A proclamation proclaiming November 16, 2018 as a day to remember and condemn the lynching, by burning, of sixteen-year-old, African American, Preston "John" Porter, Jr. on November 16, 1900 and to acknowledge the city of Denver's complicity in his torturous death.
Thank you. And thank you for bringing that forward. Councilwoman Black, we have one other proclamation this evening. Councilman Brooks, will you please read Proclamation 1294? Yes, Mr. President. And before I read it, I just want to just state that I know we do proclamations a lot and they've just become, you know, common habit. And but even the proclamation we just read, there's important lives at stake in this proclamation that I'm about to read is probably one of the toughest that I've ever read. And I just want to just let folks know that. Just warn you that it's pretty graphic and that folks have experience, much like we did the indigenous day of indigenous people day that in this city there has been extreme atrocities and we as a city have been complicit to it. And so here's another one. Proclamation 1294 This is a proclamation proclaiming November 16th as 2018 as a day to remember and condemn the lynching by burning of a 16 year old boy. African-American Preston John Porter Jr on November 16. On November 16, 1900. And to acknowledge the city of Denver's complicity in his torturous death. Whereas the city and county of Denver recognizes Preston Porter Jr. Short life was ended by racial terrorism and a miscarriage of justice. Justice involving brutal violence at the hands of a white mob and a criminal justice system that failed him. Acknowledging his lynching calls for a process of truth and reconciliation and the continued struggle for justice. And. Whereas, Preston Porter, Jr, a railroad worker from Lawrence, Kansas, was arrested on suspicion and accused of the rape and murder of Luis Frost near Limon, Colorado. Preston was held in Denver City in a Denver City jail, along with his father and brother for four days. During much of the time, he was tortured in order to coerce a confession. No trial took place, furthering the miscarriage of justice. And. WHEREAS, it's widely known that Preston would be lynched if he were to return to Lyman. The Topeka, Kansas Daily Capital on Tuesday, November 13, 1900. Three days prior to the lynching reported, the sheriff declares his intention to take Porter back to Lincoln County. And although it is certain that he will be Lynch and probably burned upon his arrival there. Whereas Preston Porter Jr was sent by train from Denver to Hugo, Colorado, the county seat of Lincoln County for trial. Although he would never arrived there, he was forcibly taken from the train just outside of Lyman at Lake Station by an angry mob from the Lyman area, as well as people from Denver and Colorado Springs who had traveled there to watch the lynching in Lyman Preston Porter Jr was Lynch by being chained to a steel rail, then burned to death. With the first match being struck by the father of Luis for us. And. Whereas, The City and county of Denver designates November 1628 as the day in which the injustice done to Preston Porter Jr can be fully acknowledged and his death be more, whereas it can be acknowledged that an injustice. Was also done to Luis for us because the absence of due process of law and honest police work, her murderer was not confirmed and found guilty of the crimes against her. And. Whereas, PRESTON WHEREAS This Proclamation represents an important step in the journey towards reconciliation, where wrongs can be admitted and the painful absence of justice can be acknowledged. Reconciliation requires complete, complete truths. And Preston Porter Jr's death reveals the bitter truth that Denver had an active role in facilitating racial violence and injustice and prior to now has done little to acknowledge its complicity. Now, therefore, let it be proclaimed by the city and county of Denver. Section one to the Council of the City and County of Denver proclaims November 16, 2018, as a day to remember and condemn the lynching by the burning of 16 year old African-American Preston John Porter Jr. And November 16th, at November 16th, 1900. And to acknowledge the city of Denver's complicity of his death, Section two that the clerk in the city and county of Denver shall attacks in affix a seal of city encounter, deliver the proclamation and be transmitted to Equal Justice Initiative. In Montgomery, Alabama, two representatives of Preston Porter's Jr's family. Thank you. Councilman Brooks, your motion to adopt. Yeah. Move that proclamation to four. Be adopted. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council Councilman Brooks. