Craig Leavitt

Craig Leavitt is a former Koch Fellow at History Colorado. He wrote this essay for the March/April 2012 issue of Colorado Heritage when he was a graduate student at the University of Colorado Denver, majoring in public history with a minor in the American West. His previous publications include an essay on Denver native and counterculture icon Neal Cassady, included in the anthology Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West (New York: Routledge Press, 2001).

Craig Leavitt

Written by Craig Leavitt

  • Lincoln Hills entrance sign

    A Shelter from Harsh Times

    Though Colorado’s African American population avoided the most severe abuses of Jim Crow and segregation in the early twentieth century, they nonetheless experienced significant overt discrimination. They faced limited housing, employment, and recreation opportunities and lived under state and local governments controlled by the Ku Klux Klan for much of the 1920s. Still, Colorado’s African Americans flourished, building a strong community with thriving businesses.