Great Colorado Women

If you look at the history of the civil rights movement There were many, many black women who were heavily involved without the women It couldn't have happened the way it did.

And it's people like Ruth Denny, that has made Denver what it is today She was a freedom fighter in the spirit of a Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Or any of a number of civil rights activists that Helped change America As strong and enduring as the Rocky Mounbeside,they stood as visionary as the views of the grand pacross.hey looked The women inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame are trailblazers, whose work has improved and enriched our lives.

They are teachers, scientists, ranchers, leaders in business, education, religion, and the arts.

Women who have been recognized for their many contributions to our state, our country, and the world.

I'm Reynelda Muse, and these are the stories of Great Colorado women.

I met Ruth Denny shortly after I arrived here to bDenver Post in 2002.the I realized she was a force in the community the first day I met her she wanted to make Denver a better place, not just for black people, but for the city itself to help it progress and become the city that it's become She was one of the founding members of a Civil Rights Organization, CORE She was the only female leader of a CORE chapter in the whole country.

She was integral and working with the NAACP, she fought to open up, segregated department stores and furniture stores and picketing And, you know, she was just like a Rosa Parks to me Her activism Her tenacity, particularly around black people, opportunity, equal rights and really have a voice and a seat at the table is what she lived I saw my mother as a leader and as a strong woman And she was seeking righteousness and justice, and that's what she did One of her grandmothers was Clara Cousins, and Clara was born into slavery My mother didn't talk much about it because she said She said her grandmother wouldn't talk about it She said they would question her, but she didn't want to talk about it.

It was too painful I think what inspired Ruth to be a catalyst for change was being told, no, that you can't do something, that you can't have something, that you're not as good as.

And I think you just build up calluses and you build up a certain amount of anger She said, I've stayed angry all my life from the time she was a small child and saw discrimination and mistreatment of black people.

If you met her and talked with her, you'd never think that she's angry.

Ruth was a very friendly person, actually, and she had this lovely smile She was very no nonsense.

but also super loving Ruth had a style that made people feel good And so when you feel good, you Pass it on I think it's important to tell Ruth Denny's story because I think it's the epitome of saying, you don't have to end up where you start in life You know, she started out in St.

Louis in a really segregated sort of backwater part of Missouri I'm sure there wasn't a whole bunch of opportunities and You know, she's only two generations out of slavery she didn't start with a whole lot of advantages Ruth Cousins Denny was born in 1920 in St.

Louis, Missouri She was one of five siblings Her mother was Mamie Cousins and was the widow of five children She worked in the Schools as a cook, and she managed My mother's memory that moved her was when she was again just about six, seven years old and would go to the market with her mother, my grandmother, and they wouldn't wait on my grandmother Even if she was the first one there, they would always wait on white people first and she would have to wait And my mother said, I knew she had worked hard all day and she saw her mother struggling Her mother was everything to her.

She said, and it just made me so angry that they would treat my mother that way.

And she said, and I stepped up even as a small child, and said, my mother is next.

boldly.

My grandmother instilled it in Certainly my mother and my uncles that education was really important The saying is, many things can be taken away from you except education All of the schools that my mother attended were segregated She did talk about when she was in elementary school, she remembers that the schools weren't in solid buildings.

They were in like trailers And she said in getting to the elementary school, they would pass the white school She said, and I'd see the white children out there playing, and I always wondered, well, why can't we be at a building an outside playing on a school playground?a nice So that bothered her Ruth became at a very early age aware of unequal treatment as far as people of color are concerned She said it made me very angry to see people mistreated and to not see things done with justice.

And so she thought, I'm going to go to law school and I'm going to do something about it.

But she just wasn't able to do that there was no way financially that she could go to law school and become a lawyer.

So she chose to be a teacher She taught for a little while in St.

Louis and she was married to my father And my father had been honorably discharged from the army And he had a job at the Air Force Finance Accounting Center in St.

Louis.

And they announced to their workers that they were going to close the center in St.

Louis and that people had a choice.

They could move to Denver, Colorado, or Indianapolis, Indiana.

And so my mother chose to move to Denver because she thought that Denver would be a place where there's no prejudice, no discrimination So she came out here as a pioneer to find a career for herself and for her family You know, she thought that this was going to be a much easier place for a black person One time she said it was supposed to be my heaven, but it turned out to be something different And what she was just basically describing was that, you know, discrimination and segregation was pretty much the same, whether you were in Missouri or whether you were in Denver, Colorado Shortly after she moved to Denver, she and a few of her friends went to see a movie downtown.

She bought the tickets and started to walk into the said, "Oh, in there.e can't go We have to go upstairs to the balcony."

At that time, people of color could only sit in the balcony, and if they sat anyplace else, they were summarily let out of the building.

So Ruth was very disappointed that she didn't find her quote unquote heaven that she thought she was going to move to The YMCA was like a block from where we livedfirst moved there, we and the neighborhood was an all white neighborhood I mean, only white people had memberships My mother, being the bold woman she was, went over there and made sure that we became members of the YMCA I'm sure they didn't like it there was a potluck dinner and potluck dinnshock there was When they saw her walk in What Ruth would talk about in terms of our own challenges was how dibecome andnver had what a struggle it had been And I know what it was like in the 1950s for black people and particularly for black women.

