 ready standing by on stage here. Welcome to the Longmont Museum on the internet. My name is Justin Veitch. I'm the manager of the museum's steward auditorium, and we're coming at you live this evening via Facebook, Longmont Public Media, and local Comcast Cable Channel 8 slash 880. We're very glad to have you with us this evening, all of you out there on internet land, and we do have a small audience of members and city folk and local community members with us this evening, so welcome to them too. It's our great pleasure tonight to be presenting this program with the Longmont Multicultural Action Committee. You'll see that we have quite a quite a few programs in the works every Thursday night at 7 30 live from the steward. In the coming weeks we have a, well next week we have a program with Cleo Parker Robinson. She'll be speaking on her 50 years of taking the Cleo Parker Robinson dance company to a really a national phenomenon, a nationally regarded dance company. Very glad to have her with us next week. We have programs on, more programs on race and social justice with a pair of historians. Coming up we have a crazy talk show called the Long Monster coming up. You won't want to miss that. We also have a the Thursday after the election we'll be having a, no I'm sorry, the Thursday before the election we'll be having a conversation on the centennial of women's suffrage, which is exciting. But tonight we have a very special conversation on the history of race and social justice in Longmont. I'd like to introduce to you now Jenny Diaz-Leon. She's the co- co-vice chair, thank you very much, of the Longmont Multicultural Action Committee. Jenny? It's a little bit of a tongue twister there. Hello everybody and welcome. My name is again Jenny Diaz-Leon and I am a program specialist with the city of Longmont's Children and Youth and Family Division. I am very proud to say that I am one of the co-vice chairs of the Longmont Multicultural Action Committee or also known as ELMAC. So for those of you that don't know ELMAC is a city, excuse me, ELMAC is a city council led group that was really created to motivate and inspire the Longmont citizens to take action both individually and collectively and we promote inclusivity, cultural understanding and involvement. ELMAC was created specifically to address all of the diversity related issues in our community and our goal is to maintain Longmont, a community where we all belong. The Longmont Multicultural Action Committee sponsors several events, some of those including Day of the Dead and the Dr. Martin Luther King Day celebration. Many of you have probably attended our signature event which is called Inclusive Community Celebration. Has anybody been there? Alright lots of people. So through the Inclusive Community Celebration a Longmont community members are able to not only highlight but also educate the Longmont community members on their different cultures, their different cultures and traditions. The evening is filled with lots of delicious food, dancing, music and above all community building. Now with that being said I'd like to take some time to thank you all for participating in today's conversation and being present and I'd also like to thank the Longmont Museum for inviting the Longmont Multicultural Action Committee to be part of this event and to partner with you. Without further ado I'd like to introduce to you tonight's moderator Rosana Longo. Rosana is a bilingual equity reporter with KGNU Community Radio. Thank you. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Museum of Longmont, Longmont Museum and thank you Jenna Diaz-Leon for introducing me. It is a pleasure to be here amongst incredible activists, people from the community that are so strong and today to talk about something that is extremely important I recently had the opportunity to produce podcast through you know thanks to KGNU our community radio, Power Community Radio by the listeners, you the listeners and when I did the podcast about diversity inclusion I heard this phrase that is so strong that I want to share with you that is if we don't look at race in the eye we will not solve the problems of America and that got stuck in my heart when I heard. Today I am invited to this amazing panel discussion called Voices of Change a history of race and social justice here in the city of Longmont amongst local leaders and activists that have gathered to give their perspectives of Longmont's history of race and social justice and in an effort to create a more equitable and inclusive community. I don't want to talk more about you know what's in my heart right now I'm super emotional I want to make sure that I go and introduce each of you as briefly as I can. We have today Linda Arroyo-Homestrong she's a Latina educator and a passionate about Latino history project. I have seen Linda, I have seen Linda being this strong Latina with roots deep deep in Colorado and also in New Mexico. She is a community historian a force of the Latino history project that continues to present and facilitate workshops to emphasize the history utilizing Latino sources. She's also a board chair of the El Centro su teatro and also part of the Colorado Sitaco Association board member. Welcome we want to welcome Linda Arroyo-Homestring today. I also have Lauren Yankins African-American entrepreneur and community CEO of Mini Money Management and an app that helps teachers educate children on finance literacy super important. He worked in Foreigner Exchange in London and you decided to leave the finance world to pursue your passion for teaching self motivation responsibility and financial awareness to young ones teachers parents amazing Mini Money Management sorry come from a you know came from Helen Ross your mother that played games with you. I really want you to tell that story it touched my heart that's incredible. We also have Louis Lopez I have seen you in action Louis a community coordinator a meditator too from the city of Longmont Children Youth Family Division he oversees the GANS response an intervention program. Louis Lopez has unite the community and acknowledge the growing GAN problem increase awareness and empower parents to realize where and how are those warning signs that we need to watch. He also help youth get out of the GANS and get track to a better life amazing. A pluses I want a pluses for everybody Linda Robinson yes Linda Robinson African-American activist and ordained minister Longmont Multicultural Action Committee graduated in California State with a degree in criminal justice. She got a holder of multiple awards for the community because of your heartfelt concern and sense of social responsibility serving in many boards and you are also recognized Mr. Robinson as the founder of Dr. Martin Luther King week-long celebration. Yes yes yes yes there'll be people today. Brett Lee Shelton a member of the Ogwala Zyuk tribe did I pronounce it correct? Ogwala Su tribe. Oh there you are thank you Lakota and Cheyenne ancestors work at the American Rights Fund on Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative extensive experience in advising tribal governments agencies you know you are this researcher attorney in that analyze policies for the well-being of the national Indian Health a grassroots organizer for this international need of awareness for our people and to stop everything that has to do with violence it's an honor to have you it is an honor and I want to quickly go to the questions right now and the questions that we have here for you and please feel free to answer them whoever wants to do it what is Longmont's history of race of and social justice and I think this is super important for us to hear from you. I just wanted to start out by saying I've been involved with the Boulder County Latino History Project and we have a website we've published two books and there's community website that you can access but it really we have primary documents did a lot of research oral histories etc and you can get a lot more information in the