Enduring Legacies: Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado

21: Toward a Critical Theory of the African American West

379 Black Studies/African American Studies/Africana Studies was born with the express purpose of decolonizing the minds of people, especially black people. Although writing histories and social scientific studies can produce much knowledge, no amount of information could get very far in the absence of minds unable to see or understand it. Important as empirical work has been and continues to be, without interpretation, even at the level of the methods used for organizing the research and gathering data, such work would be meaningless. The power of interpretation is such, however, that it, too, is embedded in a special type of interpretation or hermeneutic without which it, as well, would be meaningless. And that interpretation we call theory.1 When one thinks of Colorado, African Americans and other folks of African descent are usually not the first cultural group to come to mind. African Americans constitute less than 5 percent of Colorado’s total population and only about 10 percent of the population of Denver, Colorado’s state capital and largest city. However, one would be remiss to overlook African Americans, not simply in Colorado but in the North American West in general.2 African Americans, in fact, have made countless seminal contributions to the history and culture of the North American West and to Colorado and the Denver metropolitan area in particular. A short list of respective research topics includes Toward a Critical Theory of the African American West 21 Reiland Rabaka 380 Toward a Critical Theory of the African American West Black Indians, Black cowboys, buffalo soldiers, the twin-city Black settlements of Chapelton and Dearfield, Colorado, Denver’s Five Points neighborhood , and Colorado’s contributions to the Black Women’s Club Movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the Urban League, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Power Movement, especially the Black Panther Party.3 Major Colorado African American personalities who have made their mark on African American and, truth be told, American history and culture include Bill Pickett, James Beckwourth, Nat Love, Cathy Williams, Henry Parker, Madame C. J. Walker, Oliver T. Jackson, Dr. Justina Ford, Dr. Ruth Flowers, George Morrison Sr., Hattie McDaniel, Leroy Smith, Burnis McCloud, Paul Stewart, Omar Blair, Elvin Caldwell, Don Cheadle, Philip Bailey (of Earth, Wind, and Fire fame), Dianne Reeves, and India.Arie, among others.4 The fact that African Americans have historically made, and continue to make, pivotal and pioneering contributions to the North American West, and to the state of Colorado specifically, can hardly be denied. However, locating African American historical and cultural contributions to the North American West is not nearly as difficult as identifying and, if need be, developing critical theories and research methods suitable to the task of answering the crucial questions of how, what, and why African Americans, among other folks of African descent, contributed to the North American West. Colorado, as quiet as it is kept, has been and remains a major research site for the study of African American contributions to the North American West. For example, the Denver metropolitan area boasts both the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center and the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. The latter is especially distinguished, considering that it is “the only library of its kind between Detroit and Oakland.” It represents and concretely demonstrates the social responsibility and community outreach emphasis of African American studies insofar as its basic mission is to “serve as an educational and cultural resource for the people of Denver, Colorado, and the world, focusing on the history, literature, art, music, religion, and politics of African Americans in Colorado and throughout the Rocky Mountain West.”5 African American (and more recently Africana) studies in Colorado and the wider Rocky Mountain region has been well under way for close to four decades. As is fairly well-known, one of its earliest incarnations was established at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the form of a Black Studies Program in 1968.6 A Black Studies Program was launched at the University of Northern Colorado in 1969, and programs or concentrations in Black stud- Reiland Rabaka 381 ies were initiated at Metropolitan State College of Denver, Colorado State University, and Colorado College soon thereafter. Currently, the University of NorthernColoradohousesaDepartmentof AfricanaStudiesandMetropolitan State College boasts a Department of African and African American Studies, both offering bachelor’s...