 We know that black history is American history too often limited to tales of blood and struggle and less portrayed in stories of joy and Unsurpassed achievement Colorado is particularly rich in this history as evidenced by the many figures Living in our state who embody the challenges and triumphs unique to black people High school student Joshua Ray had the once in a lifetime opportunity to sit down with both He is Van Ellis one of the last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and Ed Dwight the first black astronaut candidate and acclaimed sculptor The three met at Ed Dwight's Denver based art studio where Joshua spoke with mr. Dwight and mr. Ellis he spoke to them about their lives and achievements not surprisingly Joshua sought their words of advice for young people like himself My name is Joshua red and it was a pleasure meeting you and talking about all the things that you accomplished Like I said, thank you, mr. Hugh Van Ellis also Affectionately known as uncle red for this opportunity It is an honor to have this opportunity to interview you and learn more about your legacy I understand that you have a nickname uncle red and I wanted to know why this nickname was given to you They tell me I was when I was small kid. They said my I had red hair Snow my dad named it red Most of my brothers didn't even know my name the way They always call me red What are some things that you're passionate about? I'm passionate about a good life. I like a good family Who I sit on the top and I like to be around a family would sit on and discuss the plight of my life I like I like to be around people All people I like all people. I don't hate nobody Mr. Ellis, can you please share a little bit about your birthplace and upbringing? I was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma 1921 January 11 1921 and After that we moved to Tulsi, oh Well, I was only five months old That's when the Rob broke out so we we will share crops that time we had came from Holdenville and We got on the way. We got out of town on a horse in a wagon, but We didn't have a automobile like a lot of other people We were shared crop we'd go from town to town and city to city and work on farms like Ladin cock picking cock stuff like that. Hey So that's what my dad did After that route we got out of them. We moved to a place called Clamble, Oklahoma And we grew up. I grew up all over the state of Oklahoma. Sometimes we moved to Kansas. Sometimes we moved back to Oklahoma It's different places There was a dark and tragic day in history of Tulsa known as 1921 Tulsa race massacre Can you tell us how old you were and what you remember about the horrific day? I was only six Five or six months old My sister bowed was about six years old later in the years She tried to tell me a little about it and told me that the during that time they Her shooting and going on and going on as far as stuff and and they told us how to get out of town They said was burning and shooting and killing like they get people in the streets They said They go in the house Set the curtains for Back in there with no water. We didn't have any water. So you had to get out of that house See we we just barely got out of there. Just It's late night And we got out of there just went out sleeping closer. We didn't have time to put our clothes on We're just lucky to get out, you know Later tonight. What was it like growing up in Tulsa during its time of prosperity? What growing up in Tulsa didn't need being a few years after that I used to go to Tulsa with my sister by old in the 30s and That was it when I went back then The black wall street was doing pretty good not as well as it was when the first started So they had their own school home. They had their own hospitals. They have their own nurses They had their own cab service Back and then They had their own tail shops The women had their hat shops You can walk in have a hat made, you know a walk in the ladies man They'd you up for a dress the one that's done as well to give they tell me when before the Basketball, you know, but they did deal some back. What does the term black wall street mean to you? And these are a whole lot to me this state You know, you come and deal something then you get it destroyed And it takes the opportunity with the people, you know, like Probably that wouldn't happen either had about a better opportunity in life, you know Right now. I don't think we You know a lot of people don't trust you build some you might think you're gonna get destroyed so So quite a few black people have a little business, but not like it was black wall street Can you explain the recent and significant court decisions regarding a lawsuit you and others have filed related to the Tulsa race massacre? Last time we were in court They want the case to continue but the judge decided to Throw it out but we It's been 6 months It's been during a year now And she decided to continue the case So, you know attorneys had enough evidence there to make a believe it Just to be done What should justice look like from the descendants of the massacre? Well, it's good. You know the descendants of You know the up-benefits from that and Young people to benefit from it. There's no one history. I think we'll be a better world if everybody knew My history and a lot of them don't know about my history Lot of them have never heard of never heard of it about the Wall Street massacre and they never heard about it and I think The education to young people What is your message to the United States concerning the Tulsa race massacre my message to the United States? we have to We want justice we want something dead about it. We want something dead about it right now We are still Let us have justice for everybody not only just black people And I would think that would help our country When some is done wrongs correct it That's what I think What would you have to say to people that still are? Thinking that we should be separated in colors and cultures and things like that. I Think that's wrong. We all we all want we all want to know we supposed to be one of them That's what I think I think would be a better life Just that need to be a method like everybody else That that's the problem We all want people people we all thought to be one America before we built the United States For freedom freedom of speech. We all human beings That's what I think. What would you like to say to people that are still affected about by these events? I would like to say this you have to keep a living You have to you're not going to forget it But you have to keep living hope Keep your hopes up I think things gonna get