades that followed, however, and despite provision that “the Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,” various states and municipalities passed “Jim Crow” laws, abused poll taxes and literacy tests to limit voting and condoned racially motivated violence to enforce segregation and disenfranchise African Americans.

But on July 2, 1964, in the midst of a civil rights movement that had been growing in voice and numbers for many years, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) into law. This act integrated public schools and facilities; prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion and national origin in public places and in hiring and employment; and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, a CU �鶹ӰԺ assistant professor of African American and U.S. history, notes that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "shows what a major legislative change can accomplish, but beyond that, what else happens? The activism continues.”

Sixty years later, the Civil Rights Act is still considered a landmark of U.S. legislation, but does it mean today what it did in 1964?

“Similar to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the CRA is something we almost take for granted as something that has existed for a good chunk of most people’s lifetimes,” says Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, an assistant professor of African American and U.S. history in the �鶹ӰԺ Department of History. “Everything from Brown v. Board on—the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins, all these things were leading to this Civil Rights Act.

“I think for civil rights activists, though, it’s a complicated story. A lot of the actual issues that lead to material conditions being different for Black people still have not changed enough. We haven’t closed the racial wealth gap, there’s still structural racism in policing, housing and employment. As violent as the moments at lunch counter sit-ins were, in a way the harder thing is saying, ‘Black people should be able to live in this neighborhood’ or ‘Black and white kids should be going to the same schools’ or ‘Black people are experiencing discrimination at these jobs and people in positions of power are keeping them away.’ People now are being told it’s either unfixable or it’s not a problem, and this is where we’re at 60 years later.”

Protecting civil rights

For almost 100 years following the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and despite three constitutional amendments that ostensibly ensured equal rights and legal protections for African Americans, most experienced anything but—and not just in the South, but throughout the United States. In Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court even ruled that segregation didn’t violate the 14^th Amendment.

So, it wasn’t just a culmination of big events that occasionally garnered media attention—Ku Klux Klan marches, the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres, the murder of Emmett Till—but the daily experiences of “redlined” neighborhoods, “sundown” towns, denial of employment, wage inequity, separate entrances and a hundred other inequalities and injustices that germinated the civil rights movement.

Residents of Montgomery, Alabama, walk to work during the 381-day bus boycott that began in December 1955. (Photo: Don Cravens/LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

“One of the things I always show my students about the March on Washington is what people were actually asking for, and that the desire for jobs and equal employment were such a huge part of why the march occurred,” Lawrence-Sanders explains. “We get caught up in MLK’s famous speech about integration, but one of the demands of the march was an end to police brutality and police violence, which is something they wanted in the Civil Rights Act that didn’t make it in there.”

As the civil rights movement increasingly gained footing and voice, federal officials were increasingly called on to respond. In the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Congress established the civil rights division of the Department of Justice as well as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights “to provide means of further securing and protecting the civil rights of persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.”

When John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, he initially postponed supporting anti-discrimination measures, but soon couldn’t ignore the state-sanctioned violence being perpetrated against civil rights activists and protesters throughout the country. In June 1963, Kennedy proposed broad civil rights legislation, noting in his announcement that “this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”

After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson continued pursuing civil rights legislation. After a 75-day filibuster, the Senate voted 73-27 in favor of the bill and Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law July 2.

‘The activism continues’

“Now we tend to forget that this was not the end of the movement,” Lawrence-Sanders says. “A lot of further legislation followed. We were still seeing violent desegregation and busing well into the ‘70s.”

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Aug. 28, 1963. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Housing discrimination, addressed in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, was another big issue—and remains one today, Lawrence-Sanders says. “We still deal with housing segregation and discrimination, and it’s often treated as the exception instead of structural racism, which has become a boogeyman term. The act in ‘68 had provisions about how renting and selling and financing a house can’t be discriminatory based on race or sex, and people violate that constantly. There was an article in The New York Times last month about a woman trying to buy a condo and the seller backed out because she’s Black.

“The frustrating thing about this is that Black people have always suspected that these incidences of racism happen and been called crazy or paranoid, and when these articles appear, Black folks are saying, ‘No, we’ve proven it, not just with the knowledge of how we’ve been treated over time, but it’s finally been exposed by data.’ When I was living in New York City, there were undercover investigations that discovered that taxis don’t stop for Black people, rental apartments don’t rent to Black people at same rate as white people, real estate agents are steering Black people to certain places and steering white people away.”

An important legacy of the CRA is that it established enforcement mechanisms for addressing discrimination, but it stopped short of addressing all the ways structural racism exists in society, Lawrence-Sanders says. It also often gets caught in selective historical memory.

“I think that’s why people tend freeze Martin Luther King in 1963 and the March on Washington,” she says. “Because after the CRA passed, activists were asking for things that went too far for the government. Collectively, we tend to have no use for activists when they demand more and say, ‘That wasn’t enough, we want more, we want to go further.’ The CRA shows what a major legislative change can accomplish, but beyond that, what else happens? The activism continues.”

Top image: President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. (Photo: Cecil Stoughton/Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum)

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CU �鶹ӰԺ scholar Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders reflects on what has and hasn’t changed since 1964.

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Artists celebrate Black womanhood, presence and connectedness

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 23:43:58 +0000

Artists celebrate Black womanhood, presence and connectedness Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/06/2024 - 16:43

Rachel Sauer

New exhibition opening Friday at CU Art Museum created by socially engaged artists-in-residence to honor Black girls and women

Like the “Mona Lisa” whom she mirrors, “Lona Misa” is keeping her secrets. Her expression is unknowable, and a million thoughts could be swirling behind her calm eyes.

She is a testament to the growth and evolution of her young artist, Kiana Gatling of Denver—a recognition of talent and value, of being an artist whose work is deserving of gallery walls.

Von Ross (left) and Charlie Billingsley consider how best to display "Lona Misa" by Kiana Gatling.

That’s not always an easy evolution for women, and especially for Black women, says Charlie Billingsley, who recognizes the profound power in a woman declaring “I am worthy.”

“That’s one of our goals here,” Billingsley explains, “to tell Black women, ‘What you create is good enough. What you create is amazing. You are amazing.’”

The “here” is "We CU: A Visual Celebration of Black Womanhood, Presence, and Connectedness," a new exhibition opening with a celebration from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Friday at the University of Colorado Art Museum; it will be on view through July 13. “We CU” is created, curated and presented by Billingsley and Von Ross, founders of the Museum for Black Girls in Denver and inaugural artists in the Socially Engaged Artists-In-Residence program created by the CU Art Museum and University Libraries.