books that are still available on amazon but some of the interesting and tragic things that happen in in llama go back to the 1920s when the great western sugar company started recruiting mexicanos from Mexico and Mexican-Americans from southern Colorado and northern New Mexico and they were brought here of course as labor and sugar beets are a highly intensive crop that need they're very needy and so these laborers it was considered stoop labor where they were on their hands and knees either planting weeding culling or and then eventually topping the sugar beets dangerous work but they low wages of course living conditions substandard unsent unsanitary conditions also and a community member Ramon Montes ended up leading and organizing a strike and then they picketed yeah exactly so they went on to get 26 people were arrested and six of the people arrested were women but they were not only dealing with these lousy conditions but they also were dealing with a local government and a state government that was run by the kkk and so llama was no exception to that and the mayor some of the city council members and school board members were also members of the kkk and so with this atmosphere in fact they even put up a red cross on I think fourth and main and they hung their the kkk flag on the official city flagpole so there was intimidation and many of the businesses said white trade only no Mexicans no dogs and a lot of these accounts are by people from the community and so as part of the work of the Latino history project we focused on three communities Longmont Boulder and Lafayette and so one of the big things I think is that we really need to educate ourselves about our past and what's been wonderful about this project is that we we have a website we published the two books and we also do teacher training so St. Brain and Boulder Valley School District have been involved in this workshop trainings where teachers are exposed to the website and where they're able to include this in their curriculum where we can reflect our histories all people's histories and it's long overdue I would like to add to that thank you thank you for that history from 1920 I've been here 40 years my god it doesn't seem like quite that long but we moved here in 1980 because of IBM we called it the I've been moved company so we got moved and and we they always said you're you're going to be doing time and you have three to five most people have a specified time so we had three to five years here but 40 years later here we are a couple of significant things happened when we got here my husband was with IBM he we came in my daughter and I came in on a Sunday I was pregnant with my now 40 year old son and he was sent to Lexington Kentucky that Monday on an assignment we got here Sunday long mod I thought my god it god are you in this place what what are we doing here because we were in a new home we I had not met any any people and I didn't see any African American people except Betty Nunnally Betty Nunnally came over and said would you like to go to the store and I'm thinking store yes that that's a good thing you mean they have stores here because at ninth and main was that old corner pantry market and some of you may remember that or you may not but anyhow so we started our lives here my son was born at Longmont United Hospital he probably was the first I don't know never mind he anyhow he was born 9 11 80 and then later that year I think maybe in November two young Latino young men I'll I'll say were shot by police officers and the one one Luis I think and and Jeff Cordova and I started thinking what in the world is going on because shortly thereafter my nephew was killed in in Signal Hill California by the police with the chokehold which is the very reason that the chokehold is outlawed in Los Angeles County it took five years of a trial to prove that he did not commit suicide as a they claimed that he did Johnny Cochran was our lawyer we won but we didn't really win because he lost his life and shortly thereafter my sister his mother died after the trial was over so I'm thinking in all this time what God you brought us to this God forsaken place two young Latino males have been murdered and now my nephew is murdered what what is going on at that point I think I met Marta Moreno and and then later I met Carmen Ramirez and Dan Benavides people began to do things to be active and of course since I was I was from the 60s marching with Dr King in the last two marches the I am a man march and then the memorial march we got to do something I you know I I had such a kindred spirit with these people knowing that you gotta do something John Lewis said say something and do something and that was what I was motivated to do then I'll stop now thank you so much Linda and Glenda for sharing that sharing these deep stories these real stories I would like to also allow somebody else if they want to talk about these history yes Luis Bernardo Lopez Jr and I just want to say you know I'm honored to be here with you today in this panel and done a lot of work with Linda and that was really a really amazing opportunity to look at our history and be part of yeah just connecting in a in a deeper way there was a lot of people involved in that that project and you know a lot of fun and a lot of history that was we were able to like really reflect on I'm I'm going to take us back and just be born and raised in Longmont I was actually born in the same house my mother was born in and as a last-grandchild born in the house that my sister was born in my mother was born in and how still sits there at Kensington Park 666 Kensington was the address and they recently changed it I think they 669 now the address but yeah so one of the things I just want to just reflect on is just like being born into the struggles of what our parents in our our ancestors in our and our the people before us have have brought to us that lives inside of me that continues to be generation generationally instilled into you know the way we live and how we live um one of the things I can remember as a young man is being told the stories of yeah um no dogs no no Mexicans allowed and then hearing my father talk about like um going to eat in a restaurant and they actually told him that he couldn't eat there and working construction he was with a construction crew and his construction crew supported him and they all walked out and went to a place where they all got to eat but they were just really um supporting him in a way of brotherhood but really just filling those stories that they had to live that they had to actually be in in community in this community which wasn't too long ago that really um created resilience I think my mom is also part of this one of these uh is part of this leadership that I've grown up with strong Latina women strong Latina men that have changed um the direction and the path of a lot of change that has happened over the 40 years um I remember as a little boy um being in meetings where um long um long meetings uh seven years old and people were voicing and coming strong with wanting to make change we had people from CU um professors and we also had attorneys that were working pro bono and looking at how to actually get involved in our communities we were working with boulder longmont loft yet and they were working with long but as a young boy I was hearing all this energy that was being transmitted um and you know it actually I never knew that I was going to be following this work but or that work but it was what they said in motion was to actually create the platform for a continual um change so continue continue change thank you so much Louis Lopez for sharing that and also calling on the energy or of your mother um you know because of her activism and I would like to also allow Lauren Lauren to speak to us about you know what you think about the history of race and social justice here in longmont you being an African American I heard once that somebody said to me we were stolen we were we were brought here we were