Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: “Seventy percent of Coloradans want more wilderness,” said U.S. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell to a standing room only press conference at a Club 20 meeting in Grand Junction. “The administration wants more wilderness. We cannot stop the effort to designate more wilderness.

Campbell was introducing his own wilderness proposal for Colorado in an effort to resolve the differences between bills submitted by Sens. Tim Worth and Bill Armstrong. Campbell added that it was becoming common for congressional representatives to carry a bill even though it did not concern their state.

“A congresswoman from Nevada bitterly protested a bill for Nevada that was introduced by a lawmaker from Louisiana,” Campbell told Club 20. “The bill passed. I would rather help write a wilderness bill that most of us can agree upon rather than have it shoved down my throat.”

Campbell’s proposal stuck to the strict guidelines for implied water rights for wilderness areas and eliminated all wilderness study areas where a municipal watershed might be affected or where there had been controversy over the designation. Two areas, which were not contained in Wirth or Armstrong’s bills, were included: Tabeguache and Roubideau.

“The two senators have indicated to me that they are committed to sitting down and finding a way to break the logjam on the wilderness bills,” Campbell said. “The chairman of the Public Lands subcommittee has indicated he will not hear any Colorado wilderness bill until both senators are in agreement. I hope to become a bridge of communications so the differences can be resolved.”

Fifteen Years Ago: Key figures in Colorado’s Black community were honored with portraits in the Blair-Caldwell Research Library at a dedication ceremony hosted by former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

The Blair-Caldwell Research Library was the brainchild of Webb and his wife Wilma Webb and conceived as a place where people, especially Black youth, could learn about their history in the American West. The library opened as a branch of the Denver Public Library in 2003, serving the Five Points neighborhood.

The library’s stated mission was to “to serve as an educational and cultural resource, focusing on the history, literature, art, music, religion and politics of African Americans in Colorado and throughout the Rocky Mountain West.”

Dressed in the same clothes in which he’d posed for his official portrait, Colorado’s first African-American Speaker of the House, Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, said, “I feel way too young to have my portrait hanging here, but I know I stand on the shoulders of giants.”

Wilma Webb was also honored with a portrait for her tireless work serving Denver as well as her efforts to have Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday designated as a state holiday.

Although former state Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver, was unable to attend because he’d been stranded in Washington D.C., Denver City Councilman Michael Hancock spoke on his behalf, honoring the first Black president of the state Senate.

The final honoree was Denver’s first elected Clerk and Recorder, Stephanie O’Malley.

Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb told the assembled crowd, thick with Democratic activists, that it was events like the dedication they were holding to boost the visibility of pioneering Black political leaders that were of vital importance.

Simply “voting for Barack Obama isn’t enough to promote Black political interests,” Webb said.

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Denver Gazette.