Anti-Racism Resources

This collection has oral history interviews with 9 local residents from a Black Studies 499 class. This is a primary resourse that could have interesting perspectives on race in the Denver/Boulder area. Tapes will need to be digitized before they can be accessed and the extent of what is on them is available.

Black students attended the University of Colorado well before 1900, and were represented on campus by the multi-racial and international Cosmopolitan Club in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In 1965, at the height of Civil Rights movement in the United States, several student groups on campus splintered off and became more politicized. The Black Student Alliance, established in 1969, was created to support African Americans' social, political and educational goals at the University. The collection consists of intermittent BSA publications, activity fliers, social and financial data gathered by the CU Archives and donated by individual BSA officers.

Charles Cambridge received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder, is a Native American, and a life-long activist on behalf of Native American Affairs. This collection contains files on Native American activism, education, health and welfare, AIDS/HIV virus and spirituality as well as other issues. Papers relate to the 1970’s and 1980’s.

The Colorado town of Center was founded early in the 1900s as an "Anglo town" focused on farming for profit. Shortly thereafter mejicanos, villagers from northern New Mexico, came to the town willing to work to sustain their families. Native-born U.S. citizens, yet consistently denied the full rights of U.S. citizenship, their roots went back more than ten generations in the geographic area. The collection documents the organization’s Latinx community activism, ballot box measures, and legal action on issues of voting rights, land rights, and discrimination.

The Colorado Council of Churches was founded in 1926. While Christian education has always been the center of the Councils' endeavors, they have also been active in social concerns.

The Colorado Council on Migrant and Seasonal Workers and Families was formed in 1966 as a result of a CU symposium concerning the problems of migrant and seasonal workers. The Council had non-profit status and was supported by the University of Colorado and grant monies. Its goals were to provide educational assistance to migrant and seasonal workers and their families as well as to improve the environmental situation through improving housing, sanitation, health and nutrition. In later years, the Council was rent by clashes between academic and Chicano factions over control of the Council's programs. The collection includes organizational papers, correspondence, financial data, legal material, reports, minutes, and publications.

The Cosmopolitan Club is one of the oldest student clubs still in operation. Organized in 1922, the Club was intended to be a social welcoming organization for international students in the face of a rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment. By the late 1930s the Cosmo Club had developed into the only international and consciously multi-ethnic organization on campus, heavily influencing the early CU civil rights efforts (1938-1945). After WWII a proliferation of academic and student international and ethnic clubs severely quieted the Cosmo Club’s influence. 1960s and 1970s activism was reflected in the Cosmo Clubs name change to the Foreign Student Alliance. The Club has since returned to its less political roots since 1981. The collection consists of Club records, minutes, correspondence, and activity files.

Edward P. Costigan was an advocate of civic reform and progressive politics.

Ward Darley, Jr. (1903-1979), graduated from the University of Colorado Medical School in 1929, and was Dean of the Medical School (1945-1953), and president of the University of Colorado (1953-1956). The collection contains information on his term as president at CU, as well as on Darley’s life and work. When Darley became president, he continued the efforts of his predecessor to desegregate campus organizations, especially the major fight to desegregate fraternity and sororities between 1953-1956.

El Diario de la Gente is an independent Chicano student newspaper that was published bi-weekly by the United Mexican American Students (UMAS) at the University of Colorado from 1972-1980. The publication covered issues and concerns of the Chicano/a community both on campus and throughout Colorado. The collection also includes one special edition of the newspaper that was published in September 2019 in honor of the unveiling of the Los Seis de Boulder commemorative sculpture on campus on 2019; Majority of material found within 1972 - 1980

C. C. Eckhardt (1878-1946) joined the University of Colorado history faculty in 1911 as a specialist in modern European history. He chaired the Faculty Senate Ethnic and Racial Minorities Committee during the late 1930s, which investigated racism and bias at the University of Colorado. The papers reflect his interests in Colorado church history and European history and include correspondence and lecture notes, as well as material on a wide range of political and social problems.

Donald Irish, civil rights activist at CU during 1941-2, wrote his MA thesis in Sociology on the reception of Japanese Americans in Boulder during WWII. Materials refer to other ethnic groups including Japanese Americans and the Boulder community's perception of them.

In 1969, two Denver attorneys, Craig S. Barnes and Gordon G. Griener, filed a class action lawsuit against the Denver School Board, technically Colorado School District #1, as a means to require racial integration of the Denver Public Schools. The attorneys represented Wilfred Keyes and seven additional families residing in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood who sought equal educational opportunity for their school age children. The Keyes case records include historical data on residential segregation in Denver and trial proceedings including hearings on the award of fees attorneys for the plaintiffs. Files include a large news clipping collection, a complete file of pleadings, and court transcripts, 1969-1983. The Second Accession contains further information files, defendant’s and plaintiff’s exhibits, hearing transcripts, including materials dating from 1983-1986.

Professor Maria Montoya assigned an oral history project to her graduate history class. The class interviewed twelve Chicanos/Chicanas on topics of Chicano history, generational issues, identity, community and academic experiences. The collection consists of 11 cassette recordings and 12 transcripts.

The Terry Marshall Papers contains documents related to his professional work in the Saguache County Community Council, as well as his professional writing, including both articles and his fictional novel, Soda Spring. Terry Marshall is an author, activist and motivational speaker living in Colorado. He attained his undergraduate degree in Journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder and went on to write for small newspapers in southern Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. He attained his Master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his Ph.D. from Cornell University, both in Rural Sociology. Among those accomplishments, Marshall and his wife were active as Peace Corps volunteers, living for two years in the Philippines, where they ran a Head Start program for Chicanos. Since then, Marshall has published his first fictional book, Soda Springs, in 2011, which focuses on Mexican-American civil rights in rural Colorado.

Charles Nilon was Professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder for three decades. He initiated the Black Studies Program in the late 1960s and served on numerous committees and advisory panels in addition to his departmental teaching and advising responsibilities. He retired in 1984. The collection includes materials related to his service on university committees.

These papers concern the personal life and academic career of George Norlin (1871-1942). Norlin was appointed president of the University of Colorado in 1919. He was an effective political activist: augmenting the University's financial backing, working against racial discrimination and warning of the threats of Naziism.

Robert L. Stearns (1892-1977) served as president of the University of Colorado from 1939 to 1953. An alumnus of the University of Colorado, he began his academic career at the University of Denver and later was named Dean of the University of Colorado Law School. In 1953, Dr. Stearns became president of the Boettcher Foundation in Denver. In 1938-39, he was a member of the Faculty Senate Ethnic and Racial Minorities Committee which investigated on and off campus discrimination and helped write the 1939 report on conditions both on and off campus. As CU president, he put the weight of the president behind the faculty and student efforts to end ethnic and racial discrimination at CU and in Boulder from 1939-1953.

Omer Stewart taught anthropology from 1945-1975 at the University of Colorado, specializing in American Indian culture. The Stewart archives holds material on the land claims of the Chippewa, Potawatomie, Ottawa, and Sioux tribes of the Great Lakes Region resulting from the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946. In addition the collection contains: record books, correspondence, maps and other material on Native Americans in southern Colorado; materials relating to his interest in racial equality; his research on Native American use of Peyote; papers on the American Indian Church; his research materials relating to the Tri-Ethnic Study (restricted); plus interview audio tapes made in 1983. He had a career-long interest in civil rights, was a member of the Faculty Senate Ethnic and Racial Minorities Committee after 1946 and conducted Boulder County racial and ethnic studies.

Papers contain the files, reports, correspondence, speeches, memoranda, and policies of the Chancellor's Office, University of Colorado at Boulder from 1969-1986. The 1974-1989 papers reflects the attention given to affirmative action and minority affairs, CCHE, Program Review, faculty salaries, capital construction and campus development.

The Faculty Council Collection contains papers from the Executive Committee, Chair’s records, secretary’s records, agendas and minutes, correspondence, and alphabetical files. The Faculty Council was formed in 1967 as a result of a growing campus, a greatly enlarged number of faculty and lack of participation in the Faculty Senate. The questions facing faculty governance had grown in complexity and did not match the cumbersome structure of the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Council worked with the students and gave more power to the faculty over university governance. In 1974, when the University of Colorado split into four campuses, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, and the Health Sciences Center, the Faculty Council was dominated by the Boulder campus. The Colorado Springs, Denver, and Health Sciences Center all formed their own faculty assemblies. In 1976, the Faculty Council formed the Boulder Faculty Assembly, which assumed many of the duties previously performed by the Council.

The University of Colorado Faculty Senate Collection was donated by Professor Albert Bartlett of the University Senate and consists of Executive Committee minutes, Faculty Senate minutes, correspondence, memorandums, newspaper clippings, committee papers, and Faculty Senate decisions, from 1908 to 1985. The collection also contains papers from individual Faculty Senate committees, such as, the Academic Planning Committee, Budget Committee, Convocation Committee, Minority Affairs Committee, Personnel Committee, and the Student Affairs Committee.

This collection consists of slides, photographs, log books, reports, notes and newspaper clippings documenting the campus police department. It includes reference to Chicano activism, African American activism, student activism, anti war protests, campus fires among other incidents such as burglaries, assaults, and safety issues. Photographs also document police officers and sergeants at work.

Collection contains the topical files and correspondence of the office of the President of the University of Colorado. Subjects include World War I, World War II, McCarthyism, the anti-Vietnam War student movement, minority rights (1938-1974, particularly) , gender equity, and the anti-apartheid movement. Provides a detailed and voluminous institutional record of the racial and ethnic climate at CU and Boulder, the university’s response to discrimination and racism, highlights the names and activities of campus activists, and documents the grievances, response plans, and institutions created with regard to discrimination and integration on campus. Access requires permission from the President's Office.Collection is restricted. Applications must be sent to the President’s Office.

Papers of the University of Colorado Central Administration, Vice President of Student Affairs. Includes substantial consolidated papers (1947-1962) of the offices of Dean of Men, Dean of Women, Dean of Students, Student Activities, Student Affairs, all of which had been consolidated under V.P. for Student Affairs and its successors from 1963 to 1974. After 1974, student affairs became a function of the various chancellors' offices. The papers include an alphabetical subject file with substantial papers on campus publications, disciplinary policies, student protest, and housing; an organizational file with campus clubs, groups, honoraries, societies, and political associations; and a Greek file on fraternities and sororities. The papers of the World War I Student Army Training Corps (1918-1919) were saved within these papers. Also included are files on the activities of the C.U. chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a student group which protested C.I.A recruitment, the Vietnam War, racism and R.O.T.C. on the C.U. Campus from 1967 to 1970. Access by President’s Office permission only.

Ernesto B. Vigil (1948-), a Chicano Movement activist and educator in Denver, is a historian of the Chicano Movement in Colorado. His collection consist of Chicano newsletters, newspapers, books, articles and essays related to his research on Chicano experience, specifically in Denver, Colorado.

Euvaldo Valdez was a key player in two Latino organizations in Boulder County: Mexican Americans of Boulder County United (MACBU), which played an important part from 1972 until at least the late 1980s; and the local chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which flourished in Boulder beginning around 1973.