Jeffco

driveways.

Most of us in this valley delight in what we’ve been able to see from our front door: Uninterrupted ridgelines, cli s, and the rounded slopes that converge to make foothills, which then rise into mountains. Nature made these views, and we’ve been fortunate to have them in our lives every day.

But more and more, houses that resemble castles are sprouting on ridgelines and hilltops, here and all over the mountains. And sometimes it’s ordinary houses or trailers that get built on ridgelines, interrupting the natural ow of the land.

Where only a few years ago our eyes might nd comfort in tracing a ridge’s backbone — wondering how it got to be named White

Pine Mountain when no white pines grow there — now we look at manmade structures that irritate the eyes.

People who have lived in my valley

LINDA SHAPLEY Publisher lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com

MICHAEL DE YOANNA Editor-in-Chief michael@coloradocommunitymedia.com

KRISTEN FIORE West Metro Editor kfiore@coloradocommunitymedia.com

ANDREW FRAIELI Community Editor afraieli@coloradocommunitymedia.com for decades share a di erent style. Appreciating what a winter wind can do to steal warmth from inside a house, they looked for sheltered areas to build. ey saw it made sense to build low, tucking a home against the south side of a hill or cli . ere is some good news, because

Most yard lights were few and hard to see, as were their homes. But the new Western lifestyle broadcasts yard lights at night for all to see, just as the homes are conspicuously visible during the day.

In this newfangled West that has “ranched the view,” people apparently need to stand out to enjoy an amenity lifestyle. Will these new folk ever take time to appreciate the human and natural histories of the place they live in now, to show respect for the land and its natural beauty? Will they learn to be considerate of neighbors and not take away from the views that de ne where we live?

It’s shameful to think that just as we rst moved into the West to exploit its valuable resources, we now exploit the last resource our region has to o er — its heart-stopping beauty.

MINDY NELON Marketing Consultant mnelon@coloradocommunitymedia.com

AUDREY BROOKS Business Manager abrooks@coloradocommunitymedia.com

ERIN FRANKS Production Manager efranks@coloradocommunitymedia.com

LINDSAY NICOLETTI Operations/ Circulation Manager lnicoletti@coloradocommunitymedia.com in many parts of the West we are learning how to sustainably log, graze, divert water and develop energy. I hope it’s not too late for us to also realize the value of tting into the land as residents, to keep intact our ridgelines, mesas, mountains and valley oors. Once a house caps a hilltop, however, that view is irretrievable, gone forever.

I hope we can learn how to value homes that blend with the land in shape, color and location. Maybe a new generation of home builders, architects, and developers will lead the way in paying due respect to our region’s natural beauty.

But I’m afraid that it’s too late for our valley. e great writer Wallace Stegner told us that the task of Westerners was to build a society to match the scenery. From what I see, we’re not doing the job.

Richard Knight is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonpro t that hopes to inspire lively conversation about the West. He works at the intersection of land use and land health in the American West.

Columnist opinions are not necessarily those of the Transcript. We welcome letters to the editor. Please include your full name, address and the best number to reach you by telephone.

Email letters to kfiore@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Deadline Wed. for the following week’s paper.

TO THE EDITOR

“To Kill A Mockingbird” at the DCPA was a troubling experience e acting was superb. e experience was out of this world. e sta was, as they always are, extra. Trouble No. 1 was the content.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is, really, one big exercise in self-congratulatory feel good for white people. It is a Bildungsroman. A country lawyer in Jim Crow Alabama during the Great Depression is arm-twisted into defending a wrongfully accused Black townsman. He delivers a compassionate and brilliant defense. He respects and exhibits decency towards his client. He loses the case. e client dies. e Black experience is absent. Tom Robinson and his family are a at le. ey serve as a prop to the white Bildung. He and his horri ed, traumatized family have no voice. ing is, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is, like most of the legacy of the 20th century, one big individual nonsolution to a collective problem. e collective problem is the free rein that the state of Alabama conferred on the KKK to in ict their terror on Black communities. It is the bigoted criminality that is the criminal (non-) justice system of the Jim Crow South. e individual solution: be kind to your fellow Black client. at was trouble No. 1. e audience. e near-religious fervor. e parking garage was FULL. e auditorium was SOLD OUT. e house was AT CAPACITY. Compare that to the November show “Ain’t Too Proud: e Temptations.” at show was NOT sold out. e demographics: older, white. People of color? I noticed three.