“When we say, ‘We see you,’ what we’re saying to Black women is ‘we see you beautiful,’” Billingsley explains. “We see you amazing. We see you talented. We see you courageous. We’re saying to Black girls and Black women, ‘We want you to see yourselves as we see you.’”

‘You don’t have to be what you see’

One afternoon last week, with the ingredients of the exhibit fully formed in their minds and on paper, but in progress throughout the exhibition space, Billingsley and Ross consider the “Lona Misa.” Her 4-foot by 5-foot canvas is propped against a far wall and the two women stand chins on fists contemplating her.

If you go

What: Opening celebration for "We CU: A Visual Celebration of Black Womanhood, Presence, and Connectedness"

When: 4:30-6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9

Where: CU Art Museum

Learn more

“She needs her own space,” Ross observes, and Billingsley nods.

“But is that wall too big?” Billingsley asks, pointing to an expanse of blank-for-now wall, against which an assortment of empty frames lean. Some of the frames are very old and reminiscent of ones they came across in the University Libraries archives—one of the many benefits of being artists in residence, Ross says.

“We get to see all these amazing art works, go through the archives and have access to these collections,” Billingsley says. “And that’s another thing we want to accomplish with ‘We CU,’ because a lot of times Black people don’t have this kind of access, so we want to show people that they belong in these spaces.”

Billingsley and Ross are considering whether to hang “Lona Misa” by herself or to surround her with empty frames—the frames being a motif that extends from the Museum for Black Girls.

“The frames are empty because you don’t have to conform to what society tells you (that) you should be,” Ross explains. “Oftentimes, Black girls don’t feel that the way they are is OK. They feel like they have to change, like they have to be different, so we’re saying that you don’t have to be what you see.”

Charlie Billingsley (left) and Von Ross partner on creating the exhibit "We CU: A Visual Celebration of Black Womanhood, Presence, and Connectedness."

‘We honor you’

The theme of authenticity runs through the exhibit, which Billingsley and Ross envision as a home. The various rooms and artifacts of home are represented “because home is where you’re your most authentic self,” Billingsley says. “You don’t have to talk a certain way or dress a certain way. With this exhibit, we’re inviting you into our homes.”

Against one wall, there’s a low green couch encased in plastic, because it’s the good couch and the plastic is how you keep it from getting dirty, Ross says. Against another wall is a salon chair with a clear plastic dryer hood, the kind under which many women have spent many hours.

“As Black women, these are the artifacts of our lives,” Ross says. “We want there to be that recognition and we want to say that these things have value. They matter.”

The exhibition highlights words and quotations that contextualize and exemplify the countless ways to be a Black woman in the world “and to show that words matter,” Billingsley says. “We want to show how impactful words are on Black women.”

The flow of the exhibition will take visitors to a dining room, on which places are set for some of the many, many roles Black women fulfill, and then to a room filled with flowers.

“That’s our ‘thank you’ to Black girls and women,” Billingsley says. “This is our garden, and as they come through this is how we say, ‘We honor you.’”

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New exhibition opening Friday at CU Art Museum created by socially engaged artists-in-residence to honor Black girls and women.

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Luminaries celebrate a more diverse, welcoming campus

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 22:41:02 +0000

Luminaries celebrate a more diverse, welcoming campus Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/02/2024 - 15:41

Clint Talbott

Co-star of The Color Purple joins Colorado governor, CU president and chancellor, along with a cadre of artists, to celebrate the Center for African and African American Studies and Black History Month

Being Black on campus two decades ago was difficult, but the �鶹ӰԺ has worked to improve its culture, says Aba Arthur, who costarred in last year’s production of The Color Purple.

Arthur joined a half-dozen luminaries—including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, CU President Todd Saliman, CU �鶹ӰԺ Chancellor Phil DiStefano and �鶹ӰԺ County NAACP President Annett James—to hail CAAAS Day, a Colorado event recognizing the university’s Center for African and African American Studies.

Because CAAAS Day falls on Feb. 1, the celebrants in the Glenn Miller Ballroom Thursday also marked the beginning of Black History Month.

CU �鶹ӰԺ graduate Aba Arthur, who co-starred in The Color Purple and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was a featured speaker at Thursday's CAAAS Day celebration. (Casey Cass/CU �鶹ӰԺ)

Arthur, who graduated in 2005 with a bachelor of fine arts in theatre and a minor in political science, took to the stage and reveled in the moment: “Wow, y’all, this is a moment. To walk up and see the words ‘Center for African and African American Studies,’ it’s amazing.”

She acknowledged all the work it took to create the center, noting that “every student wants to be respected and heard … their ancestry respected.”

Acknowledging the difficulties she faced at CU �鶹ӰԺ, she also praised the university, specifically mentioning Bud Coleman, professor of theatre and dance, who helped her get a comprehensive education. “I always credit CU and the Theatre Department for who I am today.”

CAAAS was officially launched on Feb. 1, 2023, and encompasses a research center, an arts program and student-service support. Reiland Rabaka, professor of African, African American and Caribbean Studies and the center’s founder and director, said the center was a “wild dream that we have worked long and hard to turn into a reality.”

He noted the university’s first Black graduates—Charles Durham Campbell in 1912 and Lucile Berkeley Buchanan in 1918—and added, “We are their wildest dreams.”

Tracing the 98-year history of Black History Month, Rabaka said, “Every month is Black History Month in the CAAAS.” He said he had always conceived of the center as a sanctuary, a place where people could come together in compassion to learn from the totality of Black experience.

“Here, we don’t have to make ourselves small. We can be who we are, Black and beautiful,” Rabaka said, crisply enunciating each syllable of “beautiful.”

Quoting Frederick Douglass, Rabaka noted that progress springs from agitation: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. … Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.”

Nonetheless, Rabaka praised the powerful people who came to celebrate the center. They returned the compliments.

Shawn O'Neal (left), a CU �鶹ӰԺ assistant teaching professor in Africana studies, and Reiland Rabaka, CAAAS founder and director, at the CAAAS Day celebration Thursday. (Casey Cass/CU �鶹ӰԺ)

Polis, who issued the proclamation establishing Feb. 1, 2023, as CAAAS Day, said Coloradans need to strive for equality not just in February, but all year, adding that the center was integral to the effort. “It’s a key part of our work of building a Colorado for all. … We want to make sure that everyone has a place to succeed in our state.”