better. I Hope this clears up. I hope this I hope this year clears it up What is your message to younger generations concerning the Tulsa race massacre? I message to them I would like them to know about history. That was I was I was taking away from They don't know anything about history and my message that I hope it gets where in schools and books and Then a little they'll learn more about history We were talking about saying the thing back in those days. I'll tell us don't talk about We weren't allowed to talk about See a couple of years ago my sister she was Mentioned to her Grandson my nephew I and she makes mention about the route and that's where this got started It started working And dig it up history. I want what it happened when it happened what happened, you know back in there So my plan is that I Like the for young people to know a lot of young people don't know about a lot of old people don't know about it So that's what I'm concerned about Let people know about what happened back in there How does it make you feel that a lot of schools aren't talking about a lot of African-American history When I was coming like I said You know old people say Don't talk about it. Let the young people know See young people got the people to leave the world. So let them know what's happening And I'm glad I understand it's the books out on it But I've had a lot of interviews so it's probably getting around some of pretend they don't know but they know They don't want to talk about This out there It's out there So that's a good thing So I call this year a good year What would you say to a young person like me who's about to set foot on their own path? He's strong believe in yourself If you haven't got an education get to go to school You're an education Good education That's gonna help to do life That's what that's my suggestion Ed Dwight's artistic portfolio is nothing short of prolific Amazingly so his body of work includes memorials and sculptures across the country depicting the underground railroad The historical roots of jazz Frederick Douglass Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks president Barack Obama to name but a few Mr. Dwight is credited with committing history to physical memory in places like Austin, Texas with a 40-foot long 26-foot tall memorial to African-American history and of course his 27-foot tall cylindrical tower of reconciliation Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma I'm Joshua Ray and it is an honor to sit down here and interview you. Well Joshua, I'm Ed Dwight and I'm a sculptor I've done a lot of things in my life besides sculpting but That thing on the gravestone I wanted to to be sculptor par excellence and stuff I think you did a lot of great things to bring young African-Americans like myself to Reach and go to different levels and you inspire many people so I just want to thank you for that And my first question is who has inspired you in your life to shape you as the person that you are now Well, you know you I have to start with the basics, you know My mom set an interesting table for me because I I started school when I was two years old and she had me and every art class and got me a library court at four and Got me on as an altar boy when I was five and got me the Cub Scouts when I was six and Boy Scouts when I was seven and then this went on with her kind of guiding My mom had a college degree. So she kind of knew what with where she was coming from and Miss of course since I was a little kid does she Took care to show me what the world was all about, you know Then what kind of things it grew it had made food and and gave me lessons on the Milky Way and orbital mechanics that I Ended up finding out. I didn't know what orbital mechanics was. I got a space program And my mother was teaching me all the seven out of three or four years old and and then my dad and in a kind of a different Approach he was not a very talk talkative he was kind of He was on he went to the 10th grade school and dropped out of school But what was magic about watching my dad and and the contrast between him and I used to get my mom was But my dad had something to offset that and he left school at the age of 16 to play professional baseball So he played in the Negro baseball league and was a star in the Negro baseball league, you know with the 10th grade education But at the end of the day Things come together in strange ways the owner of the Kansas City Monarchs baseball team His father his brother was a PhD chemist So when my dad left baseball he got my dad a job working in in his chemical lab and 20 years later my dad Was a chief chemist of the state grain department for the state of Kansas So now you say what in the world? How could that happen to me? Did this guy with a 10th grade education? And he was a judge. He was a George Watson and carver of chemistry And the guy was brilliant as a chemist, but he was taught by the right people and so So I have to give it the props from both my mom and dad But I didn't have ever have any trouble getting mentors Because as a kid I was always doing things the guy didn't have a fill board that owned KC photo And I got a job work for him delivering film For him at 15 and reason I'm saying because all these guys in the answer question about mentorship and Naturally, I'm going to school. There's a poor time job naturally And I was so precocious to him this guy taught me film of photography And I'm next thing, you know, I'm in charge of his developing room When I turned 17 or 18 this man 60 year old man who had been in that business his whole life offered me his business It's a and he says I'll sell it to you for nothing Because I've been working for him for this guy for a couple years, right? and I had known These people outside didn't know that I was developing their film that I was he put me in charge of the film room and The whole thing and the large ringing room and I knew photography And I was this kid and this man is going to give me his business Well, what's up with that, you know, but I chose to join the Air Force instead And this guy got mad at me. I mean, he said how could dare you? You know, you're you're perfect for this job So why wouldn't you take it? That's an opportunity But my mom put my coat tell as he said son If he gave you that business, do you think all the rest of those white businesses are gonna continue to do business with This guy with the company and the answer was no But I had mentors coming out of the woodwork everywhere and I I came to the conclusion The more things that you're really interested in and you do them. Well, whatever they are Mentors come false