Trouble number two? e masses.

When Atticus Finch entered the stage, the audience clapped and cheered. He had said no words and delivered no performance yet. Obviously, the applause went to the IDEA of Atticus. To be sure, the applause was not misplaced; Richard omas ended up delivering an extraordinary performance. But the applause held a tinge of cultish fervor. Creepy.

In 1960, when the novel was rst published, white men being decent to the Black underdog may have been progressive and novel. It is 2023, folks!

Floy Je ares, Lakewood

Radon: the leading cause of cancer in people who don’t smoke

Being a lifelong health enthusiast, health educator and tness trainer — and married to a primary care physician — my family and I were blindsided by my Stage 3A lung cancer diagnosis in October of 2018. We were shocked as I had no respiratory symptoms and I have never smoked. My cancer was found incidentally while investigating what later turned out to be a benign ovarian cyst.

It wasn’t until my son, an environmental engineer, asked me if I had ever tested our home for radon when I learned that virtually anyone with lungs can get lung cancer and that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. It is the rst leading cause of lung cancer in people who don’t have a history of smoking.

Considering the risk for lung cancer is high, why aren’t people exposed to high radon levels eligible for lung cancer screening? e United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends people ages 50-80 with a 20pack year history of smoking, or have quit in the past 15 years, get a low dose CT scan, which is painless and takes only a few minutes.

Based on the conversation with our son, we tested our home using methods recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency and discovered that the radon levels in our home were elevated above the threshold of 4 pico curies (pCi/L). e EPA strongly advises that any radon level at or above 4 pCi/L should be reduced through a radon mitigation system. Radon mitigation needs to be done by professionally accredited operators and most health departments — in- cluding the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment — post lists of accredited mitigators.

Radon is an invisible and odorless radioactive gas that can be found in many homes. It comes from the decomposition of uranium in soil, rock and water and gets into the air you breathe. When inhaled, radon can cause serious health problems including lung cancer. About half of all homes in Colorado have radon levels above the recommended limit of 4 pCi/L.

While there is no way for me to know with certainty if radon caused my lung cancer, I want people to know it is one risk factor that can be tested for and reduced to safe levels very easily. I also want people to know that smoking and exposure to radon are not the only risk factors for lung cancer and that many people develop lung cancer despite having no known risk factors. Exposure to secondhand smoke, family history of lung cancer and air pollution are risk factors for lung cancer. Report any persistent symptoms you have to your doctor. Being young and having no known history of tobacco use does not make you immune to lung cancer, even if the risk is low. Despite the well-known risks of radon, it concerns me that there isn’t more public health messaging about radon, especially given its high prevalence in Colorado and many other states. e EPA estimates that radon kills approximately 21,000 people in the U.S. every year and about 2,900 of these deaths occur among people who have never smoked. ese numbers may be a low estimate, as I know my doctor never asked me if I knew the radon level of my home when I was diagnosed. In fact, only a small number of family physicians transmit radon information to their patients. Please consider testing your home for radon at least every two years as recom- mended by the EPA because levels can change due to movement of soil, or new cracks in the foundation. Even if you have a mitigation system, testing is still recommended. A mitigation system is like any other appliance, and it can malfunction or stop working. Learn more about radon and radon mitigation from the EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Heidi Nafman Onda is a cancer

GOLDEN – Henry “Duke” Smith died peacefully on February 1, 2023 following a long illness. He was born March 30, 1937 in Lawrence, KS, the second of four children, to Henry Smith and Ruth (Watson) Smith. He was predeceased by his parents and three siblings.

He graduated from Lawrence High School in 1955 and attended the University of Kansas where he studied engineering and played varsity baseball. After playing a short time for the Oklahoma City Indians, his pursuit of a professional baseball career ended in injury.

Duke married the love of his life, eresa (Byers) in 1959 and the couple settled in Lawrence, KS, where, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, he became a police o cer with the Lawrence, KS Police Department. e couple welcomed a daughter, Sharon, in 1960 and a son, Duane, in 1962.

Duke held positions in both the Lawrence, KS and Kansas City, MO Police Departments between 1962 and 1966, but during a trip to Colorado in 1966 he and his wife fell in love with the state and decided to make Colorado their permanent home.