Introducing DiStefano, Rabaka called the chancellor a “brother” and “mentor.” DiStefano said the center is achieving its goals to be a place of connection and creative expression.

Saliman, the university president, characterized Rabaka as a force to be reckoned with. “I brag about the CAAAS everywhere I go. It is such an incredible symbol of what CU �鶹ӰԺ commits to.”

Saliman added that the university is not diverse enough but that the center is a key to correcting the imbalance. People need a place where they belong, he said, so that “they don’t just want to come here; they want to stay here.”

Underscoring the center’s focus on the arts, J. Benjamin Burney, a graduate student in interdisciplinary media art practices, performed a spoken word poem. Shawn O’Neal, an assistant teaching professor in Africana studies, and Kalonji Nzinga, assistant professor in the School of Education, performed rap music. Jarrett Rashad, a professional dancer, did a dance performance set to poetry.

Closing the festivities, Rabaka said, “We are fighting for freedom not just for Black people, but for all people. Our destinies are intertwined. … Another way and another world is possible, but only if we work for it.”

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Co-star of The Color Purple joins Colorado governor, CU president and chancellor, along with a cadre of artists, to celebrate the Center for African and African American Studies and Black History Month.

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Hearing music, finding connection in many rhythms of life

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:19:59 +0000

Hearing music, finding connection in many rhythms of life Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/31/2024 - 12:19

Reiland Rabaka, a CU �鶹ӰԺ professor of ethnic studies, joins The Ampersand to discuss art, activism, the importance of building community and how his first-grade teacher introduced him to W.E.B. Du Bois and changed his life

Listen to The Ampersand

Would there be a Reiland Rabaka without music?

Maybe, but certainly one who is less joyful, less connected, less attuned to the ebbing and flowing of the world and the universe around him.

Of the multitudes he contains, music is his great love, the place he comes home to, the cadence of beating hearts and clapping hands and walking feet.

But musician is just one thing about him. Intellectual, activist, artist, writer and someone almost impossible to stump in a game of “Name the Back-Up Band.”

As a �鶹ӰԺ professor of ethnic studies and inaugural director of the Center for African and African American Studies, Rabaka exists at the junction of multiple disciplines, identities and interests—the epitome of “ANDing.”

Reiland Rabaka is a �鶹ӰԺ professor of ethnic studies and inaugural director of the Center for African and African American Studies. Photo by Kylie Clarke.

He recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on "The Ampersand,” the college’s podcast. Randall—who is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Their discussion started at church and roamed broadly from there.

Rabaka: My first love is gospel music. So, I grew up as a youth minister of music. My mother is actually a theologian, so my mother is the minister, you know. Everybody kind of knows I'm a PK, which means a preacher's kid. I think they just assume that it's my pops, but it's actually my mom. So, that shapes not only your spirituality, but also a gender consciousness because of the way that women are treated in the church, the way that women are erased. And so, my first love remains Mahalia Jackson, Albertina Walker, Shirley Caesar, Clara Ward. These are the kinds of folks my mother and my grandmother were listening to. James Cleveland, Thomas Dorsey, I could do this all day.

Randall: But to get this litany out…

Rabaka: It's really important to roll-call that. I think that probably unlike a lot of other, you know, African-American musicians, my first musical love was, and remains, gospel music. Every day before I listen to anything secular, I listen to a gospel album. After my prayers and my meditation, I start with the music. So, African-American sacred song is my foundation.

I will be keynoting the National Spirituals Conference this month at the University of Denver, and they know that I have a love affair with, first and foremost, the spiritual. So, what they used to call Negro Spirituals, this is the music, the soundtrack of our enslavement. These are songs of not simply heavenly salvation, but earthly liberation.

For me, there's always been a connection, at least from the African-American church I come out of, there's always been a connection between the social gospel and social justice. There's no way we can talk about spirituality that is removed from the material, the actual physical world that we live in. And so, after gospel, Erika, I grew up so poor that as strict as my mother was, she allowed me to play jazz because when I was nine years old, I got my first $100 bill for playing a jazz gig. I thought it was monopoly money, I didn't know it was real money.

Randall: You hadn't seen $100.

Rabaka: Yeah. And I gave it to my mother. She hugged me. She held me. It was a bittersweet moment because when I look back, and just to be real with you, that's also probably the day my childhood ended. You can't just be a little kid when you’re fixing to help your mama make rent from now on. So, as long as you didn't miss Wednesday night prayer meeting, choir rehearsal and church on Sunday, then you can go and swing.

And I was part of a generation, what they were calling it, was a jazz renaissance going on. You know, with folks like Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, who I went to high school with, by the way, Roy Hargrove. Growing up in Texas…

Randall: Yeah, Texas and jazz. How did that connect?

Rabaka: Well, you know, part of my family being Creole folk from next door in Louisiana, so going back and forth to the jazz and heritage festival. In Texas, hearing gospel, hearing blues just as much as I'm hearing jazz and R&B and funk and soul and hip-hop. And let's not forget the Caribbean-influenced reggae music.

Randall: That was in your house or that was in your head and heart?

Rabaka: That was in my head and heart more. I think that being a kid from the projects and going to all art conservatory schools—I didn't go to regular school, so I never went to a school with a football team or a basketball team or something like that. I went to all art schools and at the time, they would allow one African-American per grade. I literally spent the bulk of my youth training to be a musician. And the way that they trained me, Erika, you've got to be able to play everything.

So, I played klezmer. I played polka. I played country and western. I played Tejano. I played bar mitzvahs. On top of all of the jazz and the gospel and the blues and the soul and the funk, baby, the funk, baby, oh, the funk. You know? For me, it's that versatility, I think that's actually what allowed me to go from the projects to the professor where I'm at.

Randall: That versatility of thinking.

Rabaka: It opens you up.

Randall: Right.

Rabaka: Here's the thing, and I really, really want to stress this and I think maybe this is why somebody like me is able to be on the faculty at the University of Colorado for nearly 20 years. In the schools that I went to, especially by the time I get to junior high school and high school, there's this weird inversion of the junior high school and high school experience.

So, your popularity isn't based on what kind of car your parents drive or how much money they have in the bank account or how big your house is. It's based on your talent. It's based on your gift.

Guess who was the most popular? I said papa-la.

Reiland Rabaka has researched and written extensively about the confluences of music, civil rights, feminism, art and liberation.

Randall: Boom. Boom.