So the fact that Ruth Denny wanted to be a teacher and couldn't be a teacher had to fight our way into the Denver Public Schoosurprise to meot a My mother had her teaching degree from Stowe College and had a little bit of experience teaching in St.

Louis So after we settled in Denver, she decided she would teach for Denver Public Schools She spent years applying to be a teacher, and she was well qualified to be a teacher It took her about seven years to break into the Denver school system They found all kinds of excuses not to hire her At one point, they told her that there just weren't any openings Then they told her that she was too fat the second time she applied.

So she went on a diet, a self imposed diet, and she lost like 70, 80 pounds before within a year after.

less than a year.

And then she went back and applied again and they told her, no, that she had a kidney problem, and she went to a doctor and the doctor did whatever test and he said, no, they're not telling the truth You don't have a kidney problem I think she was of the mind that you won't get the better of me, no matter what you tell me, I'm going to teach but she was persistent Eventually, they hired her as a substitute teacher and then eventually as a full-time teacher I'm sure she affected the lives of many, many children that she taught Because she taught with her head and her heart She would fight for her students and what she felt they needed And I think that she could put herself on a third or fourth grade student level and connect with them that was really important for her is for her classroom for kids to feand feelcomfortable a lot of love for learning that that was the energy she cultivated At that time, most black teachers were assigned to schools where there were black children So you went to segregated schools as a student and you taught in segregated schools as a teacher yothat was a golden age of, education, okay?

I mean, those black teachers, they believed in the students that they were teaching.

They were the ones who were telling them they were as good as anybody else she knew the children extremely well.

She was an excellent teacher, and those parents knew it.

Okay, they got it right away because the kids were cominhadn't had before they because the teachers didn't think those kids particularly were able.

even though they didn't have the same textbooks and they didn't have the same opportunities that kids across town had.

These black teachers, every day were telling them that you're great.

You can do whatever you want to do.

You can be whatever you want to be.

And I'm going to do everything I can to give you every tool possible in your toolbox She was so, so very upset with The hierarchy at the Denver Public schools in terms of how they treated the various schools, depending on where they were located Well, of course, black teachers would talk among themselves about the hardships that they were facing, the difficulties that they had of teaching in Denver public schools.

So my mother and others formed a group called Black Teachers United, and they would meet together and talk and talk about what could they do to help each other, to help their situation.

And so that's one of the things where, again, she took a leadership role And ultimately, of course, the public schools Were sued And the case went to the Supreme Court, actually, and Denver schools were under a mandate Eventually schools became integrated She taught for 26 years in Denver Public Schools when she retired the teachers Black and white gave her a big retirement party and were very vocal about how much they appreciated her leadership again and her contributions in each school that she taught in Ruth Denny was pioneering in two fronts on two ways in her own professional pursuit and then making thrcivil rights movementthe a childhood friend of my mother's James Reynolds also moved from St.

Louis to here to Denver.

And he said to her one day, we're going to form a group in the Congress of Racial Equality in Denver.

Are you interested?

And she said, absolutely.. And she got into that because, again, because she kept feeliinjustice and the wanted to do something about it I was so happy when I saw that here was this woman who was thinking about putting something together She had been talking with people in Washington about what we could do to make things more equal for black people And she would like to have a little bit of assistance with somebody who maybe thinks the same way And so we started CORE and began to tell people that we were going to be doing something that was different and we would hope that they would be willing to join us.

She was not necessarily welcomed by American sometimes because she was seen as a troublemaker But that's the way things were in those days, that people that didn't want the the boat rocked, so to speak She was told all these different reasons why she couldn't do what she wanted to do.

So I think she was impatient You know, What did Martin Luther King call it the fierce urgency of now.

And so she was pushing hard We soon learned, after being a group for a while, how outspoken and articulate Ruth was If you look back in history, you'll see that men led core.

meAssociationational for the Advancement of colored People NAACP.

Men led everything, and not just now in the African American community, but, you know, that was our society that men were the so called leaders.

However, my mother said that they decided to ask her to be Chairperson of CORE here because they saw the leadership quality, she was very outspoken Ruth Denny was the first woman that wasimportant positionry And she would meet with the heads of employers Preventing People of color from being hired They strategized what they needed to do, who they needed to picket They picketed zone cab company they would not hire black drivers and sometimes they wouldn't even pick black people up for a ride the CORE members and others Would all call at the same day, same time to block their lines so that they couldn't get any calls for rides.

So it was all about strategy, so, okay, you don't don't want to be fair, you don't want to be just, then weability to make money,r because that's what speaks.

When you hit them in the pocketbook that was always the strategy The big project that we had was the Denver Dry Goods store, which was located downtown and The manager of that store seemed to be the most recalcitrant in terms of rhisly opening up employment practices to include people of color You know, they only hired black janitors.

They didn't hire any clerks or retailers or anything, just black janitors.

and she and others went down there, tried to convince them to open up their labor practices.

They refused.

And so they threw a boycott up they were very angry and said, you can't tell us what to do.

