As part of the 2024 Juanita Gray Community Service Awards and the Blacks in Colorado Hall of Fame Ceremony, the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library in Colorado took the time to honor the man believed to be the first Black man born in the Western state.
On Feb. 3, William Whitsell was inducted into the Blacks in Colorado Hall of Fame. Though few pictures of Whitsell exist today, his legacy remains in his family and Central City, Colorado, an old mining town 35 miles outside Denver, where his descendants live.
In 2023, the City of Denver’s Parks and Recreation Department honored the state’s first Black state native by naming William H. Whitsell Park in his honor. Damon Jones, Whitsell’s great-great grandson, reflected on the legacy of his ancestor, telling Denver 7, “It lets me understand and just know that I’m standing on the shoulders of a great, great man. It probably didn’t even hit him like that even to know that he was the first Black male born in Colorado.”
Read the source article at Black Enterprise