Rabaka: Kid is cool. I went to high school with Erykah Badu. I graduated from the same high school as Norah Jones.

Randall: Norah Jones went to Interlochen, which was my—that's my home.

Rabaka: You see what I'm saying?

Randall: I feel you.

Rabaka: I went to the same high school as Edie Brickell.

Randall: What?

Rabaka: You see what I'm saying?

Randall: I know. So, there was a lineage. There was an expectation or just a mentoring or it was a pressure in that world if you're coming through, or were you the pressure? Because you came through and set the stage.

Rabaka: When your family's depending on you to eat…I think for a lot of the other kids, this was a hobby. But for me, this was the way that I was going to literally swing myself from the projects into an arts conservatory university, an arts conservatory college, so on and so forth. Got accepted to Cal Arts. Got accepted to most of the… I mean, I don't know what school I did not get accepted to.

Randall: And at the end of the day, because you had all these capacities, did you feel like the pressure is on me to get a job in music or now I've got these opportunities, I need to shift to something more stable, air quotes?

Rabaka: If I can be honest with you, I think because I'm first generation, I think folks were just happy I was going. I did get some of the, "You sure you shouldn't be a business major?"

Randall: Was that mom, or was mom always in your corner?

Rabaka: No, it was more my grandmother. My mother's, in some ways, spiritually speaking, a very free spirit, interfaith, open to a lot of things. And to be honest with you, I'm probably the daughter my mother never had. I'm my mother's middle son. I have an older brother and a younger brother, shout out to Robert and Randy, those are their names.

Randall: The three R's.

Rabaka: Yeah. And they got the more conventional… I mean, both of them are named after their fathers. And my mother just went left field, you know? So, I can rock and roll.

Randall: That's why you're always going left.

Rabaka: You know what I'm saying? Because I'm left-handed and when I found out Jimi Hendrix was left-handed and Barack Obama was left-handed and W.E.B. Du Bois was left-handed.

Reiland Rabaka recently joined host Erika Randall in a wide-ranging conversation for "The Ampersand" podcast. Photo by Kylie Clarke.

Randall: OK. Bookmark on Du Bois. So, we're going to go back to Texas one more time and I want to talk about Mrs. Robinson. Because if you're going to say Du Bois, she was the first person to say that name to you. Can you tell me the story in a way you've never told the story before so you can hear it? Because it's a good story.

Rabaka: You know, I think that being precocious and really, when you when you grow up in the church like I did and you start playing, I mean, I was so young they sat me on phone books. So, in the African-American church, they actually cultivate, quote unquote, giftedness, talented-ness, I'm making up words for you.

Randall: We like that here.

Rabaka: And it's one of those things where there's a unique culture within the African-American church of, they say in terms of our gifts and our talents, and you can see this is what works for me as a as a professor. In African-American church culture, it's the cultivation, it's the nurturing of everybody is gifted. See? God don't play favorites.

But if you don't use it, you lose it if you don't consciously develop it. So, all those hours I'm sitting there practicing, when the other kids had video games. You know, I used to feel tight because they could play Sega and Atari and all the cool games. We didn't have that.

Randall: Commodore 64.

Rabaka: You see? So, we didn't have all of that kind of stuff. I wasn't able to see Jordan do all of those crazy… because the TV wasn't on most of the time. I mean, even if you have a TV, it's got the little antenna, you know, with the clothes hanging off it with the foil on the back of it and everything. But if you don't have your electricity on, if you don't have running water, so on and so forth. I think that a lot of the time where I felt tight, I felt maybe a little economically traumatized, humiliated, demoralized, I was in that practice room.

I was knuckling and brawling, attempting to evolve myself. And the reality of the matter is, I had a multiracial, multicultural group of teachers that nurtured this talent. So, on the one hand, the foundation is the African-American church. However, the church sends us out into the world. As you know, one of my favorite spirituals is called “Go and See the World.” And this is something my grandmother will sing to me, often, she sings it often.

Randall: She's still here to sing to you?

Rabaka: My grandmother—I'm sorry, this makes me emotional—my grandmother turns 96 tomorrow. And my grandmother is one of the great loves of my life. And the others, of course, being my other grandmother and my mama. My grandmother, I think you can do the math, if I'm from Texas, my grandmother's 96, Juneteenth was issued 158 years ago.

My grandmother's grandmother was enslaved. So, it's not a coincidence that I would come out an African-American studies professor, that I speak with love-laced words, that I'm trying to bring some level of human understanding to what's going on. Even the rapport, the bond that we have, that culture, Erika, taught me to also check for your life and your struggles. So, it's not just about me, it’s about you and we.

Randall: That's when you say “ubuntu” [a Zulu word roughly translated to “humanity toward others” or “I am, because you are] in your signature.

Rabaka: There you go. So, I am because we are. And how can you and I rescue and reclaim our humanity together? Instead of avoiding my Africanity, the fact that I’m African-American, what happens if we put that front and center and do it in a way that’s not antagonistic to you? And I acknowledge as I just spoke to you, asking about your mother, asking about your son, and so on. The humanity, the shared humanity that we have, for me, that’s what it means to come out of Texas. I mean, this is the state that Juneteenth is all about.

This is the state where I grew up with nine HBCUs that I could throw a rock out of my grandmother’s yard and break a window, and I didn’t do that, but this is how close the HBCU is. I grew up seeing African-American youth with books and dress smart and the richness of that, and also the fact that I didn’t grow up in an all-black neighborhood. I grew up surrounded by Mexican-Americans. I grew up surrounded by Asian-Americans, some Indigenous folks. Because again, you got New Mexico on one side, Oklahoma, Arkansas. I could just go on and on.

Randall: What corner were you?

Rabaka: Dallas.

Randall: Dallas. OK.

Rabaka: But let me answer about Mrs. Robinson, my first-grade teacher. I was, again, young and precocious, a ball of energy. My mother would always say, “Whatever you give the other kids, you need to give him three times as much.” Mrs. Robinson knew that she could speed-dial my mother. In fact, all she needed to say was, “Don’t make me call your mother” and I would back down.

So, it’s Black History Month, Mrs. Robinson has these little placards, larger than a postcard size, of different Black History Month figures. So, you know, Ella Fitzgerald was on one, let’s see, Billie Holiday, you name it. Jesse Owens, Paul Robeson, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes…

Randall: Jackie Robinson.

Rabaka: You see what I’m saying?

Randall: Yeah. Yeah.

