Terri Gentry is standing in the middle of the Five Points neighborhood northeast of downtown Denver. She can remember the history of nearly every storefront.
鈥淎 lot has changed down here and we have new businesses in some of the places,鈥� she said, walking down the street. 鈥淟ike the delicatessen is still there, Sherry鈥檚 is still available. 715 Club is closed, but there is a pizza restaurant, to-go pizza right there.鈥�
Gentry has deep roots here. Her great-grandparents on both sides of her family came to Denver in the early 1900s. Her grandparents, parents and siblings all grew up in the Whittier and Five Points area.
鈥淭his was their neighborhood,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey were here all the time visiting different businesses and going to different events here and knowing the people that operated a lot of the businesses.鈥�
Gentry grew up in the Clayton neighborhood, not far from Whittier. As a high school student, she鈥檇 come down to Five Points in the '70s to grab lunch or hang out after school.
鈥淚t was just an incredible place to grow up in,鈥� she said. 鈥淐lothing stores, Selman鈥檚 records. Anything you needed, there was a little store down here for you to go in and shop. It wasn鈥檛 just restaurants and bars. There were every kind of store.鈥�
But it wasn鈥檛 until she grew up that she realized this safe haven for Black people didn鈥檛 exist everywhere.
鈥淵ou discover that when you leave the neighborhood, or you go out of town and you travel somewhere, and the way you're treated,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what my rude awakening was.鈥�
That's why Gentry鈥檚 family 鈥� like many Black people across the U.S. 鈥� relied on a national travel guide:
Published from the 1930s to the 1960s, it listed restaurants, lodging and shops that were safe for Black Americans. Harrison鈥檚 Guest House in Las Vegas, the Rotisserie Inn in Salt Lake City and the Rossonian Hotel in Five Points were just some of the sites in the Mountain West.
Many of these sites lie along major highways connecting the Mountain West, like Route 66 and U.S. Route 50. The Green Book was essential to travelers in the region due to the long stretches between safe destinations.
Yet over time, dozens of these western sites have been lost to redevelopment or gentrification. The National Park Service reports that nationally, of these places still exist today. Even fewer are still in operation.
Now, History Colorado is using to survey old Green Book sites and bring awareness to these landmarks across the state.
鈥淭here are just so few left,鈥� Patrick Eidman, the chief preservation officer at History Colorado, said. 鈥淲e want to help be part of the solution towards seeing them be preserved and understood and interpreted.鈥�
Traveling while Black
The Green Book was not the only travel guide of the era. Members of the Black community were always looking for ways to share travel information.
Gentry noted that her grandfather worked as a waiter on the Union Pacific Railroad and made connections all over the country. People would come to him for information back before there were travel guides.
鈥淭here was always some kind of way to make sure everybody knew what to do, to take care of themselves and to take care of their neighbors,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e were always figuring out a way out of no way.鈥�
If the Black community did not go to places listed in the Green Book, there was a greater fear of discrimination, violence and potential death. Gentry recalls one distressing family trip in the South.
鈥淲e were just north of Little Rock and the rear passenger tire brakes started smoking, so we pulled over to the side of the highway and this young white man stopped and picked up my grandfather and took him into town,鈥� she said. 鈥淢y grandfather was very low key and quiet and he never looked in the man's eyes. He kept his eyes down鈥nd this man was saying some nasty, condescending things to my grandfather.鈥�
Gentry learned from that interaction 鈥� and many others 鈥� to maintain certain behaviors while she traveled to be safe. Her family chose specific routes and developed certain routines to minimize racist or discriminatory encounters.
鈥淵ou have a full tank of gas when you're traveling,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou make sure you've got a picnic basket full of foods. You don't have to stop at the restaurants and you make sure that you know where another safe place will be as you continue to travel.鈥�
The dangers extended well beyond the South. In the Mountain West, Ku Klux Klan members held government positions in Colorado in the '20s. Many sundown towns existed throughout the region 鈥� communities seen as unsafe for non-white people after sunset.
