Racial Justice

For information about the Colorado Community Remembrance Project, please scroll down. 

Our Mission

The mission of the Race Task Force is to address and deconstruct the institutional and structural racism in the leadership bodies of the church and our broader society. Following Diocesan Convention in 2017, in response to feedback, we are in the process of adding additional dimensions to our mission.

Our Story

Formed following the Episcopal Church in Colorado’s Annual Convention in 2016, the Race Task Force first spent time sharing our stories, practicing  vulnerability to build a foundation of trust, modeling  a way of interacting that we believe should characterize this work. Working from that base of trust and vulnerability, we got to work researching the role race continues to play in  disparities of income, health, and quality of life in Colorado. The Race Task Force has now begun organizing new members into three teams: leadership and vision, education, and research.

The Race Task Force will continue its work equipping faith communities to boldly and prophetically address racism in their neighborhoods, communities, and state.

Get Involved

Numerous individuals have expressed interest in joining our efforts. We welcome everyone who wants to join us. If you would like to learn more about the work of the Race Task Force or would like to become more involved in its work, contact Darren Armstrong, Chair of the Race Task Force, at darrena@mac.com

Upcoming Race Task Force Events

Join the conversation: Howard Thurman spoke words of compassion, wisdom, and strength—he also challenged us to make the church a place where we reach across barriers and change the systems of oppression in our church and in our world. Conversations, each with a unique focus, will be held on June 18, July 2, July 16, and July 30. Each session will be recorded.

Thursday, July 16: Join us for a conversation with Isiah Shaneequa Brokenleg. This will be a conversation about Native American communities, the church, what it is to be a two spirit person, health inequalities, and how we can understand our history here in the west and what the complex racism of the westward expansion was all about. Isaiah “Shaneequa” Brokenleg is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Nation).  She is the Staff Officer for Racial Reconciliation for the Episcopal Church.  She is a priest in the Diocese of South Dakota, where she grew up, and the place she calls home. She was an epidemiologist before answering a call to the priesthood. Register now >

  • View the June 18 recording of the first conversation in the Thurman Conversation Series. Dr. Catlyn Keenan discusses white supremacy in Colorado and what we can do as a church to combat it. View now >
  • View the July 2 recording of the second conversation in the Thurman Conversation Series. The Rev. Dr. Charles Howard talked about race and theology. Dr. Howard is the author of the book The Bottom: A Theopoetic of the Streets and is the chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania. View now >

Over the course of four Saturdays, we will gather via Zoom to discuss the book Seeing My Skin: A Story of Wrestling with Whitenessby Peter Jarrett-Schell. We will work through the book in three-chapter sections with the goal of assisting white Christians and congregations in taking a look at their whiteness and understanding our larger world and work together.

We will look at and talk about our everyday lives and how Whiteness has distorted our perceptions, relationships, and the Church where we worship. We will find the personal stake we have in dismantling racism, and we will work on accepting our racism while being actively anti-racist in our lives. This is a journey where we will find surrender to the ways the Holy Spirit is moving in us and the creativity and the power this gives us to change our world.

Group facilitators are Race Task Force member Michelle Auerbach and trauma expert Jessica Pfeiffer, both parishioners at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Lakewood.

Zoom log-in information will be emailed to registrants several days prior to the first meeting on July 11.

Church Publishingcurrently has a good supply of the book ($19.95), and it is available on Kindle as well.

Register Now >

Colorado Community Remembrance Project

The Colorado Community Remembrance Project (CCRP) was formed in 2018 to create opportunities for learning about, mourning, and memorializing Colorado’s history of racial violence and to advance the work of the Equal Justice Initiative [EJI], which opened the Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama in April of that year. Through education, community connection, and public remembrance, we hope to give Coloradans a more complete and just understanding of their history and the impact it has on our present.

EJI’s Community Remembrance Project

In order to memorialize the African American victims of racial terror lynching the EJI also introduced their Community Remembrance Project. It encourages US communities to remember the victims of racial terror lynching that occurred in their counties. They do this by collecting soil from the site of the lynching, and by erecting a historical marker to remember the  victim, whose life was taken in this brutal way.

The CCRP began its work by forming a Denver/Limon coalition to memorialize the lynching of Preston “John” Porter Jr.

Preston Porter Jr., a fifteen-year-old Black boy, was burned to death at Lake Station, near Limon, Colorado in Lincoln County on November 16, 1900 for allegedly raping and murdering Louise Frost, a local farm girl. Prior to that he had been held and tortured in Denver until officials turned him over to Lincoln County authorities, who did nothing to stop his lynching. He never received a legal trial and his guilt was never proven. He was one of thousands of Black people lynched in the United States in the decades after the Civil War as part of an intense campaign on the part of White supremacists to dehumanize and control Black people.

Soil Collection

Soil was collected in November 2018 at the site of the old City Hall in Denver, where Preston Porter Jr. was held and tortured, and near Limon at the approximate site of his lynching.

A Soil Collection Ceremony was held in Limon on Saturday, November 16th 2018.

Soil Collection Exhibit Opening

There will be a Soil Collection Exhibit Opening at Denver’s Blair-Caldwell Library, 2401 Welton St. Denver CO 80205, on Friday, April 24th 2020, from 5:30pm – 7:30pm. It will feature a presentation/discussion as well as the exhibit opening, which will have soil from the collection and other artifacts.

Historical Marker

On Saturday, November 14th, 2020, a historical marker will be erected in Creekfront Park at 1300 Larimer St in downtown Denver, close to the site of the old City Hall.

Racial Justice Essay Contest

The Equal Justice Initiative also sponsors essay contests for high school students in counties where historical markers are being placed to memorialize victims of lynching.

The essay contest will be open to all Denver Public Schools [DPS] students in grades 9 – 12 and will be on the topic of our nation’s history of racial inequality.

It will take place from August 15th – October 15th, 2020. Information will be provided by teaching staff in all DPS High Schools, and there will also be a link to the essay contest website.

Each contest provides $6000 in scholarships for college.

Please check back here to get more information about the Dedication Ceremony for the Historical Marker in November and to get the link to the essay contest website, which will be available in the next few months. You can also stay up to date by liking and following our facebook page here.