Rabaka: I thought I should get Duke Ellington or Billie Holiday or Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, I could just do this all day long. And I sit up here, I thought at that time, this is my little first-grade mind so just bear with me, I got a Frenchman Du Bois.

Randall: Du Bois.

Introduced to W.E.B. Du Bois by his first-grade teacher, Reiland Rabaka has subsequently researched and written extensively about him.

Rabaka: Right? Because again, I got some Creole folk right on the other side. And I stormed up to Mrs. Robinson’s desk, you know how kids can be, and I can’t believe it, it’s Black History Month, everybody else got Black people and I got a white man, I got a French man named Du Bois, and everything. And she gave me a good talking-to that changed my life.

And this is the power of teachers. She said, “Reiland, if you spent as much time actually reading as you do sitting up here trying to criticize my teaching and what I’m doing, if you don’t go sit down, I’m going to call your mama, boy.” You know? So, I ran back to my desk, sat down, read the card and everything.

I still had my lips stuck out, but I read the card or whatever. And the more I read, the more fascinated, the more intrigued… It actually said that Du Bois went to an HBCU, Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee.

So again, my grandmother lives within walking distance of an HBCU. I’m thinking, “Wow, wait, what’s going on?” Then I come to find out that this person had achieved two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees and the equivalent of two PhDs. One of them, he studied at the University of Berlin.

The fact that he was well-traveled, well-read. When I saw photos of him, he was well-dressed. And then there was a connect from the preachers that I’m seeing in the African-American church to the jazz musicians, Miles Davis got, what, GQ Man of the Year was it 10 times in a row? At least seven times in a row. I mean, this guy was clean.

Randall: Yes.

Rabaka: And so for me, learning about Du Bois and the fact that he connected his intellectual pursuits with his social justice pursuits. You know, he founded sociology in the United States of America, he also founded the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, February the 12^th, 1909. Mrs. Robinson walked me into the library, and she just said, “Hey, if you really want to read something, here's some of his books.” Of course, I couldn't make them through it at the first grade, so once they got the children's-level book about Du Bois’ life, I think I kept that checked out.

Randall: It just said stamp, Reiland.

Rabaka: You know what I'm saying?

Randall: Stamp, Reiland.

Rabaka: And it changed my life, to be perfectly honest with you. So not only was he an intellectual, not only was he an activist with the NAACP work,I find out that he wrote five novels.

Randall: The novels he wrote blew my mind. You introduced that to me. That was a gift from you.

Rabaka: Isn't that incredible?

Randall: Yeah, and in the novels, he's also bringing his story forward.

Rabaka: Historical fiction, sociological fiction. I didn't even know such genres existed.

Randall: And it feels like they really were born of the Black experience.

Rabaka: Absolutely. It’s what we would call Afro Modernism. And I think this would explain my preoccupation with the Harlem Renaissance, and in fact, many people say that Du Bois’1903 classic The Souls of Black Folk was a precursor to what happened 15 years later with the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.

Randall: And when you talk about him being a proto-interdisciplinarian, proto-intersectionalist, and on this podcast, a proto-ANDer, because he is making it up, making it up and transforming through that need not to categorize.

Rabaka: For me, Du Bois is a model, an incessant model because Du Bois was able to be a social scientist, an intellectual, an artist, five novels, nine volumes of poetry, three dozen short stories, two dozen plays, I could go on and on and on, and an activist. So, for me, I mean, maybe those labels fit what I'm up to best—intellectual, artist, activist—maybe those three things, I'm kind of cool with. But I don't want people to silo me off into only one of those.

And I think, Erika, has academia forced folks like you and I to reduce ourselves in order to fit into these little tenure schemes?

Randall: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that is one of the things where this notion of pushing the idea of we are more than just the category we got hired in has felt so critical to me. We have been stuck into a frame.

Rabaka: And they forced you to in order to achieve tenure. Now, the second some folks achieve tenure, they explode.

Randall: Yeah, and then you can kick back. And you're like, “I've always been into this. I was always doing this trouble.” Did you feel a freedom, or did you come in with it?

Rabaka: You know what, I think I'm not a good example, just because African-American studies is always left of field in the American Academy because of how Eurocentric, heteropatriarchal the American Academy can be. So, my field has always been transdisciplinary. By that I mean I'm in a field, I'm in a discipline that transcends and transgresses the borders and boundaries, the very artificial and arbitrary borders and boundaries of academic disciplines.

What if African-American studies is more about the community than it is the campus? What if African-American studies is actually about me literally being a bridge from the community to the campus, from the campus to the community?

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

Listen to The Ampersand

Photos at the top of the page by Kylie Clarke.

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CU history professor named American Council of Learned Societies fellow

Anonymous — Wed, 03 May 2023 16:19:46 +0000

CU history professor named American Council of Learned Societies fellow Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/03/2023 - 10:19

Bradley Worrell

Scholar to use award to finish book project on how African Americans have retained Black Civil War memories

Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, a �鶹ӰԺ assistant professor of African American and U.S. history, has won a prestigious fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. She was one of 60 early career scholars selected for the fellowship through a multi-stage peer review from a pool of nearly 1,200 applicants for 2023, according to ACLS.

“ACLS is proud to support this diverse cohort of emerging scholars as they work to increase understanding of our connected human histories, cultures and experiences,” ACLS President Joy Connolly said in a prepared statement. “ACLS fellowships are investments in an inclusive future where scholars are free to pursue rigorous, unflinching humanistic research.”

At the top of the page: Civil 29th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, U.S. Colored Troops, in formation near Beaufort, S.C., where Cooley lived and worked. It was Connecticut’s first African American regiment. Library of Congress Above: Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders received her B.A. from Wake Forest University, her M.A. from Columbia University and her Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

Formed in 1919, ACLS is a nonprofit federation of 70 scholarly organizations and serves as the preeminent representative of American scholarships in the humanities and related social sciences. The ACLS Fellowship program is funded in part by contributions from the Mellon Foundation, the Arcadia Charitable Trust and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For 2023, ACLS has set aside $3.8 million in research support for the fellows, with fellowships ranging from $30,000 to $60,000 to support the scholars during six to 12 months of sustained research and writing. Awardees who do not hold tenure-track faculty appointments—accounting for half of the 2023 cohort—also receive an additional $7,500 stipend for research or other personal costs incurred during their award term.

“I was very surprised and very happy to learn I was selected,” Lawrence-Sanders said of winning the fellowship. “For humanities scholars, it’s one of the more prestigious fellowships you can receive and there are only 60 people selected from the whole country. It was a good feeling.”