stolen from our lands so this and then the segregation that you are mentioning I'm probably gonna leave the history piece because I moved here when I was six so I'm 25 so I obviously don't have the same um history as these guys do but when we start to talk about the present I'd love to to kind of chime in and tell that story okay excellent but yes I it is super important to hear from you Brett Lee Shelton this is super important that you tell us his story the history behind racism right absent any any personal experience um I'd like to point out that prior to all this history this was the was the site of a very successful ethnic cleansing um there were Cheyenne and Arapaho at least people who lived here uh since time immemorial and you can look at the land here and the richness of the land with all of the different water sources that are running and healthy and all the different things that grow and then the transition zones of the vegetation up when you get to the foothills and so on and you can tell that there's a huge carrying capacity of this land here too you can see along the along the riverways and creek beds all the berries growing all the time and if you know what to look for there's all sorts of food you would never starve if you if you know what to eat around here just based on what the land provides and so you could it would be safe to assume that there were a lot of people here right in this area um we we we know that there's a strong Arapaho history and probably a strong Cheyenne presence but um this whole area of Colorado was kind of a central meeting grounds really and there's all sorts of stories about all sorts of tribes from farther than you can imagine they came from coming to the Denver and Boulder and north areas in fact I have ancestors that are buried up um by Fort Collins um and people don't think of that sort of of an influence either but there's there's probably all kinds of tribal histories here and the the ethnic cleansing was so successful that we don't know about that very much at all um we we don't learn about it um people who go to school here didn't learn about it and um and there's hesitancy to even even tell the truth yet and so we're starting to reach a point where the truth is coming out and um I'm looking forward to to what we have to learn there and I'll have more to say about how we can move that forward too. Thank you so much Brett for saying that what comes to my mind is so a beautiful phrase I heard from a young one saying we are here we are not history we are alive we are still here this is our land thank you so now that you have all spoken I really want to now ask the question where are we now and I want to just mention quickly something that I recently translated for you know from a headline of an event a side event here in Longmont of a immigrant without documentation that was punched in the face and this recently happened and with you know the problems that we have now with the pandemic Covid 19 and the other pandemic that somebody said to me the racism pandemic that we are experiencing the police brutality that we are experiencing in a year of election too so if you can please please go ahead and talk to us about where are we now and what do we need now um I guess I could start us off so my mom moved us here when I was six and so she grew up in St. Louis my dad grew up in New York and she wanted me to grow up in a place where race wasn't an issue because of where she grew up it was um and so I think that was the best and the worst thing that could ever happen to me so I didn't know I was black until probably fifth grade um until probably third grade I thought it was Latino like my mom was like oh like what's it like being the only black kid I was like mom I'm not the only black kid there's Jose and Pedro and Juan because they were the kids who looked the most like me and so I think it was unbelievable growing up here but at the end of the day there there's a term that we always use growing up like we're in a bubble we used to call it the bolder bubble but now it's in Longmont and you like to act like nothing happens so we we like to shy away from race we we don't like to have those hard conversations and I remember being in sixth grade and that was the first time we had our our history unit where we talked about slavery and from sixth grade onwards I always dreaded having that history unit come up because the teacher would look to me like I knew what I was talking about and my thing is is I grew up here I've been here since I was five six years old so this is the only thing that I know so how would I know more about slavery than you would and as you start to grow up you start to see that there's a difference but nobody wanted to address it my hair would look different my I was raised a little bit differently we would eat different food but it was never something that teachers or parents or even sometimes other kids were comfortable with discussing so if you look different you act different you just brush it under the rug and I think it's amazing that we're in a spot where it's starting to change but people in this area in this quote unquote bolder called the bolder county bubble they don't want to have those conversations because it makes them uncomfortable we're always uncomfortable but you kind of start having those conversations thank you so much thank you so much for what you have said exactly that if we don't look at the eye racism in the eye we're not going to solve this problem I also would like to ask you and whoever wants to answer this question was there an event or moment that inspired you to do this work and I'm looking at Glenda and I feel that I should ask you this question yes I was a 19 year old junior at Memphis State University we were marching for basic human rights for garbage workers these men were treated like animals and they invited Dr. King to come to Memphis on behalf of the garbage strike and he he said no he it just was so much going on between the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had passed people died too by the way might throw that in people died for this basic right to vote and then so in 68 the clergy in Memphis invited Dr. King to come he said no but whenever somebody died he showed up and these two men well let me just go back a little bit because black men were not able or allowed I'll say to ride in the in the garbage trucks they were driven by white men black men had to hang off the back of the trucks and I remember this this season like it was yesterday because it was sleety and cold and rainy February 1968 and the garbage men were talking about having a union they they wanted some basic rights but the mayor wasn't hearing it he would not allow any outside agitators to come in and so in the course of all this the strike and all that these two men Robert Walker and Echo Cole I say their names because I don't ever want to forget their names because they too gave their lives for the freedoms that we enjoy today to get dry out of the sleet in the cold they climbed in the back of the garbage truck with the garbage someone walked along and flipped the garbage switch and those two men were ground up with the garbage and at that point Dr. King says I'm coming to Memphis I will lead the sanitation strike I don't care who they are they're human beings and they have value and they have worth and so I was like I said I was 19 year old junior the few of us that were at Memphis State the African-American students decided to form a Black Student Association and we were the ones who helped the older people get organized in the march and as I sat there I thought these people are are marching just for the right to be treated like a human being and so they made $1.90 an hour and they had no benefits so they worked from the time they were 30 and 36 as these two young men were until they were 75 and 80 years old two and three families generations living in one household just to survive and Dr. King was like this this is not right injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere so he did come and he did lead the march and as many of you know this was March 28th 1968 that supposedly erupted in a riot much like what's happening right now but 10 men were paid 10 thugs I'll say Black men were paid $50 each to disrupt the nonviolent march and prove that he did not have the ability to do that to conduct a nonviolent march so that march the I am a man march ended in a riot it just went awry at that point Dr. King was whisked away flew back to Atlanta and said I only do nonviolent marches we're committed to that we were trained not to fight back doesn't matter if people spit in your face or what they do to you kick you whatever you do not fight back and that was effective that was one of the most effective forms that turned that Montgomery bus boycott around in 1955 that started all of this and so he went back to Atlanta and said I will be back and I'm coming back to conduct a nonviolent march of course many of you know he came back on April 3rd 1968 and standing on the balcony balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4th he was shot and killed murdered for the freedoms that we're all enjoying today this is why people say why why we celebrate Dr. King why don't we celebrate anyone else this man gave his life for the freedoms that every single one of us in this country enjoy thank you so much Glenda Robinson for that remark really to the point and also brings us to the today the moment the moments that we are living when we have a lot when we have seen we have seen all these protests rising in the middle of a pandemic and of a you know so difficult people going out and I would like if you would like to talk about that also of what we are experiencing now as a young person Lauren I would really like you to talk to us about the events that you have seen lately surfacing requesting equality and humanity um I think as a young person growing up and seeing the police shootings and seeing young black men and women and older black men and women being murdered and discriminated against and stopped and it it genuinely makes you feel helpless and so there's a reason that before this I didn't before the last couple of months I didn't do talks like this but the reason that I started the company that I started is to teach people about money because my thought is if we can get people of color out of poverty then at least I'm doing my part to make that step so it's always been in my heart I think that I was I kind of say I was born with a silver spoon like I had great parents I was born in a great area and so it's it's up to me to be able to do something and so for me it was a mod arbery who made me say you know what like I need to do more than than than just start a company I need to be be out there speaking and talking to people because he was the same bill as me he was the same age as me he went running and I'm a runner and he got shot and if you look at it his name's not mentioned anymore it's just another news cycle and people need to realize that this isn't just a news cycle for us this is something that we experience every single day and I put there's there's songs that have come on from artists that I love and I play it for some of my friends and it talks about like you know black rights and like you know people of color having those rights and like oh wow like when this song come out I said five years ago like I've been listening to this song for five years they're like wow and and so for me it's I feel like I'm lucky I grew up here and I may have looked different but I was never really in any danger that because there weren't enough black people for us to be a threat I can't say the same thing for the Latino community because they did have to experience that and so so for me I have to do something that's why I'm here thank you so much Brett thank you thank you for what you have said thank you I think that at this moment I would like Linda to speak about the history of the Latinos in Lomond you know going back to what you expressed at the beginning why because look at us right now experiencing what we just experience make please a reflection around this I think it is important because we're talking about that now yeah I think in the 1930s during the depression then all these laborers who came to support the economy of local economy economy and state economy of Colorado the tide had turned it was during the depression and they were no longer needed and so there was a whole different feeling towards these people who at one time were the essential workers and and then they were seen as taking away jobs from Americans and so the city the county commissioners of Boulder decided in 1932 that they would be very helpful and they would repatriate these people back to Mexico back to the El Paso to the border and they worked with the railroad company to make that happen so there were roundups here in Longmont and all the agricultural communities severance and so my you know my family history is that we on my mother's side and my father's maternal side we have deep roots that go back you know 12 14 generations to the southwest but my grandfather Arroyo was an immigrant from Mexico and he was the head of the household at that time and so if you were from Mexico ahead of household you were asked to leave and so they paid eight dollars per person to have them repatriated which to me is really deported and they were picked up in cattle trucks and hauled to Union Station in Denver and it was you know I think a lot of people of color have been forced to forget these times to hide it I never heard this when I was growing up I never heard my grandparents speak of it but I do have references to it in a biography that my grandma wrote about being in Mexico in in 1932 to 1934 I have a second hand account from my aunt Esther who did hear this story that's how I found out that my grandparents were part of this and my father he was two years old it was a humiliating traumatic event and I think that we haven't come very far I think that the whole idea of you know I think about DACA students I had you know I'm a former educator retired educator and I think about my many of my students are DACA and so it's like there is so much we need to do yet and unfortunately with our recent administration I think we're have the tides have turned and it's pretty ugly so I think it's time to take more action and that's why I continue to be involved with the Latino History Project and do events like this and so become educated and do what you can on a personal level thank you Linda thank you so much yeah become educated is I think the one of the most important things and I would like to you know say excuse me I'm sorry Brett Lee Shelton I you know I have you I have your bio in front of me and I'm super impressed about everything that you have done and I would like for you to make a comment about what is happening right now with our indigenous people our native people here especially in Colorado they are being affected so much by COVID-19 and not feel supported so if you can make a comment about that because that ties completely with the story of Linda just share of you know all these people coming here to work and then being this process of land and the right to live a happy life a good life so yeah there's a pretty pretty high prevalence I guess of COVID-19 and some tribal populations some communities and the mortality rates higher than should be higher than other other statistics this is kind of normal for Native Americans though we generally have the highest of all the bad statistics a lot of times that's not known because our populations are so small that we're generally statistically insignificant so we don't make the reporting but if you look at where my family's from the Pine Ridge Reservation we're perennially in you know the the top county and all the negative health indicators and in the top five of lowest per capita income and so the factors of you know of extreme poverty of not healthy food of deficient health care and then of insufficient housing we it's not uncommon to have 20 25 people living in a three-bedroom house on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation um three four families if there's three bedrooms um a family per bedroom at least and the living rooms another family so those conditions are a good way to spread any sort of a contagion in a pandemic and so you see that happening and similarly at other reservations the Navajo Nation made the news pretty prominently across the nation and that's that was early on it was an early wave the tribes are doing what they can to fight it because they realize the risk but it's a very real threat and you know it's tough to see a way out of it other than buckling down we've attempted to set up road roadblocks on our reservation just to verify that outsiders aren't coming in for some unnecessary reasons so that they don't bring the virus in more and those roadblocks have been challenged by the governor of South Dakota as illegal as against our jurisdiction so we're not even she doesn't want us to be able to protect our own family members from the disease um because she wants to make a stand to to appear like she's in line with the president for her political aspirations or whatever but that's our relatives that she's sacrificing by challenging us so that's that's a snapshot of the COVID related stuff that's going on right now for for our communities thanks for asking yeah and it is super tough recently Maeve Conbran our news director interview somebody that brings you know food and resources to the community and the expression something that I'm never gonna forget is this point that as many times people donate things that are broken things that are dirty you know taking away the humanity not understanding that there's people that really need the support that they don't have electricity they don't have the water they don't have all those basic things that we take for granted thank you so much for what you have said now we have the question in front of us where are we heading now is there a reason for optimism any cost of concern how can we change things and what comes to my mind to my mind is to ask you Lou Lopez Louis Lopez what can we done you that you have help young people come out of you know turmoil what can we do in this situation that we are facing and that we're living at this point thank you I'm optimistic just like learning from the history of our elders and our leaders from the past you know they they have given us I really feel fortunate in Longmont that they were able to really work together and really develop relationships to really communicate and help outreach and provide resources to families and young people but I'm really optimistic with the young people in the new generation that's coming up that are you know not silenced and they have voices and the energy that's coming with these young people is they are not going to sit down and wait they're going to really embrace the moment and really have questions that need to be answered answered and I really think that you know we need to get behind them and have our the people that were former leaders support them and just be at their back like the generations before us we are kind of guided by the generations in Longmont that have encouraged us to do our work so it's now time for the young people to you know really have that opportunity to thrive and make change so I'm really optimistic about that so and and they're a future and what you see now it's young people and not just of one culture it's many cultures coming together to support each other and really fight for justice and social justice and and you know peace so excellent thank you thank you hope that's wonderful Glenda same question sorry well I always say freedom freedom is not free somebody died for us to enjoy what we enjoy and so it's incumbent up on each of us and yes louis I am encouraged by these young people that are saying I'm gonna do something I don't know what what I have to do or what I will do so it's incumbent up on us to tell the stories of our history and let them know the prices that have been paid we can pass the torch but I think we've done somewhat of a poor job of telling these stories just like Lauren said sitting in class and you think you're Latino because you don't see anyone else there that looks like you and these are your friends well shame on us for not telling our history where we came from how we got here and how we got over and and it's so important for them to know I heard I've talked to a lot of young african-american people at our church and they said when black history month rolled around they just wanted to open up the floor and crawl in it because everybody was looking at them like they knew something just like you said and they're like we don't know anything we've been here since we were babies so we gotta tell the stories of the prices that were paid they'll they'll do what they need to do if we if we give them the torch but we gotta give them something to work with we gotta tell them what happened in the 1920s we gotta tell them my grandfather in 1860 he was born in 1860 so he was an enslaved african-american male at age five in 1865 as a result of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation he became a citizen and then went on to become a professor he he went to some white men and the AME church took him to college everybody in my family and it's a huge family needs to know that story but not just our families we've gotta tell them about your families and your family and what they did these were courageous visionary powerful strong people and i say but for the since i'm a minister but for the grace of god we would not have survived we survived insurmountable things and so yes the young people can handle it i think and they are reaching for the torch but we gotta give them the tools that they need to work with and let them know that the price was paid for with human life for them to take that torch and go on and make a difference thank you so much claim that robinson excellent please bread what is it that we need is their hope any process of reconciliation requires an honest and deep truth telling and that's what needs to happen with america and until that happens it's doomed to keep repeating itself and so we need to go back and tell we need to find out in some cases even and tell the ugly truth and that's very uncomfortable for people who exist in positions of privilege that resulted as as a result of some of the horrors that happened over the past history of this country it's it seems to be tough for people to have that status threatened in some way or to even a lot of times admit that they sit in that position of privilege still that was gained through those processes but we need to be honest about the roots of that and once we're honest about the roots of it only then can we move start to chart a course forward we're lucky when we tell the history of these different groups because not only do we have the ghastly stuff to look at but by this time we have a bunch of heroes to look back at that that you're talking about and so that can give us more courage moving forward because no do we know that others have pushed forward for us in the past already too i mean i'm probably i consider myself like second generation after the american indian movement which was part of the civil rights movement and i look back to those people as heroes who opened the door for me to go to school but it's my job to pass on what i can to the people younger than me now the people in their 20s and kind of catching their own rhythm moving forward but we can't do that effectively until we tell the whole truth about what really happened and that means going back farther farther yet going back to the ugly stuff and face it thank you so much bright thank you linda please well um i just think about my own situation and being involved with this project and sort of the changes i've seen over the past six or seven years and we're starting to see institutions take a turn for the better