He was hired in 1966 as a patrolman for the City of Edgewater, launching a groundbreaking career of service and leadership that would span a quarter century.

He was appointed Chief in 1979, making history as the rst AfricanAmerican police chief in the state of Colorado. He retired in 1991 and was the longest tenured law enforcement o cer in Edgewater’s history.

In October ‘91 he was appointed by Governor Roy Romer and the Colorado Department of Transportation to spearhead “Operation Buckle Down” a nationallyfunded seat belt campaign whose purpose was to educate and save lives. He served until 2006, working with law enforcement agencies throughout the state.

Duke lived life to the fullest, pursuing his hobbies and life interests with the same zeal and commitment he was known for in his professional life. He was an avid tennis player, award-winning photographer, pilot, and world traveler, whose favorite city was Paris, France. He loved gardening and adored spending time with his three grandchildren.

Duke is survived by his wife of 63 years, eresa Smith, children Sharon SmithMauney (Leonard) and Duane Smith, and grandchildren Kyle Mauney, Mariah Smith and Bronson Smith.

Memorial service, Saturday, 2/18, 11am at Edgewater United Methodist Church. In lieu of owers donations may be made to e Denver Hospice, 8289 E. Lowry Blvd., Denver, CO 80230

Proclaiming Christ from the Mountains to the Plains www.StJoanArvada.org

12735 W 58th Ave · 80002 · 303-420-1232

Daily Masses: 8:30am, Mon-Sat

Confessions: 8am Tue-Fri; 7:30am & 4:00pm Sat

Saturday Vigil Mass: 5:00pm

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BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

While working out at a gym in Golden recently, someone approached Ty Scrable and asked if he was associated with Colorado School of Mines. Scrable had to explain that, no, he’s just a Golden resident.

Unfortunately, Scrable said, this isn’t the rst time it’s happened.

“I get that a lot,” he said. “People think I’m a student, professor or tourist because I’m Black.”

Systemic racism stubbornly remains in Golden. But, as Scrable said, it has morphed from Ku Klux Klan demonstrations in the 1920s and racist housing policies in the 1940s to something less overt but still widespread and endlessly frustrating.

Because White people make up the overwhelming majority in the city and, thus, are seen as the norm, Scrable said, “many people don’t view me as part of my own community.” e newspaper, which now is part of Colorado Community Media, isn’t immune to biased coverage. is report is the product of its journalists attempting to examine the paper’s coverage of the Black community since the Civil Rights era and own up to its mistakes.

In the wake of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020, many cities and newspapers across the United States have started reckoning with their pasts, examining how they’ve contributed to systemic racism, learning what they can do to be more inclusive and fair. e Golden community has started the process, and now it’s the Golden Transcript’s turn.

Since 1866, the Golden Transcript — known as the Colorado Transcript for its rst 103 years — has been a record keeper for Je erson County. While its stories are extensive and valuable, the paper contains original and reprinted content that was harmful to the Black community and other marginalized groups.

Just one example is its coverage of the Black Panther Party, a group that gained national attention in the late 1960s for its response to policing in Black communities across the country.

Between 1969-1971, the newspaper published approximately 170 articles that referenced the Black Panther Party. Nearly all of these articles

BEYOND THE GOLDEN TRANSCRIPT: Our efforts to reconcile racial mistrust begins with this story

In our newspaper this week, you’ll see an article about the Golden Transcript. It’s one of two dozen newspapers owned by Colorado Community Media, which also owns this paper. The article tackles the issue of systemic racism in the Transcript’s pages.

The idea for the project started in 2020, when the Colorado News Collaborative, Colorado Media Project and Free Press convened the Black Voices Working Group, which was made up of Black leaders, community members and journalists. The group addressed media coverage and focused on how to improve trust in mainstream media among the Black community. Acknowledging past harm was the No. 1 recommendation made by the group.

A few months later, I attended a Denver Press Club event where Jameka Lewis, a senior librarian at the BlairCaldwell African American Research Library, illustrated biases in mainstream local media coverage of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and ’70s while exhibiting rare prints of the Black Panther Press. Many of Lewis’ examples came from the Transcript. Most articles were wire stories from other cities, but editors still chose to run them, affecting perceptions of the party in Golden.

We pursued and were awarded a grant from the nonpartisan Colorado Media Project to explore, uncover and analyze this issue in the form of the special report that is in this edition of your newspaper.

