Alice Craig MDonald and her father around 1952 in Dearfield, Colorado.

Alice Craig McDonald and her father, Harvey, in Dearfield in Weld County, Colorado around 1952. Dearfield was the largest Black homesteading settlement in Colorado. It was about 70 miles northeast of Denver. Photo by Rolan Craig, courtesy of Alice McDonald/History Colorado

Free, public CMC lecture features Black history in Colorado

By Mike McKibbin
Colorado Mountain College

Tens of thousands of Exodusters played an important role in helping settle Colorado and other Western states as they fled the South to escape Jim Crow oppression.

This is the first subject in “Our Shared History,” a monthly series of four lectures on Colorado history by Kelle Roberts, an adjunct faculty member at Colorado Mountain College Vail Valley at Edwards.

The first lecture, 6-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 5, "Exodusters: Colorado’s Black History," coincides with February’s Black History Month.

Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma in the late 19th century. According to the National Park Service, the term Exoduster refers to Moses and the Israelites’ escape from Egypt and the dust of the dirt trails that led west.

The migration was part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879, the first general migration of Black people following the Civil War. As many as 40,000 Exodusters left the South to settle in the three states.

Roberts stated in an email that one in four cowboys and the first female millionaire were Black, A physician, Dr. Justina Ford, delivered 7,000 minority children while banished from practicing medicine due to her race and gender.

Roberts also noted Dearfield, a community in northeastern Colorado, was one of the first agricultural settlements of Exodusters in the state.

"It was named 'dear' because it held the promise of freedom and economic autonomy for individuals fleeing Jim Crow's oppression in the South," Roberts wrote.

Roberts added she hopes the lectures help "bring history alive in our community and cover topics that aren't always available but are important and fascinating. I hope this lecture series meets an intellectual interest in our mountain community and fosters connections and conversations."

The free lectures at CMC Vail Valley at Edwards, 150 Miller Ranch Road, and are open to the public. Registration is unnecessary.

The history lecture series are all on Wednesdays from 6-7:30 p.m.:

• Feb. 5: "Exodusters: Colorado's Black History"
• March 5: "Female Spies, Rebels and Political Actors During the American Civil Way"
• April 2: "Haunted Colorado: Ghost Towns in Our Backyard"
• May 7: "We Have Always Been in the Mountains: Western Expansion and the Utes"

Roberts will also moderate question-and-answer sessions at the end of each lecture. Besides teaching Colorado History and other history courses, Roberts is a published poet and artist and is working on her doctorate.

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