And then we said, of course, well, then we can't come here just to buy our stuff.

They took their credit cards, cut them in half, and sent the cut up cards to Denver Dry to tell them We're not going to patronize your store anymore So we set up a picket line at Denver Dry This was in 1962.

My mother put my brother and I out on the picket lines, so we participated.

I distinctly remember carrying a sign of being on picket lines There were white people also in CORE It was an integrated group of people who integration and about justice CORE's philosophy was nonviolence And my mother said that, you know, a couple of people spit on them.

And of course, there was name calling, but they would just keep walking and keep carrying the sign and whatever they were doing, if they were singing songs or whatever., because that was the training that you don't retaliate, you just ignore it and keep going I think that protest probably only lasted like two months before tpractice of segregationl collapsed.

That's incredible But when it was over not only that dry goods store, but other stores on the 16th Street, business commercial district decided that it was in their best interest to hire black people.

And that was, I probably like that probably was the thing that sort of got her going, made actually be a force for change, her realiand thenshe could she just went on and on and on When I was 13, my parents got divorced And I think that they grew apart because her lifrights and his wasn'til She eventually remarried.

My stepfather, Galloway, H. Denny My mother before that was a member of People's Presbyterian Church on York Street.

But when she remarried, they decided that they needed to belong to a different church.

And they joined Montview my mother and my stepfather My mother became a deacon.

My stepfather became an elder on the session.

When there was white flight in the Montview area Montview grew into doing going door to door to people to say, don't move to white people, to say, don't move.

You know, this can be an integrated neighborhood.

You don't need to move They kind of stemmed some of the white flight Martin Luther King came to Montview and spoke, planning, too, when they knew Martin Luther King was coming to Denver When the march on Washington was going to take place She organized James Baldwin to come here as a fundraiser He was willing to do what he could, and he would come as a speaker across the country to help raise money My mother said even after the dinner was over that they stayed up most of the night just talking with James Baldwin, which had to be fascinating and such a privilege And they raised enough money to send several buses of Coloradoans to the march on Washington when it came to young leaders, particularly in in the black community She was Definitely a supporter of candidates who she thought, not just talk, but actually walked In alignment with her values And so she supported campaigns.

She made phone calls.

She also had no problem calling people directly and letting them know what she thought.

Not only was she outspoken, but she was very truthful in the things that she said She didn't have any problem holding up your record to you and saying Let's talk about these things that you said you were going to do that you didn't do when Barack Obama was running for president The night of the election I went to her house to sit with her And when it was announced that he had won, she just couldn't believe it Finally The highest office in the United States is occupied by a black man.

She said she just didn't think it would happen in her lifetime, and she was elated.

And I think that probably she felt that was one of her wins Too many stories are often not told that could be critical to future generations to be able to learn from And Ruth particularly was concerned about people understanding This history she decided that she was going to start This video series is Rebels Remembered, where she actually pulled together all the people that she had worked with during the civil rights movement here in Colorado cultivating those stories to be able to give it back to the kids Her drive was for the Younger generation And she was driven for them to be aware of What their parents and their grandparents had endured it was really important to her for young people in Colorado happen just in D.C.

or in the to know evSouth.ng didn't There was a lot of things that happened here in Colorado Of course, Ruth was a member of a lot of organizations.

She was very active in the community at large She was a guild member which I believe, is a longtime supporter financially and volunteering For the Denver Urban League being a member of the Urban League, you know, her focus a lot was, of course, on children, and she decided, well, we need to have something that involves the high school children childrenle school of Denver.

So she started this thing of the stars of tomorSchool children tolic apply and audition and they had a big program a couple of years in a row where these children would display their talents, whether it was poetry, dance, music, arts She was the first contributor to the Shaka Franklin Foundation that work to prevent suicide and works on mental issues for young people of color I have a great deal of respect for her and women of her generation who had to fight and claw to get opportunities for themselves so that we The next generation could have opportunities And I just know how proud she is that Dianne got a chance to do what it is she wanted to do My mother was the most influential person in my life I'm going to say because, first of all, I knew I was going to college.

There was no doubt in my mind She and my stepfather decided to send me to Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri And then I applied to law school and I enrolled at University of Denver College of Law to become a lawyer because my mother couldn't become a lawyer would not have happened if Ruth hadn't done the thing she did in the 1950s in the 1960s to make it possible for someone like Dianne to go to law school and to get a law of degree and to practice law and to become a judge.

And I think she took great pride in seeing her daughter achieve her dream There are a lot of changes that were made because Ruth Denny was here And even though it was difficult for her to achieve the personal goals that she wanted, she took pride in the fact that her struggles resulted in someone like me having an opportunity Her impact in affecting change was that she wouldn't back down She just wouldn't let anything stop her to see change during her lifetime It's not easy when you have people against you.

And you decide, this is what I'm called to do and I'm goimatter what you say,no from the outsdo it.

'm going to I think it's important for people to know that You can change your circumstances if you're willing to fight, if you're wilyou're willing to thinkif about something a little bit bigger than yourself.

You can make a huge contribution in life I have a lot of deep respect for people that are willing to put it on the line She did.

And I think she's going to be long remembered for that