Our newsroom, which is predominantly White, also participated in the Maynard Institute’s diversity, equity and inclusion Fault Lines training along the way. West metro editor Kristen Fiore was a speaker at the Advancing Equity in Local News convening with journalists from publications like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post to talk about this project.

We believe this story is important beyond Golden — and we hope to spark conversations in our communities across the Denver area about race and inclusion and how our news coverage impacts those issues.

Linda Carpio Shapley is publisher of Colorado Community Media, which runs two dozen weekly and monthly publications in eight counties. She can be reached at lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com presented the group in a negative light, with words such as “fugitive,” “thugs” and “militants.” And, the Transcript appeared to rarely cover the Black community in the city and wider region. Because of this, their voices are missing in archives, now online as an important chronicling of Colorado’s history.

By not including these voices in an accurate light, and by publishing stories that reinforced harmful stereotypes and/or recorded Black people’s traumatic experiences in an apathetic or ippant way, the Golden Transcript’s coverage contributed to systemic racism, according to researchers and Black community leaders.

Jameka Lewis, senior librarian at the Denver Public Library’s Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library and a freelance researcher on this report, said Transcript readers may have had their beliefs about the Black Panther Party, and the Black community in general, shaped by the Transcript’s negative portrayals.

“ ere is harm when it comes to media and the Black community in Denver and Colorado,” Lewis said. “If we want to repair the harms, we have to acknowledge that (they are) factual.”

Alfonzo Porter, editor-in-chief at Denver Urban Spectrum and a journalism professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said mass media has been at the epicenter of “propagating negative images and re ections of the AfricanAmerican community.”

“It really stems out of our country’s background, and we’re still dealing with those biases,” he said.

While almost all of the Transcript’s stories about the Black Panther Party were from wire services like United Press International, Porter said the Transcript and other newspapers are accountable for reprinting those stories.

“It’s exactly like original reporting, because … the editorial sta sat in a room, looked at this piece, determined that it was appropriate and ran with it in the paper,” he said.

The Black Panther Party e Black Panther Party for Self Defense started in 1966 in Oakland, California. Founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale started the organization as a response to police brutality there and in other Black communities, according to Lewis’ research. e party had a 10-point program that included demands for Black liberation and societal

The Coverage

How national, Denver-area papers covered the party Sisters Ida Daniel, Pat Rogers and JoEllen Greenwood grew up in Denver and graduated from East High School in the ’60s and early ’70s. ey recalled reading e Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News and watching the nightly news on TV. ey also listened to the city’s Black radio station, KDKO, and read Black-oriented magazines like Ebony and Jet.

Overall, the three didn’t recall a lot of news stories about Black people in the mainstream press, unless it was negative. e news covered Black people who were arrested for murder, robbery, rioting and other crimes. Rogers summarized the coverage as: “Be afraid of Black people.” at kind of coverage played out with the Black Panthers. In 2016, e New York Times analyzed stories about the Panthers, noting “journalists were at once fascinated and frightened by them” and their activities in the 1960s and ‘70s. Coverage about the Denver Panthers in Black newspapers in the area at the time was scant. Of those Lewis researched, the Black-owned publication e Denver Blade published the most articles on the group’s activities, both locally and nationally, in 1969.

Its coverage appears to be fairly balanced, Lewis said.

One Blade article discussed the Panthers’ orga- improvement. Eventually, the Black Panthers led more than 35 community programs across the country, like the Free Breakfast for School Children Program — also known as e Free People’s Food Program, which helped feed Black children from economically disadvantaged families.

In Denver, a chapter gained recognition in 1967. Led by Lauren Watson, the chapter’s history was largely erased or ignored, Lewis said, adding that the Denver Panthers were instrumental in the ght for civil rights in Colorado.

It’s important to note that many Black community members both then and now have mixed feelings about the Panthers and their work, Lewis stressed.

Longtime Denver residents she interviewed formed their opinions largely based on what they read about the Black Panthers in newspapers and saw on TV. Yet that coverage contrasts with what many in the community saw the Denver Black Panthers doing. ey were involved in school board and City Council meetings, provided free meals for children, and worked to nizing a meeting to discuss policing and police presence at Cole Jr. High School in Denver’s diverse Whittier neighborhood. It chronicled the Black community’s e orts to address a racial gap between teachers and Black students. One possible solution, and likely at the suggestion of the Denver Black Panthers, was to establish Cole as a Freedom School, a concept that focused on Black pride and Black liberation in academics.

