The Colorado Statesman (Denver, Colo.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,000 issues from 1900 to 1924, published in Denver, Colorado, digitised for Chronicling America.
Joseph D.D. Rivers came to Denver, Colorado in 1885 after graduating from the Hampton Institute in Virginia. The former student of Booker T. Washington joined the crowds leaving the East in an “attempt to discover the wonders of the Middle West, then termed the Wild, Wooly West” (Colorado Statesman, June 8, 1918). Arriving in Denver, he filled various positions in the state and municipal departments. He was the first black license inspector of the city of Denver and the first black advisory member of the Republican state central committee. He also studied law and ran a real estate business, and he was an early proprietor of The Statesman, a newspaper he helped found with Editor Edwin H. Hackley in 1888. Published in Denver, the weekly Statesman served the black community in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and New Mexico.
In 1895, “Rivers felt that apart from his individual successful achievements he could be serviceable to his race … [and] entered the field of journalism” as proprietor and editor of his own publication, the Colorado Statesman. (Hackley changed the name of his Statesman to The Denver Star so as not to be confused with Rivers’ venture.) The Colorado Statesman later stated that it had “developed into the mouthpiece of the people in this western country, and received a recognition from all parts of the United States as well as beyond the seas as a staunch advocate of ‘Human Rights and Liberties'” (Colorado Statesman, June 8, 1918). Rivers acted as managing…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Denver, Colorado, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress