“here could lie a potentially great city!” memo to industries- denver business and industrial...
TRANSCRIPT
“Here could lie a potentially great city!” Memo to Industries- Denver Business and Industrial Community From Denver Chamber of Commerce (undated)
Anti-Defamation League Collection, University of Denver Archives Box 17, FF 9
The “Keyes” toUnderstanding Our Modern Post-Racial,
Multi-Racial Moment
1. Denver and its battle for equality of educational opportunity as representative of Color(blindness) in the metropolitan United States.
2. The Rise of the State Managed Color(blind) Metropolis
How I Rode the Bus to Become a Professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law:
Reflections on Keyes’s Legacy for the Post-Racial, Multiracial, and
Metropolitan Twenty-first Century
I. DENVER AS REPRESENTATIVE OF COLOR(BLINDNESS) IN THE
METROPOLITAN UNITED STATES
“Here could lie a potentially great city!” Memo to Industries- Denver Business and Industrial Community From Denver Chamber of Commerce (undated)
Anti-Defamation League Collection, University of Denver Archives Box 17, FF 9
Denver is a beautiful city, the only one of its kind in the United States. It does not have the slums, and disintegration has not gone so far as many older industrial cities . . . she has everything, wealth, culture, public spirited citizens who have left splendid memorials to their love of Denver. There is climate, close proximity to the mountains, winter sports, in fact, everything to be desired.
-Minutes of the Denver Planning Commission, February 16, 1942 Denver Planning Commission Collection, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library
Sitting pretty at 5,280 feet in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains . . . Long a celebrated outdoor recreation mecca, Denver’s cultural attractions and easy urban lifestyle have taken center stage, with old brick industrial buildings sprouting stylish lofts, restaurants, shops and nightclubs. Now, with the world’s second-largest performing arts center and Daniel Libeskind’s addition to the Denver Art Museum, the Mile High City continues to ascend in stature among American cities.
-www.denver.com (last accessed Jan. 2013)
Chicago is an industrial center. Such is not the case in Denver, and this calls for a higher class of citizens. You are fortunate not to have strong backs and weak minds.”
-Colonel Kellog, Chicago Planning Commission Minutes of the Denver Planning Commission, January 9, 1939.
A location as dynamic as its people.It’s easy to attract highly skilled workers and expand your operations in Metro Denver . . .The area is a magnet for young, diverse, and well-educated workers. .. And Colorado has one of the nation's most educated populations, ranking second among the 50 states (behind Massachusetts) for percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree or higher.
-Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, 2010
Since its Wild West beginnings, Denver has attracted all kinds of people . . . With a population that is 40% Hispanic and 10% African American, Denver is a dynamic city of diverse cultures, rewarding those who visit with a montage of sights, sounds, smells, and flavors
- http://www.denver.org/metro/diversity (last accessed Jan. 2013)
You just keep reading in the paper how many people are getting killed . . . It's all these illegals driving around with no identification. . . Denver is the mecca of all these problems . . . which I think clearly is a sanctuary city, all they're getting is a small court fine and are allowed to walk out the door. If they don't give police an ID, no one can prove they're an illegal alien. So these people get off the hook. It's unfair!
-Dan Hayes, Author of Initiative 100 and 300 Westword, October 27, 2009
“I’ve never been in a city where appreciable numbers of Negro people live and found such indifference in relation to the matter of racial discrimination and segregation.”
- Gunnar Myrdal as quoted in Earl Mann, “So They Say: Casey and the News,” Colorado Statesman, February 2, 1946.
“Fair play reigns” and “the color line does not exist” in Denver.
-Isaac Jones, Baltimore Afro-American (1952)
Year Adams Arapahoe Boulder Denver Douglas Jefferson
Metro Denver Total
1940 22,481 32,150 37,438 322,412 3,496 30,725 448,702
1950 40,234 52,125 48,296 415,786 3,507 55,687 615,635
1960 120,296 113,426 74,254 493,887 4,816 127,520 934,199
1970 185,789 162,142 131,889 514,678 8,407 235,368 1,238,273
1980 245,944 293,292 189,625 492,694 25,153 371,753 1,618,461
1990 265,038 391,511 225,339 467,610 60,391 438,430 1,848,319
2000 348,618 487,967 269,814 554,636 175,766 525,507 2,400,580
2012 451,443 584,948 299,378 619,968 292,167 539,884 2,787,788
Population Denver Metropolitan AreaSource: US Census Bureau
1940
1950
1960
1970
2000
2010
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
American Indian APA LatinoBlack White
Racial Population City and County of Denver
1940
1950
1960
1970
2000
2010
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
American Indian APA LatinoBlack White
Racial Population Metropolitan Denver
II. THE RISE OF THE STATE-MANAGED COLOR(BLIND) METROPOLIS
It is the public policy of the State of Colorado to recognize that “a person who owns a tract of land . . . may prefer to have as neighbors persons of the [W]hite, or Caucasian race.”
-Chandler v. Ziegler et al, 291 P. 822 (Colo. 1930)
Neighborhoods with highest concentration of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Japanese Americans, and American Indians
-John Bromley, Denver Post, November 18, 1974
“It is, I think, right to suppose that the primary reason for the easy passage of the Poundstone Amendment was the suburbs fear of busing. If, in other words, there is to be a ghetto, and busing is to relieve the pressures and injustice of the ghetto, let it all be within the City and County—and school district—of Denver.”
1940
1950
1960
1970
2000
2010
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
American Indian APA LatinoBlack White
Racial Population Metropolitan Denver
Denver Metropolitan Area School Districts. Denver Council of Regional Government
The Key[e]s to the Next 40 Years?
Colo. Const. art. IX §2
“The General Assembly shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment and
maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the
State, wherein all residents of the State….may be educated gratuitously.”
-$80 -$57
$161
$202 $187
$132
-$299
-$481
-$585
-$793
-$660
-$875
-$1,397
-$1,145
-$1,809-$2,000
-$1,500
-$1,000
-$500
$0
$500
Difference between CO and National Average
K-12 Per-Pupil Funding: Colorado vs. National AverageSource: National Center for Education Statistics
NAEP: Exhibit 10,064
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Thorough and Uniform
System of Free Public Schools
- State Requirements- Opportunities
- Outcomes
Local Control
Public School Finance System
Rational Relationship?
-Summer of Colorado Higher Education InstitutionsColorado Department of Higher Education