for museums to actually let the community curate their stories and that to me has been a huge transition and i think that if we can stay on that trend where we're actually telling the story and we're telling the ugly truths and also about the contributions and the struggles of people of color you know that that has been left out of mainstream textbooks mainstream dialogue mainstream films you know it's it's i think right now we're in a time where it's an opportunity to actually open the dialogue for example like tonight we're doing things like this um i think you know if young people can really connect to that and also meet with activists like us here who have been who have strategies who know what to do in situations i think that that dialogue between youth and elders and valuing um those stories i think is just vital i think to know where we came from and and know those histories we're honoring our ancestors by doing that but we're also honoring that story for future generations future generations future generations thank you so much in the future generations yeah we do it for the kids thank you please Lauren if you can talk about what can we do you know how can we get involved please uh what can you do find something you care about um and i guess the reason that i say that is i keep saying it but this can't just be a news cycle because that's why people are angry and that's why a lot of bad things are then happening and i mean me personally like what i've been in it we'll say five years and i'm tired and i'm just getting started but i think the thing that touched me the most is that i went to see the movement the movie Tubman with Harriet Tubman and the final scene um i realized that she was alive at the same time as my great grandma and we went to Thanksgiving with her we went to her hundredth birthday party and it gives me hope and at first i was sad i was like wow like someone i knew was alive at the same time as Harriet Tubman like i read about slavery and textbooks like this this this is recent but what the generation before us has done is unbelievable because we had a birthday party from my great grandma and that wasn't something that could happen when she was born and so the the jumps that they've made from then to now we have to make a bigger jump so find something you care about and then let's keep it pushing because this isn't this isn't the end of the conversation we are just getting started and i think all of you guys for everything that you've done for us and i promise you we're gonna keep going and do more so thank you outstanding thank you so much what an honor to witness wonderful stories from you sharing from the heart this has been such an honor and i would like to you know now we need to open up to questions and Justin is gonna tell me the questions so he's gonna sell that say the questions that we are getting feed in facebook but also from the wonderful audience you have been spectacular here today and i have to say audience is everything you know it's like musicians when musicians play and they get all that energy from the audience that's precisely what has happened today the synchronicity this passion about the same a topic that is moving us and in a moment that i have to say so urgent in a year of election and i cannot stop talking about the need of voting and the support that we need to give to the young ones to go out and vote and with that i would like if somebody in the audience would like to ask a question do we have any questions here from the audience oh yes we do talking about who's been here 40 years also black people have always been a threat um when when i moved here i was told that that was a sign up that not only said no mexicans went back no dogs but no niggers also and i know about no i know people don't want to use that dirty word but that was what was said this was kkk country and also while i was teaching and at long speak it was called long speak middle school at that particular time um i had a student who would not a white student who would not do anything i asked her to do and i finally had a conference with her dad the dad came in and looked at me he said i know why she won't do what you asked her to do they're gonna have to take her out of your class because you're i've taught her to to hate black people so we've always been a threat and there was there was a man who lived here before glennon and i moved here uh and i can't use his name because i haven't asked him for permission he had a cross burnt burnt on his lawn he was a property owner a black person property owner here in long months so black people have always been a threat here is there a question you want to ask to the audience thank you for sharing powerful story hi thank you guys again for um speaking Hermione thank you so much for inviting me um my question for you guys would be uh do you know any because we're all talking about the past have you guys uh been aware currently what's being taught within the svv sd school district along with any other boulder county school districts um first hand uh speaking just graduating the 2018 class uh there is a lot more mentioning of a lot of the you know the dirty history but important history um and i was just wondering if i never saw a guest speaker come in for any of it um i saw a lot of professors who were very as we say the woke ones who put in the effort to go the extra mile and explain so i was just wondering if there's any community involvement or any you know any community representation in there so um i'm on the executive committee of the NAACP by the way everyone is welcome to join it's not just for black people while it stands for national association for the advancement of colored people we have 500 plus members and you know we only make up one percent or so so you know everybody's not black um but we're doing incredible work both with the st vrain valley school district as well as the boulder valley school district because they've been playing minstrels and having people read books like black sambo little black sambo and things like that and so we just met with um dr don haddad at the beginning of this month the first monday night of the month and then we met with the um the boulder valley school superintendent and so we're starting to break up all of that stuff that's not really you know it's not really well it is real but it's not real learning it's not the truth it's not really what happened there are this this country is a melting pot and it's built of and made up of bring me you're tired and your huddled masses and your poor yearning to be free i mean so on one hand we say one thing and on the other we we do another so to answer your question yes we are working on those issues even as we speak we should be seeing some changes coming down with the sr o's because well sr o's are school resource officers or policemen really or police women um and so we're working with them because a disproportionate number of um minority kids children of color even african americans as few as we are are being chastised and and and uh being punished for really minor things and it's not happening to the other so you should be seeing a difference here hopefully soon i just want to add to that that the latino history project has developed a website specifically for teachers that has um many resources that teachers can use and we have been offering um teacher workshops since 2013 every summer but we're you know we're talking about just a small number of teachers every summer we've probably trained about 225 teachers from boulder and st brain and really it's about getting curriculum about latinos into the classroom and so it's it's started there's lesson plans that we've created um they can refer to that we've also had um different community events where we invite the public to come and learn about our history um so it's slow but there is an effort and at one point we were part of boulder valley school districts professional development and st brain but it is all based on funding you know if they have enough money