1125 Pine Street
Boulder, CO 80302
303-441-3110
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Call Number OH3090Date 2022Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 4 minutes, 7 secondsDescription Carole Jones relates her family’s history, reaching back as far as the 1700s, and including those who were “free coloreds” in Baltimore and Freedmen of Oklahoma. She describes her upbringing in Washington, DC, her college education at Oberlin, and becoming a social worker in her post-graduate years. After marrying George Jones in 1959, they moved to Colorado and eventually to Boulder. She explains where they have lived over the years in Boulder, including where they live now. A large portion of the interview details the work that she and her husband did in the Boulder/Denver area and then for 25 years in various African countries (alongside her husband) mainly through USAID, ranging from social work to developing post-apartheid policies for equitable salary levels among all workers, to developing programs for victims of torture and trauma. She also reflects on the challenges of blending work with child-rearing and coordinating her career with that of her husband. Other topics include the Black community in Boulder, the shortcoming of education for children of color in Boulder during the 1960s, and her current volunteer work in Boulder.
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Call Number OH3089Date 2022Contents Single recording; 51 minutes, 31 secondsDescription Reginald Lingham grew up in Boulder, then lived in California as an adult. He describes his family history and the lives of various members of his family. He recalls his childhood years in Boulder as mainly pleasant and full of family activities, although he does detail one experience of discrimination against him as a Black child involving being turned away by a particular Boy Scout troop leader. After high school, he joined the Navy and served in California and Japan. Settling in California after his military service was complete, he worked for the Post Office for most of his career, mainly working on electronic equipment. Throughout his military service and Post Office career, he continued to receive technical training in electronics. He describes his life in California—in Berkeley and Sacramento—and he talks about his daughter’s life there.
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Call Number OH3088Date 2022Contents Single recording; 48 minutes, 57 secondsDescription Larry Dorsey, chair of the Superior Historical Commission, discusses how he and the town of Superior were affected by the Marshall Fire of December 2021. He gives an overview of Superior as a community, including its history and how it developed over the years. He details his experiences on the day of the Marshall Fire, including evacuation and a period of uncertainty about whether his house had burned down. He describes the extent of the destruction, including the profound destruction of Original Town. He talks about the Superior Historical Museum, what it was like before the fire, it’s destruction by the fire, and plans to rebuild. He reflects on the ways the community has worked together after the fire, house rebuilding efforts as of a year after the fire, and silver linings and lessons learned from the fire.
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Call Number OH3087Date 2022Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 7 minutes, 25 secondsDescription Velveta Golightly-Howell talks about her upbringing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, including her supportive family and community, the positive values she learned from her family, some early experiences that shaped her understanding of race relations, and her education up through college. Eventually, she went to law school at the University of Colorado, and she discusses being one of the very few Black students at the law school at that time. She describes her life as an attorney, including working as the first Black woman attorney prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office in Denver, working in the field of labor law, and being a civil rights attorney in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and for the Environmental Protection Agency. She also talks about mentoring people of color to help them develop their abilities, including mentoring students at the University of Colorado Law School, and women worldwide through an organization she founded called Sister to Sister International Network of Professional African American Women, Incorporated. Throughout the interview, she talks about the religious and moral underpinnings of everything she has done and the way she values giving back to the community.
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Call Number OH3086Date 2022Contents Single recording; 51 minutes, 58 secondsDescription John Howell describes growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, as part of a large extended family. He discusses his education in St. Louis schools, including getting to take part in the Upward Bound program, which allowed him to spend two summers at Yale when he was in high school. He details his professional life, including working for IBM and later for Storage Technology Corporation (STC). He worked for STC, starting in 1979, for 26 years, after moving to Boulder in 1977 and earning an MBA degree at the University of Colorado. He was hired at STC as a financial analyst, one of few Black professional employees there at the time and was one of the founders of the Black Career Forum, which sought to increase the number of minority professional workers at STC and support their professional development. He also talks about his marriage to Velveta Golightly-Howell, who was a law student at the CU Law School when he met her in 1978. Other topics include his participation in Partners, a mentoring program for teenagers; the importance of working in community; and his family.
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Call Number OH3084Date 2022Contents Single recording; 56 minutes, 26 secondsDescription Sandra (Sandi) Banks describes her childhood in Ashland, Kentucky, including being raised by her grandparents, the role of church in her young life, and her education as an African American student in segregated schools. She details her college years at various universities, culminating in earning a masters’ degree in education. She describes some of the racist attitudes that she had to deal with, both during university study and later, as a teacher. She and her family moved frequently to accommodate her husband’s career; she discusses the various teaching jobs she had in Illinois, Kentucky, New York, and Colorado. She reflects on what it was like for her to teach in Boulder and what it was like for her children growing up in Boulder. She discusses teaching students about diversity issues. Other topics include service work done through United Black Women of Boulder County; the Boulder Freedom School, run by Mildred Nilon and Ellen Tate; the importance of religious belief; and the importance of a mix of patience and courage when encountering challenging societal ideas.
