Black History Month: Denver poet commemorates Colorado Black women’s excellence
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DENVER (KDVR) — In honor of Black History Month, FOX31 has been featuring stories of Black history and excellence throughout the state and country.
As part of the celebration, Suzi Q. Smith, an award-winning artist, activist and educator living in Denver, wrote a piece celebrating Black women in Denver who paved the way for so many others.
Smith noted that her great-grandfather was also a poet, like herself. But she was raised by her grandmother, who read to her “all the time,” including a lot of Harlem Renaissance poets and her father’s poems.
“I’ve been writing poetry pretty much since I could hold a pen,” Smith said. “Poetry has been a part of my family for a long time.”
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Smith said she has many reasons she loves poetry, including that it allows people to say things that are “unsayable.”
“It allows us to language the un-languagable experience, right, and it also allows this intimacy that we can have with one another,” Smith said. “It’s so hard to really understand what another person experiences, and poetry allows us to get really creative with language and say things we otherwise not be able to say.”
Black History Month poem written by Suzi Q Smith
To be Colorado woman in Black
is to know that the road has been laid
by hands made of wood-thick flesh and resolve
From the pioneering hands of Clara Brown,
to the delivering hands of Dr. Justina Ford,
We have learned how to wield our own
I am grateful to have been taught by many
For instance, from my grandmother and aunties,
I learned how to speak up courageously,
From the women at church,
I learned how to pray with my whole body
From the beloved teachers in community,
from the artists,
from the organizers,
Like Ashara Ekundayo and Cleo Parker Robinson,
who opened doors and cracked windows
who made a way of no way, I have learned
From Opalanga Pugh, who showed us
how to usher the secret world out of our mouths,
through the gaps in our teeth
How to sing and laugh generously, I have learned
how to handle a narrative and fall in love with myself fiercely.
From these phenomenal women,
some gone before I arrive,
some still thriving among us,
some who I have even walked alongside
in this life, I have learned
How could I be anything less?
About those named in Smith’s poem
Clara Brown was born a slave in Virginia in 1800, according to the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame and History Colorado. She was a domestic servant until 1856, records state, when she ultimately was freed and traveled West to find one of her daughters. She brought community care to areas like Central City.
Dr. Justina Ford was the first licensed African American female doctor in Denver, where she practiced gynecology, obstetrics and pediatrics, according to UCHealth. History Colorado marks her battle to overcome prejudice and discrimination, calling her a “pioneer” for African Americans and women.
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Ashara Ekundayo is an artist, activist, philanthropist and businesswoman with a gallery in Oakland, California, that platforms the voices and labor of “Black womxn” (including gender non-conforming folks) of the African Diaspora. Ekundayo has lived in worked in Denver for three decades and co-founded the GrowHaus and founded the Pan African Arts Society and the Denver Pan African Film Festival.
Cleo Parker Robinson is the founder, artistic director and choreographer of Denver-based business, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. Robinson has taught across the world and has been honored by Colorado governors, Denver mayors and President Bill Clinton in 1998 when he named her as one of two artists appointed to the National Council on the Arts, where she served until 2005.
Opalanga Pugh was born in Denver in 1952. She was a professional griot in the African oral tradition and has traveled to world to share her talents. Opalanga has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts twice and her work lives on in the Library of Congress. She died in 2010.
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