Black History Month Feature Black Colorado Springs Residents Break Down Barriers

By Jeanne Davant

If you have lived in Colorado Springs for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of Fannie Mae Duncan. She is best known as the proprietor of the Cotton Club, a venue that hosted worldclass jazz performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Etta James, and Mahalia Jackson. Duncan was adamant that the Cotton Club’s doors were open to everyone, hence she placed the permanent sign, "Everbody's Welcome" in the club's window. e club was located just south of the Antlers Hotel, near the present location of the Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts. Duncan, who mentored young people, nanced college educations, raised funds for various causes, and served on many city committees, was honored with a bronze statue that stands outside Pikes Peak Center.

Duncan is an icon of the Colorado Springs Black community, but there are other Black individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the city who are perhaps not as well known. Here are a few of them:

VERA GANG SCOTT

Scott was the city’s rst Black public school principal. As a child in 1917 Galveston, Texas, she had to attend segregated schools and faced discrimination when she tried to use the local library. But her intelligence and drive — she graduated high school at age 16 — were recognized by the women of Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston, who awarded her scholarships for her undergraduate and graduate studies. Gang wanted to become a social worker, but after moving to Colorado Springs, she could not nd an opening. Biding her time, she went back to school, obtained a teaching certi cate, and took a job teaching at East Junior High School. After a couple of years, a social worker position opened, and she took it. Scott’s career decisions stemmed from her desire to help people as she had been helped, and she realized she could do even more for young people as an educator. She returned to school for graduate studies that prepared her to become a principal, and after nishing her degree was named principal of Gar eld School.

Scott, who had kept careful track of the scholarship money she received, paid back every penny to the Episcopal Church women. e Episcopal Diocese of Texas used that money to establish the Vera Gang Scholarship Fund in 1972. e fund still awards scholarships to women in good standing at their churches who are seeking professional certi cation or a degree.

In 1997, Colorado Springs School District 11 honored Scott by naming its newest school Vera G. Scott Elementary School.

Scott died Nov. 23, 2001, at age 89. You can read about her in the book titled, e Gang of One: e Life of Vera Gang Scott, by Marcella Ruch. is book is available for review in PPLD’s Special Collections at Penrose Library. THE BROWN BOMBERS

In the days after World War II, Colorado Springs had an active semipro baseball league that attracted die-hard fans. e City Baseball League was quite competitive but not open to Black players. But in 1949, a team of remarkable Black athletes, the Brown Bombers, shocked everyone by winning the city championship and then repeating the feat in 1950.

e Bombers included players like left-handed pitcher Justus Morgan, who later became pastor of Morgan Memorial Chapel, along with catcher Sam Dunlap, who went on to become the rst Black baseball coach in District 11 schools. ey grew up playing ball in vacant lots, using tree branches as bats. ey were scrappy, fast — and they wanted to beat the all-white teams.

Fannie Mae Duncan’s Cotton Club and a local shoe repair store sponsored the young team. As they traveled around the state, their reputation grew.

In the run-up to the 1949 championship, the Bombers beat a powerful team from Fort Carson. Two weeks later, they met the team called Still Bros.-Jackson in the championship game at Memorial Park and won, 9 - 6. It was the rst time a team with Black players claimed the championship.

Besides other teams, the Bombers had to contend with discrimination. After the championship victory, one team quit the City League. e players sometimes were denied meals and lodging in the towns they traveled to, which often meant long rides back home after the games. e City League teams were overshadowed by the arrival of the Sky Sox, a Class A a liate of the Chicago White Sox in the early 1950s. e Brown Bombers might have been forgotten, but in 2014, thanks to the e orts of Colorado Springs Gazette columnist Bill Vogrin, they were inducted into the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame.

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LU LU STROUD POLLARD

Pollard, like Scott and Duncan, spent her long life breaking down barriers for women and people of color. Among many accomplishments, she helped establish the Negro Historical Association of Colorado Springs, the rst local organization dedicated to collecting and preserving photographs, documents, and memorabilia related to Black history.

A native of Colorado Springs, she graduated from Colorado Springs High School (now Palmer High School), attended Prairie View College in Texas, and graduated with honors from Langston University in Oklahoma in 1941. She did postgraduate study in accounting and nancial management at the New York Business Academy and at the U.S. Army Accounting Center in Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.

After working in purchasing and accounting in Washington, D.C. during World War II, she returned to Colorado Springs and took a job as a civilian payroll clerk at Fort Carson. By 1961, she had worked her way up to chief of the Accounting Division.

Pollard moved to California with her husband, Leonard, in 1962 and began a new career in personnel management with the General Services Administration (GSA). By 1965, she had become Supervisory Personnel Sta ng Specialist, responsible for hiring, promotion, and separation of GSA employees in seven Western states, Hawaii, and the Philippines. After a stint in Washington as the rst full-time Equal Opportunity O cer for the Military Tra c Command, she and Leonard returned to Northern California, where they operated a retirement and nancial counseling service for a few years, then moved back to Colorado Springs.

When she returned to Colorado Springs in the late 1970s, Pollard was distressed to nd that Black history was not being preserved as she thought it should. In 1981, she and Leonard were instrumental in starting the Negro Historical Association. Pollard passed away in 2006, but she had made sure that the association would survive by merging it in 2005 with the African American Genealogical Society of Colorado Springs. e important work of preserving Black history is being continued today by the African American Historical and Genealogical Society of Colorado Springs.

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Visit PPLD’s Regional History and Genealogy department located in Penrose Library or online for these individuals’ complete histories and more. ppld.org/regional-history-and-genealogy