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Call Number OH3083Date 2022Contents Single recording; 60 minutes, 16 secondsDescription May Snowden describes her childhood in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she grew up in a diverse community of Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. She talks about her parents and about her education, first in an all-Black school, then in an integrated school. She describes many childhood successes and positive experiences, but also some formative experiences of racial discrimination, of being denigrated and excluded due to her race. She also discusses career limitations for women at the time she went to college. She details her career with Mountain Bell (later US West), where she started in the operator services department, moved through many jobs with ever-increasing amounts of responsibility in HR and public policy, ending with leading US West’s efforts in the area of diversity and inclusion. She explains how her goal always was to make sure people felt understood and included at work. She also talks about Chuck Snowden, her husband of 52 years, and reflects on his many accomplishments. Other topics include the importance of their church community at Second Baptist Church and the importance of making a philosophy of inclusion in Boulder a reality for the people who live here.
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Call Number OH3082Date 2022Contents Single recording; 24 minutes, 31 secondsDescription Wilford Buggs grew up in Texas but has lived in Boulder since 1956. He discusses serving as one of the first African American police officers in Boulder; his career with NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration); community service activities; civil rights efforts; and his church community, Second Baptist Church, which has been a focal point for the Black community in Boulder. Other topics include the importance of Charles and Mildred Nilon as mentors, and raising children in Boulder.
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Call Number OH3081Date 2022Contents Single recording; 41 minutes, 05 secondsDescription Inez Davis Buggs was born in Texas and grew up in various locations there, both rural and in Dallas. She describes racial segregation in Texas during the time that she grew up. After high school, she moved with her mother to Boulder in the mid-1950s. She talks about her adjustment to living in a place in which Black and white people were less segregated. She describes her education as a nurse and nurse practitioner and her work with Clinica Family Health in Lafayette from 1977 to 2007. Other topics include the Second Baptist Church community, religious faith, testing for racial discrimination in housing in Boulder, the nature of racial discrimination in Boulder, her philosophy of respect and compassion for others, and her approach to parenting.
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Call Number OH3080Date 2022Contents Single recording; 56 minutes, 13 secondsDescription Frank Morse has worked as a volunteer tutor with the BoulderReads program since 2008. He discusses learning to be a reading, GED, and ESL tutor for BoulderReads. He describes the process, challenges, and satisfactions of tutoring by describing his work with various students. He praises the BoulderReads program and reflects on the similarities of teaching reading to children and to adults. He also talks about his career working in the golf course construction industry and the volunteering work he continues to do with the Woodlands Headstart Program.
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Call Number OH3079Date 2022Contents Single recording; 59 minutes, 00 secondsDescription This interview with Kayann Short focuses on the BoulderReads Reading Buddies program that she and Diana Sherry developed and that Dr. Short subsequently ran for 16 years. The program paired Dr. Short’s University of Colorado undergraduate students with preschool-aged- through middle-school-aged students. The pairs of students met regularly and read to each other, an activity that strengthened the younger students’ reading skills, cultivated their interest in reading, and forged supportive relationships between the “little buddies” and the “big buddies.” In addition to delving into many aspects of the Reading Buddies program, the interview also explores other projects in which Dr. Short has been involved, including teaching writing and women’s studies at CU; digital storytelling workshops, which included teaching through Denver’s StoryCenter and developing the Writing Beyond Limits program that she taught to BoulderReads adult participants; writing and publishing her book A Bushel’s Worth: An Ecobiography; a book she currently is researching about the Bluebird Club women’s community in Boulder County dating back to 1911; the Friedman Feminist Press Collection, which she established at CSU; her farm, Stonebridge Farm, which was the first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm in Boulder County; and heading up a writing group and writing workshops at the Lyons Library.
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Call Number OH3078Date 2022Contents Single recording; 30 minutes, 10 secondsDescription This interview was recorded on the occasion of a unique fruit tree being planted in front of the Carnegie Library for Local History. [Note: The tree later was moved to the lawn of George Reynolds Branch Library.] Artist Sam Van Aken uses grafting to create an individual tree that is an amalgam of different fruit varietals linked to a single rootstock; the product is a visually arresting, layered, composite that grows as a living work of art. In this interview, Van Aken talks about his personal background and his trajectory as an artist, drawing connections between his family history, education, inspirations, evolving ideas, and projects. He explains what brought him to Boulder for an exhibition titled “Hearing the Call,” scheduled for spring of 2023, in collaboration with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Longmont Museum, and the Boulder Apple Tree Project. He explains in detail the mechanics of his process, utilizing heirloom and indigenous apple species to plant trees with multiple fruits, including the one in front of Carnegie Library. Van Aken shares some of his impressions of Boulder County, what he anticipates for his next visits, and touches on the future of his artistic endeavors.