In contrast, the Denver Post also covered the meeting but didn’t mention the Panthers’ involvement in organizing the event or the Freedom School proposal. In a review of Post archives, the story focused on arrests. e Denver Blade coverage did not mention any Black Panther arrests.

“Oftentimes, it was up to Black news media to cover this group in a more comprehensive way, which I believe e Denver Blade did,” Lewis said. “It covered all aspects of the local and national Panthers, and o ered readers a more balanced view of the members of this group.” e Denver Blade stopped operating in 1970.

How Golden’s newspapers covered the Panthers e Transcript published approximately 170 articles that used the terms “Black Panther” or “Black Panthers” between 1969-1971. Almost all of these were reprinted stories from wire services, which seldom described anything positive about the party or its members. improve the welfare of their neighborhoods and its residents.

“Many Black people believed what the media said about the Panthers,” said Terry Nelson, a lifelong member of the Denver community. “ … It depended on the source. We recognized that the newspapers weren’t telling the truth about the members. … We knew that the Denver members were active in schools, speaking with teachers and parents. We never saw that in the major newspapers.”

Tracie Keesee, a former Denver police captain and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity, described how during this tumultuous period, the press played into the hands of government o cials.

Newsrooms considered police as trustworthy and well-respected sources, so it was easy for them to hand reporters a story and have it taken at face value, Keesee said.

Keesee added: “We see it now, right? at divisiveness in the media, the stories that are being told — or not being told.” e only article referencing the party’s free breakfast program was published April 30, 1970, about Baltimore police rounding up Black Panthers suspected of killing a patrolman. After searching party headquarters, police searched a school where it conducted its breakfast program, among other locations. e coverage used negative language to describe the Panthers, their neighborhoods and any activities they were involved in. Because of this, Golden-area residents absorbed and believed what they heard and saw in the news coverage, Lewis stated. e role of the press in forwarding racial inequality really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, Keesee said, especially to communities of color.

In contrast, the Colorado School of Mines student paper, e Oredigger, published at least two stories about the Black Panther Party. Both were straightforward accounts of Lauren Watson, the head of the Denver chapter, visiting Golden.

Ultimately, while coverage of the Black Panthers varied by publication, the Golden Transcript failed to cover the party’s community initiatives or involvement. It did, however, print dozens of wire stories about the party’s supposed criminal activity and police raids associated with the group.

“It’s not just that person that wrote the story, that person had an editor, right? ere wasn’t anything in that editor’s mind that said, ‘Yeah…this seems a little biased. Did you even go into the community, or did you just take that o the wire and repeat it?’” ere’s no excuse for sloppy journalism, as it is harmful and contributes directly to a larger narrative, Keesee said.

“When you talk about media coverage, there were only three channels on the television, back then; there was no social media,” she said, adding, “the newspapers were cranking out those stories overnight and you were waiting for your morning paper. Nobody was up waiting for breaking news. So, the news that was coming out, it was more focused and easier to control.”

And when news was breaking, “it

The Community

Golden in the 1960s and ’70s

Built on lands traditionally inhabited by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and other tribes, Golden City was founded in 1859. According to Allan Tellis, a doctoral student of political science at the University of Colorado-Boulder and freelance researcher on this report, Golden has never had a signi cant Black population.

Census data from 1960 shows that the Golden division of Je erson County had 28 Black residents. By 1970, that number had increased to 86. Overall, those numbers represent 0.15% and 0.27% of the total population, respectively, according to Tellis.

As of 2020, Golden had 388 Black residents, representing 1.9% of the city’s population.

Longtime Golden residents recalled how many of the city’s Black residents in the late 1960s and early ’70s were associated with Colorado School of Mines as students, professors or their family members. As far as discussions about the Black Panther Party speci cally or race relations in general, longtime White residents said the topic didn’t come up much because there wasn’t a large Black population in the area.

Rick Gardner, a resident who has studied Golden’s history extensively, said the community had “other preoccupations at the time,” such as labor clashes at the Coors brewery and the Vietnam War.

John Akal, a longtime Goldenite and current columnist for the Transcript, described how he spent his summers in Chicago, where it was “a whole di erent situation.” Because of the 1968 Chicago riots, which were sparked by the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Akal remembered a lot of racial tension in the city at the time.