for this and so with budget cuts we are no longer part of their professional development so um you know that's really ultimately what we were trying to do is to get in the door and stay with the district so more teachers can be trained about this i'm glad to hear the progress because um when we had issues bringing up kids through the st brain district um at one point we were addressing the columbus day teachings that were going on which is um kind of the myth of columbus in american americans eyes and we we had a a sympathetic teacher who was willing to try to teach some more real history and there's actually curriculum materials that have been developed called rethinking columbus and we asked for that to be implemented within that school and for it to be considered across the district well the teacher was gung ho but the principal put the stop on it saying that the book had been uh apparently the book had been banned in arizona and we know arizona's got a weird history of banning books that probably don't need to be banned well somehow to make that and we just felt kind of powerless at that point i mean we could have pushed it but then you also have to just like make a living so you don't have time to take the district to court necessarily so to hear progress from a recent grad to hear that you feel like you're learning something is really is really good is is my big point with that because i wasn't very hopeful until i heard that so speaking of books david from facebook would like to hear more of the stories we more about the stories we need to hear do you have any recommendations about books or novels that tell these stories that need to be told well the boulder county latino history there's two volumes set and so that can be purchased on amazon but you can also go to labloga.com and it's a a blog that was started i think about 15 years ago and they do a review of latinx literature and so it's and they also post once a week and so it's a great blog to become aware of what's out there any other favorite books go-to books that you can recommend i wish i wish that all of america would read bury my heart at wounded knee by d brown in high school probably less meal thema it's an all-time classic by rudolfo anaya that really captures um new mexican um culture and the values and the importance of family there's there's people in the audience also wanting to ask questions yes and i do have one more from facebook before we move on um well someone wants to know how we keep me well debora from facebook wants to know how do we keep meeting and so that we can continue to learn and grow i know that el mac long-multicultural action committee is looking at creating more forums for public dialogue anyone else the museum will of course continue to hold these kinds of talks well i know that the museum of boulder also is starting a new series that's called voices vivas and it's a series that is leading up to an exhibit that they are going to have in 2021 but they're really inviting the community to share their stories so if you go to their website you can find out more information about that thank you um i'm strider i've uh been here 15 years and i was on the bridge with john louis 55 years ago in selma i got knocked out twice i was things were pretty severe in those days i worked with snick and sclc both and i've given a keynote address at mlk date along with glinda and uh i wanted to point out the kuklaps clan started organizing in colorado in 1921 and there weren't enough black people really to target like they did in tulsa with the tulsa massacre so they organized to target catholics and emigrants and they went that was their main focus here but they were they took over longmont and boulder and denver and a number of other towns but they never could organize in pueblo or colorado springs now i wonder in pueblo they organized the nwacp back in 1908 in pueblo we only organized in boulder three years ago but uh after the shooting in 1980 here on 9th and main or 11th and may not forget which el comate organized and there's been a lot more consciousness developed since then and you know with mike butler and dan benavitos doing the community walks and the gang activity has been really down and longmont has been a very more progressive and more humane city during this time could anyone up there comment about and appreciate hearing from you lend about the 30s which i didn't know but uh how we built more of a community with more of this history and stories to be uh to get people understanding why and how to make ourself culturally uh functional city and progressive thank you yeah um one of the things that i recognize from uh from that incident when we were actually that was when i was growing up i mean louis was a neighbor to me he my dad was a mentor to louis um so and the kadova family were extended family community family so longmont has a number of families that are generationally connected that are familiar you know it's where we have support each other when somebody has died or somebody has gotten sit or as somebody is um elderly so these families are interconnected and one of the things that i recognize from that time where the the leaders came together and really worked at coming together with social justice and creating change for our community and they were strong and some of the things that i recognize now is that what longmont has done is um similar to like the the history is they formed together an alliance but they actually outreach to some of the resources and use allies to be supportive with them to make change so now currently we actually see that that same structure still continuing and we keep we keep growing that with we have um i really am proud of the relationships we build with the school districts and the relationships we build within you know working with our police department so it was a time when community policing was really important and it showed because we had officers involved with community members and we were all those working together and i feel still feel like that is happening now that you know when we're looking at changes groups now and or um committees meeting around you know um around changes that are happening in the school district or policies within the police department or you know or um equity in the school district so you know i'm really excited to be a part of those committees because that's still part of like the history that is coming forth from what was being developed what had been developed in the beginning of what longmont and the community were um creating um or early on um i've gone to other cities have we gone to other uh communities and they're like how does longmont really have such great resources in our community and how does longmont really work with some of the the the things that need to be spoke about the being real so um yeah maybe that's a little bit about the history that i've known and still knowing that some of those leaders are still at watching and still part of our community is really really valuable i just want to add um to what louis said i was on a panel with chief mike butler actually his last week uh as chief how many of us in here knew that longmont got a national award being the number three um city in the country for community policing who knew that and if we didn't this is this is my point we're not sharing the good news and we're not you know just and as you said just because of the work that dan benavidez and mike butler have done walking the neighborhoods and talking with the people so and everything went down they don't have he says he doesn't hire any police who have a record of of excessive force or any of that so um i think that's important but it's important for all of us to know that too to know the successes and pass them on super important yes i'm afraid we only have time for two more questions all right so my question comes from a facebook crew as well and first i am so thankful for everything in the work that you guys are doing in terms of the history project so i'm going to say some