Gentry鈥檚 family tended to be cautious. Gentry said they would stay away from the 鈥淟 Towns鈥� in Colorado 鈥� like Lyons, Longmont and Loveland. They also rarely stayed at hotels. Instead, they traveled in a camper to National Parks so they could sleep in the comfort of their car.
鈥淚t's a matter of having to be very, very conscious of your surroundings and conscious of where you're going and what you're confronting all the time,鈥� Gentry said. 鈥淵ou just never know.鈥�
This racial tension continued beyond the Jim Crow era. She recalls traveling with her husband and friends through some small towns on their way to Boise, Idaho, in 1991 when people at a gas station targeted them with racial slurs and threats.
鈥淚t didn't stop with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and all of those things that happened in the '60s,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his was in 1991 and we were still having to confront that and pay attention to where we were and what we were dealing with...it never stops."
Preserving these places
The Green Book sites have historical significance, but many are no longer standing and others are threatened. That鈥檚 where History Colorado hopes to help.
鈥淭here's a really marked difference, I think, between looking at a photo and talking about a place and being able to stand in front of it and say this place is important to civil rights history in Colorado,鈥� said Eidman, History Colorado's chief preservation officer.
History Colorado got its nearly $75,000 grant in December as part of a National Park Service grant program for underrepresented communities to help recognize sites like those listed in the Green Books.
鈥淚t's a major priority for our office right now too, but I suppose also for the Park Service as we look at Colorado history and national history, really to understand and record and study the broader history rather than just focusing on white-dominant culture,鈥� Eidman said.
The grant provides additional funding to build off of a project History Colorado completed in 2021. During that project, History Colorado went through several Black travel books for Colorado and found that of the 280 sites in the state listed in the books, 161 remain.
Over the next two years, the organization plans to do a deep dive into the history of these places by documenting sites through photographs, research and interviews.
鈥淪ometimes these things can't be learned through library research and published books,鈥� Eidman said. 鈥淲e just need to be in [the] community talking with folks about places of importance.鈥�
From there, they plan to talk with property owners about designating these historic buildings. One of them will also be nominated for inclusion in the National and State Registers of Historic Places. With the consent of building owners, informational plaques will be put outside the historic buildings.
History Colorado states that only honor the history of communities of color as of 2020. In Colorado, it鈥檚 only 5% of designated historic places.
鈥淚'm excited for these associations to be way more accessible to the public, for people to understand what's going on in these places,鈥� said Poppie Gullett, the national and state register historian for History Colorado. 鈥淚 really want us to recognize and appreciate that aspect of our history and understand that and empathize with the past, and make the future better for understanding it.鈥�
Gullett noted that the once-popular Cotton Club in Colorado Springs was demolished in 1975. She said historical awareness is crucial for these places that are not often considered valuable in the zoning and construction process.
鈥淲hat we hope to see in the future is additional consideration for things that have this recognition, so we're not losing places that were sort of like the heart of a community to just parking lots and urban renewal,鈥� she said.
But this process takes time. History Colorado can鈥檛 start until the funds are released by Congress, which could be around mid- to late summer. The project will not be fully completed until 2025 or 2026.
Gentry believes this project will demonstrate the historical significance of these buildings for the Black community.
鈥淚t's no longer just the fact that this building's been here for 200 years and served this specific thing,鈥� Gentry said. History Colorado also wants 鈥渢o make sure they see who it served, and they want to see how it impacted the community.鈥�
Five Points may not have all of the same businesses Gentry remembers from her youth. Still, Gentry believes this grant will give a voice to those who used the Green Book to explore Five Points and beyond as well as show how the book made travel more accessible for Black people.
鈥淪o much of our history is invisible or discounted or dismissed,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f they're going to talk about Colorado history, no matter the content, no matter how painful the content, they want to recognize and acknowledge and support all of the different communities in Colorado. 鈥ou don't know the full story unless you get all of these perspectives.鈥�
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau is provided in part by the .
