Art Branscombe: Helped Turn The Tide of Segregation
Art’s storied career took him everywhere, from North Africa during WWII, to some of the best newspapers in the country, before landing him at the Denver Post, where he worked 30 years before retiring in 1984. His activism in the community and on the editorial pages sought to move the cause of civil rights forward. He is preceded in death by his first wife, Bea Sutton Branscombe, and survived by his second wife, Carla Henebry Branscombe and three daughters Allison, Kim and Merredith.
A memorial for Art will be held Sunday, March 3, at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 2201 Dexter St, from 2-5 p.m.
Here, his wife Bea, in a story the GPHC published nearly 15 years ago, sums up the impact Art had on the Greater Park Hill community.
By Bea Sutton Branscombe, GPHC Historian
Bea’s Note: This is the 30th in a series of historic interviews with present and former leaders of GPHC and its predecessor organizations, Northeast Park Hill Civic Association (NEPHCA) and Park Hill Action Committee (PHAC). We are traveling back in time from current chairpersons to early leaders. This project’s expenses are funded in part by the State Historical Fund of the Colorado Historical Society.
This is an interview with the best, most brilliant and hardest-working chairman of Park Hill Action Committee – an interview not totally unbiased with my roommate of 52 years.
Art and our family moved to Park Hill in l959, “because,” as Art says, “There were three reasons: 1) We found a house for $l3,500, big enough for two kids and two mothers. 2) We’d had our fill of suburbs and new subdivisions; we’re both basically city people (Art from 42 states in the U.S. and Washington, D.C.; and Bea from Vienna, London and New York). 3) We drove by Park Hill schools before we bought the house, and saw a great variety of kids, and thought our kids should grow up here.”
l960 Real Estate Myths
When Park Hill Action began in l960, the vast majority of realtors, bankers, and business people prophesied that Park Hill would soon become totally segregated. Several quoted an old, now discredited, myth that “integration is the time between when the first colored moves in and the last white moves out.” Art, by training a careful researcher, found several impeccable studies showing, as he says, “It just ain’t so.” He quoted in the Park Hill Action News (predecessor to GPHC NEWS) a book by Dr. Luigi Laurenti called PROPERTY VALUES and RACE, Studies in Seven Cities. Art explained that “based on scholarly studies in seven cities, the odds are 4 to 1 that prices will rise as ‘nonwhites’ move in – because two groups are competing for the same housing – as long as people don’t give in to panic-peddlers and sell their homes for less than market price.”
Park Hill Advertising
Art and many others started meeting with local realtors. The group convinced the realtors that, although they might sell fewer houses, it was in their interest to promote the neighborhood rather than run it down. The local realtors began to promote Park Hill in cooperative ads in the Denver Post. Prices began to stabilize in most of Park Hill. Art’s research, widely disseminated, was largely credited with calming down most of the panic flight.
Special City Census
By l966, in the middle of Art’s second term as chairman of PHAC, the Denver Commission on Community Relations commissioned a special census which clearly showed that – after a five year exodus – whites were moving to Park Hill again in growing numbers, thus fulfilling the dream of a multi-racial, stable integrated neighborhood. Art is proud that his work that, together with Park Hill church people, helped reverse the folklore prophesy.
Active in Housing
“I’m also proud that with the help of many people and organizations, Park Hill Action founded the Fair Housing Center – to encourage Anglos to move to the inner city and integrated neighborhoods like Park Hill – and, equally important, encourage and assist African Americans and Hispanics to live where they wanted to, often near work in the metro suburbs.”
School Segregation, Crowding
One of Art’s chief frustrations was the school board. “DPS would not do anything on segregation and overcrowding,” he remembers grimly. “Of 29 mobile (trailer) classrooms in the city, 28 were in Park Hill, l2 at Smith, and the others at each school except Ashley – as a way of confining African American kids north of Colfax. Meanwhile white kids were bused from Harvey Park and Bear Valley to central Denver schools where there was room.” “At that time Smiley was so crowded – l650 students in a school built for 800 max – that PHAC actually asked the school board to put Smiley on double session,” Art remembers. “Then we created study halls and work training before and after school.”
“SMERSH, Park Hill Congregational’s ‘Smiley’s Extra Regular Study Hall’ pioneered these before- and after-school programs, forerunners of the current Smiley after-school and Saturday programs,” Art recalled.
What else is Art proud of, I asked?
“I’m proud that PHAC was one of the groups that pushed for the Second Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunity. The committee proposed accelerated classes in ALL schools, and to recruit and promote teachers and principals of color. The main thing the Committee proposed was to stop building schools and additions (and remove the mobiles) in Park Hill, to prevent further racial segregation. “All we wanted was the same privileges as Harvey Park and Bear Valley,” Art recalls. “We never asked for city-wide desegregation. That was the court’s idea.”
Park Hill Activism Spreads
“I’m proud that we had huge town meetings (one with (Mayor) Currigan had over 700 Park Hill residents, which he never forgot). He called us a model community.”
“Before I was chair, during and after,” Art remembers, one of the most important activities by many Park Hill residents, including myself, was to visit suburban churches, and suggest they encourage ‘human relations councils,’ so that if and when African Americans moved to the suburbs there would be people to welcome them, tell them where the jobs are, day care centers, etc.; make them comfortable.
“In most of these suburbs there were clergy and lay people of goodwill; we just gave them encouragement and suggested an action program,” Art says. By the late sixties there were human relations councils in many of the suburbs. These human relations councils often supported the creation of housing authorities, with the help of the Fair Housing Center, and the support of Catholic Archdiocesan Housing, especially Archbishop Casey and Bishop Evans.”
“The last thing I did that I’m proud of,” Art said,” is making sure I was succeeded by the first black chairman, Fred Thomas, of a mostly white civic association. He was the logical choice. And Thomas was recognized posthumously by the DPS Career Education Center (he always thought such a Center would be a natural way to desegregate schools), and by Fred Thomas Park between 23rd and 26th and Quebec and Syracuse.”
It would be a mistake to close without mentioning that Art continues to be a tireless worker for the community he loves, and that as he is proud of his many accomplishments, Park Hill is proud of Art Branscombe.