But that was Chicago.

Golden was di erent, but not necessarily better.

The KKK in Golden Overt discrimination in Golden against Black people and other was breaking only one way, and those narratives were pretty narrow,” she added.

The newsroom

During this timeframe, the Transcript was a daily paper with a small sta of six and a wire service that provided regional and national news.

Neil Paulson, who was managing editor from 1970-75, said the paper relied on United Press International reports to cover many issues, including the Black Panthers.

“It was a terrible service, especially for a small paper,” he said. “It cost us a little more, but eventually we went to e Associated Press.” e only dictate from the paper’s owners, e Kansas City Star and the Great (Kansas) Tribune, was to run a local story on the front page, Paulson said. National and regional stories ran inside.

Paulson noted that Golden’s population at the time, as it is today, was communities peaked with the Ku Klux Klan, which had a strong presence in the city and throughout Colorado, particularly in the 1920s. e Klan began in Denver in 1921 and eventually “all but took possession of the state of Colorado,” according to a report in the Steamboat Pilot. Klan members throughout Denver gathered on Golden’s South Table Mountain for cross-burnings and other rituals. According to Golden History, the mountain could attract up to 10,000 members.

Overall, the Klan helped prevent or deter unknown numbers of Black people from carving out lives in the area. History Colorado recently released ledgers of KKK membership that show seven members of the terrorist organization resided in the Golden area, Tellis added.

Racist housing policies, practices

While the Klan’s activities are certainly one reason Golden has a small Black population, it’s not the only reason. Discriminatory housing practices also contributed.

Don Cameron, a former Jefferson County teacher and current Golden city councilor, has researched zoning history and discriminatory housing policies and practices, including some accounts recorded in the Transcript.

While many Black residents in Denver were constricted by redlining, their counterparts in Golden faced other challenges.

“Starting in the ’20s and into the ’40s, it was common for people to say that they would only sell their individual property to those of the Caucasian race, or non-Negro race individuals,” Cameron stated in a self-published article about Golden’s zoning history.

“ e courts backed up this right because they were protecting the homeowners’ use of their land and had no civic duty to prevent this discrimination,” the article continues. “Blacks were excluded from being shown properties in these restrictive neighborhoods, and if they tried to purchase them, (they) might have it taken away soon predominantly White.

He knew two Black Goldenites during his years as editor. One was Monroe Jordan, an assistant chef at downtown Golden’s historic Holland House, who later worked at the nearby Ace-Hi Tavern.

When Jordan died, Paulson ran a story on the front page that brie y memorialized him but mostly discussed an attempt to nd his relatives, as no one had come forward to claim Jordan’s body nearly two weeks after his death.

Readers didn’t react positively to the front-page piece.

“I got a couple of nasty phone calls, but no one admitted to their bias,” Paulson said. “ ey refused to apologize, of course. ey said I shouldn’t have put that on the front page. In typical Golden fashion, there was nothing speci c, other than to say, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ e thought of another race didn’t exist.”

For the Transcript’s newsroom, Paulson said there was no “codi ed policy on racism” during his time there.

“We condemned it, but we made little e ort to actively attack it,” he said. “( e) Black Panthers seem remote from Golden, where there were few Black families.”

One place where Paulson thought racism showed up was on the editorial page. e paper had four syndicated columnists every day who lived outside the community. ey were selected by the publisher because “they were cheap and not already being published by the two Denver dailies,” he stated.

Paulson said he had no doubt the paper could be accused of racism for its coverage in those days.

“But I’d like to think it was by omission rather than intent,” he said. “We rarely spoke of racism and did little to come out against its pernicious e ects. I don’t remember anyone on the sta making racist remarks, and I think I would have remembered that.” after.”

Perhaps the most evident example of this was in 1942, when Logus Butler and Susie A. Allison paid $1,500 for 30 acres near present-day Boyd Street in north Golden. ey planned to build on it, but they were forced to sell a few months later after Golden residents drove them out.

“A large number of citizens appeared before the City Council

Wednesday evening,” the Transcript reported Oct. 22, 1942, “and stated that a group of colored people had taken possession of the land recently purchased by them east of the Clark’s Garden addition, within the city limits of Golden, and were apparently staking out some building sites.”

After Butler and Allison were