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BLACK PIONEERS OF COLORADO
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Black pioneers of Colorado helped build state
Joseph H.P. Westbrook was a light-skinned black man who could pass for white. And he did. Westbrook infiltrated the Denver Ku Klux Klan in the early 1900s and alerted blacks to the groups plans. Westbrook also was a physician, drugstore owner, a civic leader 6and a delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated Calvin Coolidge for president. Despite his many accomplishments, you wont find Westbrook in many Colorado history books. "There is a hole in our historical connections of the whole community," said Terry Nelson, volunteer services manager for the Denver Public Library. "We have tons of researchers coming to the library asking for information about African-Americans in the West. We have little information." After the Civil War, black people from the South headed west to escape oppression and racism -- and to look for gold, as many did. Pioneering blacks were trappers, miners, cattle rustlers, millionaires, fugitives, laborers, doctors and visionaries. By 1890, about 6,000 blacks were in Colorado, including 5,000 who owned property, according to the U.S. Census. Because few comprehensive records exist, the history of blacks in Colorado must be woven from the stories of their elders. Here are some of the men and women whose pioneering spirit and courage helped build Colorado: Westbrook, a physician, was born in 1874 in Hernando, Miss. He graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1900 and came to Denver in 1907 to open a practice. He opened the Allen Drug Store in 1909. Westbrook served as assistant city physician, was a member of the Denver General Hospital for 17 years and served with the Interracial Commission and the Denver Chamber of Commerce. Westbrook also was responsible for naming the black community of Dearfield, which he said blacks should hold dear. He died in 1939.
Hattie McDaniel was the first black to win an Academy Award. She was named best supporting actress for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone With The Wind in 1939. Born in Wichita, Kan., in 1895, she attended elementary school and East High School in Denver. McDaniel made her show-business debut in 1915, singing on radio with Professor George Morrisons orchestra. It was said that she was the first black American woman to sing on radio. She moved to Hollywood in 1931 and worked as a maid until she started getting movie roles. Her first movie was The Golden West in 1932. In many of her earlier movies, she was limited to playing maids. She said of her critics, "It s better to play a maid than to be one." McDaniel appeared in more than 300 films, including The Little Colonel, Alice Adams, Saratoga, Babbitt and Showboat. She also played the title role in the Beulah radio series in the late 1 940s. She died in Los Angeles of cancer in 1952 at age 57.
Dr. Clarence F. Holmes was a Denver dentist, civic leader and civil rights activist. He ran a dental practice for 56 years in Denvers Five Points neighborhood. Born in Denver on May 21, 1892, Holmes was a graduate of Manual High School in 1913 and received his bachelor of science degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1917 and his doctorate from the Howard School of Dentistry in 1920. He was active in many civic groups and served on the Denver Commission on Human Relations, the Citizens Budget Committee and the Citizens Health and Housing Commissison. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Denver City Council in 1955. In 1915 he helped found the Denver branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Holmes died in a Denver nursing home in 1978 at age 85.
Oliver T. Jackson founded Dearfield, 25 miles southeast of Greeley off U.S. 34, in 1910. He had farmed near Boulder, owned a catering business in Denver and worked in the governors office. Jackson was encouraged by Westbrook to start the black farming community. By the mid-1930s, plagued by drought and the Depression, the community dwindled to a ghost town. Jackson, who was born in 1862, died there in 1948.
Mary Randolph was the first black person to build a brick house in Denver. The address is unkonwn. Randolph was born in New York in 1826 and headed for Georgetown in 1858. Because she wasnt allowed to ride inside the stagecoach, she rode on top. At one point, she was put off on the Plains near Fort Riley, Kan. She kept coyotes away by snapping her umbrella at them. She was rescued by another stagecoach the next day. Randolph died in July 1901.
Thomas Campbell came to Colorado in 1876 and settled in Georgetown. He lived there for 30 years and was one of the towns most respected citizens. He served 12 years as town clerk and one year as police magistrate and was elected as a member of the Board of Selectmen from the 1st Ward. Campbell was born June 11, 1830, and died in 1907.
Will Kennard, a black cowboy, headed to the hills in search of gold. In 1874, he became marshal of the Colorado mining town of Yankee Hill, about 25 miles west of Denver between Central City and Georgetown. In three years on the job, he kept the relative peace of the time and retired alive, a major accomplishment then. Not much is known about Kennard except that he served as a sergeant in the 9th Negro Cavalry after the Civil War. He remained in Yankee Hill for three years. When the gold rush reached its peak and Georgetown and Central City were fizzling, Kennard quit. He turned up in Denver in 1884 as a private guard for Barney Ford. Where Kennard went after that remains a mystery, as does the date of his death.
Jeremiah Lee, a former slave of Gen. Robert E. Lee, financed the construction in 1877 in Central City of a mansion called Lee House. Lee had found gold on Yankee Hill in the early 1870s. Lee rented the house to banker Thomas Hale Porter and his wife, Mary Ellen. Porter paid Lee $100 a month in rent until Lee recovered his investment. The home became a meeting place for the towns wealthy and for parties and concerts. After Porters death, his wife moved into an apartment in Denver and, Lee, who lived in a small house in the rear of the mansion, moved his family into it. They se t aside part of the house as a rooming house and a restaurant. Lee was born in Virginia in 1830. He died at age 74 and was buried in Denvers Riverside Cemetery.
By 1880, John Gunnell became the states first black legislator. Gunnell was a former slave who owned the land where Currigan Hall and the Denver Auditorium now stand. He served one term in the legislature, 1880-82. Born a slave in 1834 in Fairfax County, Va., his mother bought his freedom for $1,400. He accumulated considerable property, was a member of Arapahoe Lodge No. 2936 and was a church leader. Gunnell died in June 1902.
Lucille Buchanan Jones was the first black woman to graduate from the University of Colorado. Born in Denver on June 13, 1884, she graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in the spring of 1918. She died Nov. 10, 1989, in the Stovall Care Center at age 105. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Denvers Fairmount Cemetery.
On a more recent note Willie Smokey Lornes, one of the most famous black cowboys in Colorado and the founder of the states black rodeo, died June 6th, 2001 in Northglenn. He was 82. Mr. Lornes was born in Dexter, Texas, in 1918. He moved to Denver in the 1930s when, as he told his grandchildren, "Colfax was a dirt Street." A professional rider since the age of 13, Mr. Lornes told writers Paul Stewart and Wallace Yvonne Ponce he started the black rodeo to "help colored boys get a start and prove that the white people werent the only ones to be able to successfully put on a show." Their Book, Black Cowboys , featured Mr. Lornes as one of the great black rodeo riders of the time. "He said there was a lot prejudice back then," said Carla Ann Lornes,
Mr. Lornes grand-daughter. "If you did ride, he said the judges would turn their heads and not watch." Mr. Lornes was survived by his wife, Ella May Hoffman, 21 children, 52 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren. |
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