of my pieces uh first as well as um some of the things that you talked to about starting the discussions with that this question is very specific and maybe lorne you can give us some insight there too we've had a lot of discussions in the past and we still have some challenges here in long line i don't want us to forget that what are some of the action that is currently going on to address some of the shortcomings and shortfalls and this is coming from a youth of color specifically black in the area so lorne if you want to address it anyone else i'd love to hear it uh thank you threw me a uh nice softball there so i've been doing a lot of work with the boulder county collective and so we're a group of uh young people and we've kind of got four different pillars um so if you guys are ever looking for ways to get involved that's how we're doing it so we've got housing we've got public safety we've got education and we've got another one that is just escaping me right now um and so those are just the types of of that's the type of work so if you see the march that we did i think about a month back through long month that was the boulder county collective um we've actually got the head of the housing department here as well and i'm heading up education so there is a lot of work that is being done because there are a lot of problems that we need to fix um so yeah thanks for that softball ermine i'm uh Ray Ramirez i have a comment first and then a question uh my comment is that uh you know this country was built on lies and it still is you know these lies are perpetuated from generation to generation to generation our education system teaches those lies and it continues to do so and i think it's incumbent on each one of us to do whatever we can in our power to change that you know there there's not a week that goes by i'm 75 years old and there's not a week that has gone by in my lifetime where i haven't heard about the holocaust in germany you know either tv magazines newspapers we're always reminded of that and we should be but when do we ever hear about the holocaust that happened here the tens of millions of native people that died when do we hear that we don't ever you know and it all comes down to education and the lack of it uh my question is for brett you know i know one of the projects you're working on are peacemaking circles you know and i've always seen this as a really really important step could you explain a little bit about what you do with the indigenous peacemaking circles sure thanks for the question um so i i generally work with tribes who have their own courts that were provided to them provided to them required of them by the united states generally in the 1930s as part of what's called the indian reorganization those are adversarial models much like any old you know state state court um and they don't work just like our courts don't work so well in the outside here um but on top of that the courts are funded at about a third of need and so they're you know they're doomed to fail so what tribes have said is look our people got along somehow they they coexisted for thousands of years together and dealt with problems that come up for humans living in community and what did they do so they want to recover what they used to do and put that into something that would be a more modern alternative forum so i help them set that up it's really a pretty simple process for the most part there's a lot of art to it but it's really treating each other as humans face to face um you lose the hierarchy it's it's hard to believe if you don't come from a different culture if you if you come from a different culture and look at what we have we have all this hierarchy and and all this privilege just in the perpetuation of privilege think about when you go into court the judge is up there you're down here you have to hire somebody who can speak for you and they speak in a different language basically a specialized professional language for you put that in the context of maybe two parents fighting over who wants to spend more time with a kid and that's not very good to to fight it out as hard as you can and even hire a bully to fight it out harder for you and i'm a lawyer so i can say that if to fight a boy you know and the more money you have the the better fighter you can get and some neutral third party decides and really the kids in the middle of that right when you talk about familio how does familio did deal with it when the parents are messing up to sit down and talk about it right and maybe somebody's got some more standing because they're older or they're an expert but everybody knows that they don't have to sit in a position of privilege and shut people up with a gavel when they start talking right so it's a matter of sitting down and talking to people with respect for one another and realizing that everybody around a circle talking about something brings a different perspective and that has value and they may be seeing things in a different way that is going to make an outcome come better so can you that's my passion it's my chante or my corazon or my heart and that so that's a better way to to do things and that's you know why why a forum like this is important it's also why we all need to get out and tell at least five people to vote um we're really in a in a time right now where the applause with which privilege and white supremacy grabs on and and people i don't think they even know it sometimes but the the degree to which they just clutch at it and won't let it go um it's absolutely unbelievable and we're fighting that right now and we're fighting a pushback about that feeling threatened and i you know i don't need to go into any details about that but if you're uncomfortable with the world right now and the way that we're living by gosh we got it we got to make a huge change and that means we personally have to get other people to vote because the the momentum is for people to be lazy and not vote especially those who would like to have voting are not doing it you can rest darn well that the people who are feeling threatened by by positive changes are are motivated they're out there ready you can see their stands popping up anywhere with flags and bumper stickers and screaming and all of that well um the people need to do that the real people the humans who are ready to treat each other with respect need to do that so let's get out and do that let's get out and vote thank you so much Brett Lee Sheldon thank you thank you thank you so much i want to say thank you to the Lomond Museum really thank you so much for hosting us tonight i want to thank thank the audience that has been unbelievable spectacular i also want to help you know really thank Glenda Robinson for being here teaching us sharing us so with so much heart tonight and also Louis Lopez for everything all the stories everything that you give to the community Lauren Jenkins I want to know about that movie that you mentioned I want to now that we are in quarantine we watch a lot of movies I want to know about that and thank you so much for your passion Linda Royal as always thank you so much I want to thank again Justin for opening this wonderful venue tonight I want to say thank you again for hosting us this has been an amazing conversation um and I'm pretty sure this is going to continue and it's going to make the Lomond community stronger this is just the beginning of these voices of change a history of race and social justice in Lomond thank you so much good night everybody let's let's let's thank Rosanna Longo for a great moderating job and I also want to thank the Lomond Multicultural Action Committee and Adriana Pereira for her help in making this happen and please feel free to check us out on the web Lomond Museum.org for more information on upcoming programs special thanks to KGNU our media sponsor the Scientific, Cultural, and Facilities District and all of our museum members and donors and thank you audience and everyone online for joining us this evening have a good one vote