Shelley Wittevrongel

Center, Colorado Shelley Wittevrongel

Decades of economic subjugation. Overt voter suppression. A history of Ku Klux Klan harassment going back to the early 20th Century. Education denied based on skin color or ethnicity. Governing boards in the grip of white businesses. A culture relegated to second-class citizenship by government-sanctioned decree. Yet a people so resilient, so committed to family and to community that they have claimed their place at the decision-making tables of their town.

Thinking Mississippi? Georgia? South Carolina? Think again. Meet the mejicano people of Center, Colorado. THi is out story, specifically the story of fifteen intense years of action (1970-1985) in which mejicanos claimed their right to forge their own destiny. The Colorado town of Center was founded early in the 1900s as an "Anglo town" focused on farming for profit. Shortly thereafter mejicanos, villagers from northern New Mexico, came to the town willing to work to sustain their families. The very land on which Center was built had already been stolen from other mejicano land grantees by Congressional action while similarly sanctioned land grabbing had displaced the mejicanos who moved to Center. Native-born U. S. citizens, yet consistently denied the full rights of U. S. citizenship, their roots went back more than ten generations in the geographic area. Through community action, the ballot box, and legal action, they made their voices heard. Together they faced down the racial prejudice of an Anglo establishment - their employers - who believed the Town was theirs.

Our story, told from the inside by two citizen-activists who helped to shape Center's history, details intense actions mejicanos courageously and passionately took to meet the injustice. It tells of the frustrations and disappointments as well as the progress and victories of a people who did not initially have political power but who nonetheless found a way to dismantle the unjust structures that perpetuated racism.