Lawrence-Sanders said the fellowship will allow her to take leave during the next academic year to take some research trips and spend time finishing her manuscript, which is an expansion of her PhD dissertation on African American memory of the Civil War.

Lawrence-Sanders recently fielded five questions about her fellowship, her book project, her love of history, why she believes studying history is so important, and a bit about what she says is the best thing about being a professor on the CU �鶹ӰԺ campus.

Question: The ACLS fellowship will allow you to work toward completing your book on African America memory of the Civil War. What prompted you to pursue that topic?

Lawrence-Sanders: What really prompted me—even before I went into graduate school—was that I really loved history. Part of it is a personal story. I’m from South Carolina originally, where the Civil War started, where the first shot was fired, etc.

But it’s also a place where there’s a lot of Black Civil War memory. It’s a place where the 54th Massachusetts Regiment fought at Fort Wagner, as memorialized in the film Glory. This is a place where Harriet Tubman came to Beaufort, S.C., and led the Combahee River Raid with Union troops and helped free hundreds of enslaved people. There’s a lot of rich black Civil War history and memory that’s really deep in the state … but growing up you didn’t see that. Instead, you saw the Confederate battle flag and Confederate monuments.

I was really interested in the ways that African Americans have maintained—even in the face of a very powerful Lost Cause movement—utilized their own forms of memory themselves.

I really wanted to write a book that focused solely on Black memory of the war, and to think about the uses of it: how it’s been used as an instrument, how it’s functioned, how it’s been political, etc., throughout time.

When I wrote my dissertation in graduate school, it only went up to 1965. That was mostly a practical matter, because I just wanted to finish my dissertation (laughs). But, in complimentary comments my (dissertation) committee insisted that when I wrote the book, I would have to extend it past 1965, which was always was my intent.

Now I can write up to the near present, which has been a very fascinating time, because when I was in graduate school the Emanuel Church massacre (of nine black parishioners by a white supremacist) happened … and after that the Confederate flag came down in South Carolina and Confederate monuments started coming down.

So, now a whole new era history is happening while I finished my dissertation and now book. I realized there could be more written about Black memory of the war, and that there was a space for me to write about it.

Question: Did you always want to be a history professor?

Lawrence-Sanders: When I was young, I loved history. I grew up around a lot of Black history in my life. … I was even a Black history quiz bowl champion with my cousins for two years in a row; I still have the high school newspaper pictures to prove it (laughs). I was really interested in history, but I never felt really connected to the history that I learned in the classroom. It was a different time, and it was in South Carolina, but it never quite matched the robust Black history I received from my family and community.

I was not a history major in undergrad. At college, the classes that really stuck with me were my political science and international studies classes, because I loved political theory and political science. So, that’s what I majored in in college.

After, I got my master’s in human rights studies at Columbia. In that program, I again got really interested in Black history because I read a book in one of my classes, Carol Anderson’s Eyes Off the Prize, which was about the Black fight to get human rights before the United Nations in the early years of the United Nations’ existence. In the end, after working for several years, I decided to apply to history PhD programs having only taken one undergraduate history class. I always tell my history major students that they have taken more undergrad history classes than I have (laughs). So, I did not take a traditional path to a PhD in history and I never thought I would be a professor.

Question: If a group of first-year students asked you why it's important to study history—and the history of the Civil War in particular—what would you say?

Lawrence-Sanders: I always say, ‘Because you want know how we got here.’ … Anything you want to know about what’s happening now—the answer is history. That’s the broad answer about why history is important.

The other thing I say, specifically about the Civil War, is this is one of the United States’ young nation moments. It (the Civil War) wasn’t necessarily inevitable, but it was fought because the founding fathers continued to kick the issue of slavery down the road.

It’s important to understand why this nation, in this tragic moment in U.S. history, must grapple with its failures. It must solve the problem that’s existed since its founding, which is the American paradox articulated by the historian Edmund Morgan—that it’s a nation founded on the concept of “freedom” while enslaving at that its founding hundreds of thousands of Black people."

It could have been solved definitively when the nation was founded; Instead, there is a buildup over the first half of the 19^th century—the compromises, all of the laws dictating slavery’s expansion as the nation expands Westward, and everything around the issue of slavery just kept getting more and more violent (including in the halls of Congress itself).

It’s important to understand why this nation, in this tragic moment in U.S. history, must grapple with its failures. It must solve the problem that’s existed since its founding, which is the American paradox articulated by the historian Edmund Morgan—that it’s a nation founded on the concept of “freedom” while enslaving at that its founding hundreds of thousands of Black people.

It’s an important time in U.S. history. It’s one of the most important times; this is a crucial moment where again the U.S. decides what kind of country it’s going to be. After the Civil War, the U.S. emerges as a changed nation, 4 million people are now free and are now citizens … but it does not solve the fundamental issue of what to do with these now ‘free’ people, which for Black Americans sets the tone for what happens in the next hundred-plus years, and what kind of country it wants to be with people who are not fully free. So, I always tell my students that the Civil War is important to understand on its own as a military and political conflict but also for what it reveals also about the country before and after the War.

Question: What’s the best thing about being a professor at CU �鶹ӰԺ?

Lawrence-Sanders: I’ve had great experiences with my students. This is my fourth semester teaching here and every semester I’ve had great classes of students and I keep in contact with some of them, which has been very nice.

Students often tell me at the end of my class how much they’ve appreciated learning the things that they weren’t able to learn in high school. I love hearing that. I’m excited to teach them things they don’t know or expand on their knowledge. …

I think some students fear taking history and they shouldn’t. I’ve had students take my class and are worried that they don’t know anything about African American history, or they don’t have a history background. Some are worried about taking an upper-level course in history. I always tell students the first week that I do not expect any level of expertise in my courses; I just expect students to come in ready to be engaged learners.

The other thing I like about CU is being in a great department around so many faculty who model how to be both great teachers and r researchers. There are several people in the department who have won this fellowship before and many other prestigious fellowships as well. We have a collegial atmosphere, too, that I think is really conducive to producing great scholarship.

And it is just gorgeous on campus.

Question: Is there anything else you would want to let people know about your upcoming book?

Lawrence-Sanders: Only that I hope that it becomes a book that helps people understand why the Civil War is such an enduring part of Black Americans’ lives.

I think that we do understand quite a bit of why it’s so enduring in white Southerners’ lives, but I think we don’t quite get as much into why, for Black Americans, there’s elements of the Civil War that have endured, because it’s not as well highlighted in mainstream culture or history the way it should be.

The history I write is both a narrative of the ways Black memory has been used as a political instrument throughout Black freedom struggles as well and how important it was for various groups of Black people over time to assert what they would claim was “Black Civil War memory.” But while doing so, they have an additional burden many memory workers do not have, they also must counter the Lost Cause (or white Southerners’ dominant memory).

By the time we get to the 2020s, Confederate monuments are coming down rapidly, but it’s not a spontaneous thing. It’s the result of a very long history of Black counter-memory of the war manifesting in the public sphere. I hope my book can explain, at least partly, how we got to that moment.

Scholar to use award to finish book project on how African Americans have retained Black Civil War memories.

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How a Stanford student prompted CU to challenge discrimination

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 17:58:28 +0000

How a Stanford student prompted CU to challenge discrimination Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/25/2022 - 10:58

Denver resident Ken Washington joined Stanford’s chapter of Sigma Chi, igniting controversy and a legal challenge at the University of Colorado

In April 1965, the Stanford University chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity invited Ken Washington to become a member. This flouted the fraternity’s longstanding whites-only policy, and the fallout reverberated across the nation, generating a controversy and legal challenge in �鶹ӰԺ, Colorado.

Just after Washington pledged to join the Stanford Sigma Chi chapter, the national fraternity cut ties with the inclusive chapter. Underscoring how seriously the national chapter took the event, the national president told The New York Times that no Black man would ever become a member of Sigma Chi.

At the top of the page: Ken Washington at an antiwar protest on campus. (Photo credit: Chuck Painter / Stanford News Service) Above: Stanford Magazine features Ken Washington on the cover. (Credit: Stanford News Service)

As it happened, Ken Washington grew up in Denver, and his case made headlines in Colorado. Also as it happened, the University of Colorado had—nine years earlier—required that all fraternities practicing racial and religious discrimination be placed on probation.

The incident in Stanford caught the attention of CU’s Board of Regents, which demanded proof that the local Sigma Chi chapter was truly against discrimination.

The 1956 decree, passed after a contentious series of meetings at CU, mandated that all fraternities here officially certify that they were not practicing discrimination. The regents’ policy gave fraternities until 1962 to comply.

As a group of historians later observed, the 1956 decree was “reasonable and workable,” and student organizations has more than six years to eliminate discriminatory policies.

The 1965 incident at Stanford, however, was clear evidence that at least one fraternity was intransigent. The regents swiftly summoned the �鶹ӰԺ chapter of Sigma Chi (called Beta Mu), to verify its commitment to equal access.

The �鶹ӰԺ fraternity appeared at a university hearing but remained silent, refusing to explain or elaborate on their policies. Given the national fraternity’s clear policy of racial discrimination, the regents concluded that Beta Mu was compelled to discriminate and placed Beta Mu on probation.

The fraternity sued the regents, arguing that the university had violated Beta Mu’s constitutional right to “freedom of association.” Further, the fraternity argued that Colorado advanced no significant state interest by regulating its membership policies.

A three-judge district court rejected Beta Mu’s claims, stating: “It is clear from an examination of these cases that the right of association is not, as plaintiffs have contended, an absolute right but is always subject to evaluation in relation to the interest which the state seeks to advance.”

Further, the court said, the state of Colorado had a genuine interest in regulating fraternal memberships, noting that the regents legitimately aimed to “eliminate from the charters and rituals of the organizations affected a provision which compels discrimination on the basis of race, color or creed.”

At the center of the storm was Washington, the Stanford student, whom one journalist characterized as having a “cool, relaxed manner (that) covers a tautness.” Speaking to the Stanford Magazine in 2014, Washington recalled childhood fisticuffs that followed his being called the N-word.

no sane person enjoys being rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with your achievements and capabilities in life. That's what racism does. It questions your humanity, your basic humanity.”

“If they’re going to call you that name, they need to know where it stops,” he said.

Five decades after the episode, Washington told Stanford Magazine, “no sane person enjoys being rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with your achievements and capabilities in life. That's what racism does. It questions your humanity, your basic humanity.”

Racially integrating fraternities was not a “burning issue” for him, he said then. “But it was also something I knew was important to follow through with and to be a part of, because it was just one more avenue of divesting racism in the country.”

Sources: Glory Colorado, a History of the University of Colorado, 1858-1963; Our Own Generation: The Tumultuous Years, University of Colorado 1963-1976; The University of Colorado, 1876-1976; Sigma Chi Fraternity v. Regents of University (1966); “’Freedom of Association’s’ Inapplicability to Greek-letter Fraternities,” North Carolina Law Review, 1967. “What They Stood For,” Stanford Magazine, 2014.

Denver resident Ken Washington joined Stanford’s chapter of Sigma Chi, igniting controversy and a legal challenge at the University of Colorado.

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First CU �鶹ӰԺ Black professor, librarian paved way for others

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 22:52:15 +0000

First CU �鶹ӰԺ Black professor, librarian paved way for others Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/16/2022 - 15:52

Black history snapshot: Racial bias hindered Charles and Mildred Nilon’s search for a home to buy, but they strove to make the university more inclusive and welcoming to those who came after

Charles Nilon joined the �鶹ӰԺ faculty in 1956 as a professor of English. He was the first Black member of the faculty, and his arrival came two years after the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, desegregated public schools.

However, segregation and discrimination were alive and well in �鶹ӰԺ’s real-estate market. Realtors would not show Nilon and his wife, Mildred, property in some parts of town, and some individuals refused to sell to him.

Harl Douglass, then director of the CU �鶹ӰԺ School of Education, offered to sell the Nilons his home, but that plan was thwarted by a realtor who sought to buy the Douglass home so that it might be sold to a “proper” person.

At the top of the page: Nilon addressing students in 1963 about civil rights. Photos courtesy of CU archives. Above: Charles and Mildred Nilon.

Ultimately, the Nilons were able to buy a home near 20th and Spruce Streets in �鶹ӰԺ, not far from the area of town where racial minorities had historically been allowed to live.

Despite all of this, Nilon later recalled, most �鶹ӰԺites were friendly and helpful. A local hardware store extended him credit even though he was new in town.

“People were basically open and honest,” he said, but he was keenly aware that he and Mildred were among the very few Black people in �鶹ӰԺ. In the 1950s, he recalled teaching one or two Black students during his first year here. Later, he recalled seeing some female and graduate students who were Black.