are falling out of the sky You are many different things and a number of titles including the first African-American astronaut candidate an Engineer and a sculptor What drives you to be motivated to accomplish all these things? well mom Mom taught taught me that, you know, I mean first of all she told me how wonderful America was and about people who need things and That that the best thing I could do was to start When I got to be a real guy To start fulfilling needs the needs of folks and stuff And so and I look back on everything I've done and it all dropped out as a need pattern when I saw Somebody that needed something I was there because one of the boys got to see it So if you have a little old lady across the street, you get across the street, too, you know And so and I adopted that attitude and and when I got in the military I started changing things that I could change at my level And you know and the black Enlisted kids that came in I mentored them and they helped them out and they died just I want to go to work for Lieutenant Dwight, you know Because he gets in and understands what we're doing and to help us, you know Because I saw a pattern happening in the military and I was an officer, right? And I was sitting watch You you'd have black enlisted people that had been there for a time and these white kids will come in and The blacks were trained down and I say, you know these white kids are getting promoted over the People that trained them, but I just saw it was an inequity and I just there's something wrong with that And the same thing happened when we were trained when I was a flight instructor We were training pilots from all over the world. They gave me all the white guys from Norway and Denmark, you know And they gave all the brown guys from Iraq Iran Turkey, Japan And they gave them to the white guys Okay, and they were watching these brown guys out like you won't believe So what's Captain Joseph us Captain Joseph? I said, what's going on here? I saw the all the all these all these white guys are graduating You know all my all my guys are white and all that kind of stuff and the other guys had their white guys, too But all the brown guys are getting washed out. What's going on? And my captain Joseph is none of your business and and so about a week later And I could put apparently he had done a little bit of research. He calls a man. He says, you know It was 10 to a year, you're right I said, what's your solution? I said, we'll give all the brown ones to me and I started graduating these kids And it didn't have a thing thing to do with the qualifications at all They had to do the language barrier because these white guys and do this and they does the language and flying away And these guys didn't understand that because a lot of buzzwords in flying, you know The white that a white kid would understand that they didn't understand and I was graduating these kids like you won't believe You know and I got there was no word for that, you know, and so You asked me why I do this stuff and it has to be when I see something that's out of kilter out of whack I got first of all gotta stop was I can do anything about it or not But when opportunities came that I could do something about it. Well, hell, I didn't care anything about About it being none of my business. I just thought there was something wrong with it When did you realize that sculpting would be your career? Did this come easy for you? When I realized that art was gonna be my career I was too But but I had this knack for making images From the beginning and that's and I got a scholarship out of high school. I had the one the first three ribbons and the Kansas Start art competition in the state of Kansas and they didn't have been done before and And I saw the nuns I went to private Catholic school So the nuns took it to Kansas City the audience to took those paintings over there and they gave me a scholarship To go and be the first blight to go to the Kansas City the audience to so I was heading straight for the art world And and my dad sat down got a hold of me and and he said what are you gonna do? I said I'm gonna so be an artist. He said no, you're not Yes, I'm not gonna take care of you the rest of your life boy, you know, and so I said, what do you think I should be doing? She said you're going to engineering school And I said, well, what do they do? You know, what do they do in my brain? We had a railroad track that went right past the farm every day And I was I and I go I said I'd wave it at the it the engineer It was driving the train My man told me I was gonna be an engineer. I said that I don't want to drive no train And he said what the hell's wrong with you boy? He's crazy But I'll talk about an engineer. I said, what do they do and he said they make money That's all you need to know They have architectural engineering And so I can draw so I went went to college and I Was gonna be an architecture engineer, you know, and that was satisfy him and I could draw I could still draw and design things It's like that, you know, and so so anyway, that's where I was headed. I got an opportunity to It's a big pilot. So I chose that how do you feel about your life's pathway? Well, you know when you're doing it, you know, you don't think in those terms You know to me everything I've ever done is all connected to each other. I mean there's nothing Because people look at it. So what are you talking about? You do you was over here doing Doing hatching that stuff and military stuff and over here you you're building buildings over here And over here you got this big restaurant chain you sell people food and then I know over here You got this thing going over here. You got that thing going and to me that that was all connected to me It was all connected together And there were opportunities every single one of those things was a classic opportunity To do something bigger and better. They're kind of denied they had done before but they had to do with helping folks It was all every one of those things I did was for helping to fulfill a need because when I got into the construction business The need was black housing in Denver, Colorado It was a black housing hardly You know, we didn't have kind of big big time ghettos with the hundreds of hundreds of apartments Like like Chicago and somebody's other place. We didn't have that and it was 60,000 blacks in the state of Colorado And you go back east that's 60,000 blacks and four five blocks And so so we didn't have that impact of stuff, but but the stuff did come up about What is black housing exists? Is there black housing? Is there a need for black housing