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. This is definitely one of the hardest proclamations that I have read and. You know, I just want to say first that Councilman Cashman through Judy Ohman, brought this forward to the city and county of Denver, and I was happy to read it. But as I read it and talk about Preston. I got to also talk about Emmett Till, and I also have to talk about the thousands of other lynched bodies, black bodies all over our country, the unnamed bodies all over our country. And I've been we as a as an office have been putting this together all week long. And. There's just a great deal of responsibility. And even reading this. Because. We are proclaiming today that Preston John be remembered and he be remembered well. And as an African-American serving as an elected official here, I realized that I stand on his body, on his shoulders and what he suffered and the violence he suffered because of the color of his skin. See, the thing about Emmett Till and and Preston John is that they didn't commit any crime. And the only crime that they commit committed is being black. And for that. We should feel a lot of shame. A lot of people want to talk about equity in this day and age, but you can't have equity without real reconciliation and an acknowledgment of. The tragedies, the terrorism. That has existed in our own city. And so this was an effort in this proclamation to admit that. And as a part of the leadership of this city say that was wrong. And we cast that down and we're going a different direction and we're acknowledging. That Preston John Porter should have been dealt with differently. And I hope that by giving this proclamation to his family, there will be some bit of redemption. And so I thank you. I think all the folks who are working in this field and brought this forward to us to be able to read it in front of this council in the record as as proof. The government does change that. We can change that reconciliation is possible and that we can denounce hate in our community. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Brooks, Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank my friend Judy Allman for bringing this difficult topic before city council. And thank Councilman Brooks for doing the digging into this topic so deeply and doing such a indepth, fine job on that proclamation. All I wanted to add, coincidentally, my granddaughter is a 14 year old white American, goes to a private school. And coincidentally, this week, her entire eighth grade class is on a civil rights pilgrimage in the Deep South. They'll go from Selma to Montgomery. They'll walk the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They'll go to the National Memorial of Peace and Justice, which is the official name for the Lynching Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. They'll go to the Ebenezer Ammi Baptist Church. And I just think it's it's so important. I wish I'd have been able to make that that journey. And I wish every child in our country could make that journey is simply because, as has been said so many times, if we don't face the past, if we don't learn from our mistakes of the past intimately, then we are doomed to repeat them. And this is a part of our past. We can't even give a chance to let slip by into the present. So thank you again, Councilman. Thank you, Miss Allman. And thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Brooks, for bringing this proclamation. Forward. I'm glad that. I will put this on the record. I'm glad it's going to be in the written history in word of the city. So. Thank you for bringing it forward. I think you know someone who. Represents a district that a lot of Mexicanos. We understand. We stand in solidarity. In this state, we've seen the hanging and the execution and the lynching of our African-American brothers and sisters, our indigenous brothers and sisters. Our Mexican brothers and sisters are full of folks who stood up for labor and fought for wages and fought for fair working places, men and women. And very little has been done to acknowledge not just the city, but this the states. Complacency with it. And I'm glad that at least. This proclamation has has. And we'll continue to be on our record in this city if it is passed. And I just have to say that it is much more than just discussion. We hear a lot about discussion about how we in social justice and its action. It's a proclamation like this. It's every day where we work and make sure that folks are represented and represented well and we stand up for the humanity. I think this is you know, I don't want to know how. This isn't the past. There's still African-American and Mexican people and women who are being killed. There's still folks in this country who are being shot and murdered in our streets just because of the color of their skin. Because they're black. We have to do more. This is an a very important proclamation, I believe, Councilman Brooks, because it doesn't just recognize something that's in our past, but something that we can correct today. And we can correct today in our governance, we can correct today in our society by standing up for people who are oppressed. Who are being murdered in the streets of their own city. Who are being murdered in synagogues. Right. So this is something that is definitely. A yes vote in my book and in a city who? Quite frankly, still has a neighborhood named after. One of our mayors who joined the KKK. My police chief. In Denver, who was a Klansman. And those pictures of them rolling down and file masses in Larimer. This isn't something that's just so far removed. This is something that we have to correct. So thank you, Councilman Brooks, for for bringing this forward. I wholeheartedly in solidarity stand with you on this proclamation. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. And thank you, Councilman Cashman and Councilman Brooks, for bringing this forward. Madam Secretary, Raquel Brooks. A black. Eye. Espinosa. Flynn All right. Gilmore, i. Herndon, I. Cashman. Kenny Lopez. I knew. Ortega. I assessment i. Mr. President. All right. I'm secretary. Please close voting. Announce the results. 3939 as proclamation 1294 has been adopted. Councilman Brooks, is there someone you'd like to bring up? Yeah. You know, we have two individuals in the audience. I want to bring up. Penny Goodman is with the Episcopal Church of Colorado and is a member of the Race Task Force, as well as the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. So come on up. And then Elizabeth Epps is the founder and co-founder of the Denver Justice Project and Colorado Freedom Fund, in which she was established and helps bail out poor folks out of jail. Go ahead, Penny. Okay. Mr. President, are we permitted call response at city council? I'm sorry. Call and response. So if I said if I asked you to repeat after me. Are we allowed to do that? Is that permissible? I will check with our attorney. No one has ever asked me that question before. Yeah, it seems like a resounding yes there. No. So seeing. Seeing. No objection. Okay. No, seriously. So I'm going to say something and then I'll say it with me. Kirsten? Kirsten Crawford Legislative Counsel I think that's fine. We don't respond to questions, but it's fine to do this exercise. Okay. Thank you. So it is our duty to fight for our freedom. And for our freedom. Freedom, it is our duty to win. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. And support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have nothing to lose. Thank you for for giving us that. And it was given to us by a woman name, Assata Shakur. And as I turn this over to my sister, I mentor an elder community leader I want to mention. So this shirt of mine. I would have brought you all each one. But I know there's ethical rules, gifts, rules. I had a chance to take the tour last week to be in Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the Legacy Museum. I get shaky, even saying it, and to visit the memorial, you need to do it when you can. As you walk all through these aisles, the Alabama section is deep. The Mississippi rows are long. He spent a lot of time walking through the Carolina markers with name after name of black woman and brown woman and men who were lynched in the South. But sure enough, you get to Colorado. And I want it to be the case that Colorado wasn't there, but Colorado is. And there's two names. And one of them is the young man we have a chance to honor tonight. I think, Judy, I think all of you I think Mr. Cashman. And I want to remind you, when we think about a proclamation and we think about the words of Assata Shakur, that our proclamation is empty, if in a hundred years our great grandchildren are here doing something similar for some other offense. So words matter. This proclamation matters. And I really appreciate this opportunity to honor young Mr. Porter. On behalf of the Colorado Community Remembrance Project. And those who have been have suffered. Lynching at the hands of vigilante groups, especially president john. Ford Jr. I'd like to thank the City of Denver for recognizing November 16, 2018 on President Border Day. It is a paramount importance that the victims of lynching be brought to the attention of the people of this city, of this state, and of this nation. We have too long been unaware of and or ignored those who have suffered in this tortured manner. I'm a long time resident of the Denver metro area, and in spite. Of. Learning a lot and studying a lot about lynching in the South. I am woefully ignorant of the lynchings it took place in my beloved state. Also, I'm a mother and I'm a grandmother. And as such, I have been long, painfully aware of how African-Americans can be killed and injured by those who have sworn to protect and deserve . We have a new form of lynching. At hand? No. And unless we are. Aware. Of our horrendous past, we are bound to. Repeat and continue these acts into the future. Maybe by beginning with the support of our local officials, we can begin the long journey toward awareness. Then, maybe some day, these horrible practices will become a thing of the past. Thank you for becoming a part of this cause. Thank you both so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Brooke. Right. Hard to move on from that, but we have some business we need to get to. So resolutions. Madam Secretary, please read the resolution titles.