In 1962, the university hired Mildred, who was CU’s first Black librarian. In the late 1960s, Nilon launched and became chair of the university’s Black Studies Program, when, at a time, he estimated there were about 100 Black students on campus. (Much later, the Black Studies Program became part of the university’s Department of Ethnic Studies.)

Tom Windham, one of those few Black students, recalls meeting Mildred Nilon in 1969, when she stopped him in the stacks of Norlin Library to ask about him—where he was from, what he studies, what were his goals.

Windham, who earned his PhD in psychology in 1975, said the Nilons went out of their way to help students.

“The Nilons had a way of connecting with students,” said Windham. “When they saw you, they really saw you. They wanted you to know that just by being who you are, you deserved respect and opportunity.”

The Nilons were active on and off campus in the United Black Action Committee, the United Black Women of �鶹ӰԺ Valley, Housing for Everyone through Local Programs, the Town and Country YWCA Board, the Mental Health Board and Historic �鶹ӰԺ. And they helped to desegregate �鶹ӰԺ housing.

As the Nilons worked to diversify the campus, their efforts generated mixed reactions from the administration. But when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, then-President Joseph Smiley called for a campuswide memorial to King. Smiley also allocated $180,000 for a summer program to help introduce prospective students, most of whom were non-white, to the joys and rigors of college.

Nilon passed away 1991, and Mildred passed away in 2017. Their legacy lives on through an education scholarship created in their honor, the Charles and Mildred Nilon Endowed Teacher Education Scholarship. The fund supports CU �鶹ӰԺ students who are pursuing teacher licensure and who are committed to advancing educational opportunities in under-resourced schools, especially those serving African American communities.

Sources: Our Own Generation: The Tumultuous Years, University of Colorado 1963-1976, CU �鶹ӰԺ School of Education, and �鶹ӰԺ Daily Camera.

Black history snapshot: Racial bias hindered Charles and Mildred Nilon’s search for a home to buy, but they strove to make the university more inclusive and welcoming to those who came after

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On the playing field, CU’s opponent was racism

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 22:17:28 +0000

On the playing field, CU’s opponent was racism Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/10/2022 - 15:17

A Black history snapshot: student legislators and university leaders fought against ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to bar Black players

In 1946, the student government at the �鶹ӰԺ began a crusade against racial discrimination.

Unanimously, the student legislators declared that any group discriminating against “any race, color or religion” should be barred from using university buildings for meetings, refused news coverage in the student newspaper and “not be recognized in any manner” by student government.

After CU �鶹ӰԺ joined the Big Seven Conference in 1947, student groups at a meeting of the conference universities passed a resolution condemning discrimination against Black student-athletes and, as the CU �鶹ӰԺ student newspaper editorialized, against a “gentlemen’s agreement behind the scenes” that prevented Black athletes from playing on teams in the conference.

At the top of the page: Gil Cruter clearing a high jump (CU Athletics). Above: From left to right: CU star athletes in the 1930s, Gil Cruter, Byron R. Whizzer White and Claude Walton pose at the 1999 Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame ceremonies, when Cruter was inducted.

“Robert L. Stearns (then the university president) doesn’t like that rule,” wrote the paper, then called the Silver and Gold. “Neither do a lot of other persons who believe that the athletic field is one of the last places in which to discriminate against a man because of the color of his skin.”

The editorial concluded: “If we are to have a university worthy of the name, it means that when a hand is extended for a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’—a white gentlemen’s agreement—we say, ‘No thanks. We’re not having any.’ And mean it. We don’t want any.”

None of the other Big Seven universities formally challenged CU �鶹ӰԺ’s Black players, but Missouri and Oklahoma had rules that would have allowed them to challenge players on visiting teams.

In 1949, Stearns noted that the players were both athletes and scholars: “Men like Gil Cruter and Dave Bolen have made a real contribution to this university. We are exerting every effort to make it possible for others of their race to represent Colorado wherever we may play.”

Amen, said the Silver and Gold, writing that the battle against racial discrimination was central to the CU’s educational mission: “There is no more appropriate place to carry on education against bigotry than a state university.”

Stearns was right about Cruter and Bolen.

In 1936, Cruter became a two-time world high-jump record-holder. A Denver native, Cruter was CU's second African American athlete and an alternate on 1936 Olympic team. He was a two-time NCAA Champion in the high jump.

He weathered discrimination while competing for CU. He once said: “When (coach) Frank Potts would take us to the Kansas Relays, the team would stay at a hotel while I was placed with a private family, because blacks were not allowed to stay in the hotels.”

Ambassador David Bolen (right), Leipzig, Germany, March 12, 1978 (Hubert Link, Courtesy German Federal Archives).

Cruter, who earned a degree in physical education and a minor in science from CU �鶹ӰԺ in 1939, was the first African American teacher and, later, administrator, in the Denver Public School system.

Cruter became one of the first international ambassadors of all sports working for the U.S. State Department, where he worked as a diplomat in Africa. In 1961, he accepted a position with the United States Agency for International Development as the cultural affairs attaché in Monrovia, Liberia and as Public Affairs Console in Nigeria.

Bolen, who served in the Army Air Force in World War II, came to CU �鶹ӰԺ at the invitation of coach Potts. Bolen also faced discrimination during his time here: He was not allowed to live in the men’s dormitories, so stayed with a woman who worked in a sorority house and fed him the sorority’s leftovers.

Also in �鶹ӰԺ, he once had to drive 30 miles to find a barber who would cut his hair.

Bolen, who earned his MBA at CU in 1950, was the university’s first Olympian. He competed in the 1948 Olympics in London, taking fourth in the 400-meter run. In 1949, he won the 600-meter run at the National AAU Championships.

In 1974, President Nixon appointed Bolen to be ambassador to Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. In 1977, President Carter named Bolen ambassador to East Germany, making him the first Black ambassador to a country behind the “Iron Curtain.”

Bolen won the Alumnus of the Century Award from CU �鶹ӰԺ in 1977, the Norlin Distinguished Alumni Award for professional achievements in 1969 and the Department of State Superior Service Award in 1973. He also established a scholarship in his name.

As Bolen once said, “I never liked the fact that athletes were considered to be dumbbells.”

Sources: Glory Colorado, a History of the University of Colorado, 1858-1963, The Coloradan, CU Buffs.com and Allbuffs.com.

A Black history snapshot: student legislators and university leaders fought against ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to bar Black players

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