in Denver? You know because because when I when I first came to Colorado Vice could not live east of your York Street Okay, which is not for from here after I got out of military I came to Devon I was the first black to move live on my view Boulevard across chiefs from the museum in my restaurant chain I I I'm from Kansas City And they have good barbecue in Kansas City So obviously I wanted some barbecue I can't see the barbecue in Denver And so I built my own barbecue rip chain But and I designed my own barbecue sauce and hooked up with the department of agriculture for all my recipes I designed to be a year. So I had five restaurants one in four columns and One downtown and one in Inglewood one on West Co, West Co fact and one on Colorado Boulevard So anyway, I had all these brushes, but I want I did it. So we're gonna have some good barbecue in Denver, you know That's why as a result of that the answer question all these things all kind of fit together in a larger plan To bring equity if you will to things that there were that were needed But but but but those are the challenges that it was all there was a bunch of fun When when you start to think about it, you know So I've done all of these things, but it was fulfilling a need What is or has been important to you? What's what's kind of important to me? Like I'm I'm kind of lose my sight now and the thing I worry I don't worry about I'm not worried about the money. If I stop doing what I'm doing right now I don't worry about the money. I I Kind of worry a little bit about missing what I'm doing because I love what I do, you know, I mean But the thing that That's critical to me is my clients all the rest of us if we can go but never made another diamond in my life I want these clients to be happy and I want them to Finish their their dream because they come to me to manifest their dream, you know, and I got a group of people That I've made commitments to and and that's all things important to me right now is making them happy What would you say to a young person like me who's about to set foot on their own path? Well, you know the world is wider, especially today The world is wide open for you to do anything you want any dream you could possibly have And and it's all about preparing for it and getting ready for it. And if you're really interested in something There's Google there. I mean there are things the way you can do research. You can't believe okay There's Wikipedia all this stuff that Wikipedia gives you came from books And if you go down to the very big biography, there's all those books that they got it from so that's where I went You know for the information that I needed and I went got those books wherever they were through Amazon or whatever To sit on and figure out, you know, where was I going? To be prepared for what this dream if I had a dream first we got to get the dream That's the first order of business. Okay, what are you interested in and you really got to be interested in whatever it is It doesn't make any difference, you know, but be the best Whatever it is that you can be because in every one everything that we talked about just now had to do with a People coming to me and Offering me stuff Hardly any of that stuff except for the barbecue rib thing You know Came from a Dwight, but the rest of stuff people Came to me and said I think you can do this Well, I'm offering you an opportunity to do this Whether it was flying with the astronaut the whole astronaut thing was all about that. It was about my body of work What was I doing? How good was I doing it? What was I do was it was at the top of my game? And so when the president was looking for a black astronaut I mean they had to go find one. What do you why do you find a black astronaut? You go find somebody that's been doing something really really well And getting rewarded for it. And that's how they Out of all the pie black pilots in the United in the world at that time. Why are they at Dwight? What was it about me and it was my body of work? Because I had done it very very well and I was getting a war at every other month They either you're just finishing another college thing or or fixing something within the in the in the operation unit that I was in And I had the greatest jobs in the world and I did them all well But I worked my fanny off to get ready for me whether I was doing the intelligence briefing to the general staff And you know, I'm just I was on the San Francisco air traffic control board I was the youngest member of their air traffic control board and I'm on a board as a captain In my 20s with seven company presidents of seven airlines What's that all about? You know and what that was all about that? Was that I volunteered to go to air traffic control school in Oklahoma City when the opportunity came up to do that You know and and I had done all this stuff and did it well So when the president came to look for a black astronaut my name fell out, you know Here's a guy that can bend this guy. He's doing everything seemingly very very well And the requirement was The last three effectiveness reports that you had that the officers get every year the last three Had to be rated outstanding for me to become an astronaut. Okay. Well, my last four were rated outstanding And so it's that kind of stuff. I'm saying that but whatever the dream is you got to stay with it find a mentor and listen to what he says and It was great to have you here in my studio and and being interested in doing this stuff Interfering me and so this is absolutely phenomenal And I hope you walk away with something from from here. I mean, I really hope that that Talking to me and being this environment with all these people who are trying to do great things is just just to listen to what they're saying and if you got it in Anything that you need answers to after this whole thing is over Give me a holler and just give me a ring to say hey, Mr. Dwight. What would you do in a case like this? Thanks a lot again To learn more about mr. Ellis's story, which is still unfolding today, please visit justice for greenwood.org and To learn more about mr. Dwight's continuing artistic inspirations and to view his incredible sculptural masterpieces, please visit ed white com To continue the growth and development of educational and community resources Centering black folks. We invite you to both support and plan to visit history Colorado's black history and cultural heritage department The Blair Caldwell African-American Research Library the black American West Museum and Heritage Center and The Center for African and African-American Studies on the CU Boulder campus