Blair Taylor Feted With J. Carlton Babbs Award

Praised For Bringing People Together

Editor’s Note: The following remarks were delivered by Claudia Fields, last year’s recipient of the Babbs Award. Fields presented this year’s award to Blair Taylor during GPHC’s Oct. 4 annual meeting at the Park Hill Golf Clubhouse. During the meeting, Taylor also announced she is running for Denver city council in the May, 2019 election..

J. Carlton Babbs was a minister at Park Hill United Methodist Church from 1955 until his death in 1978. He was a key supporter of integration in Park Hill, and a founding member of the Park Hill Action Committee.

During an event Babbs organized on the same Sunday in May of 1956, all of the ministers in the community preached sermons on the need to eliminate all the barriers to church membership and housing on the basis of race, sex or national origin.

The Park Hill Action Committee, organized and sponsored by these churches, subsequently became the Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. (GPHC). Historically, GPHC’s impact on integration, zoning, schools, justice and legislation for the community has been widely recognized.

At the time of Babbs’ death, the clergy of Park Hill met and decided that a community service award in his memory would be a fitting tribute to one of the neighborhood’s outstanding leaders.

This year’s recipient, Blair Taylor, certainly meets the spirit carried on by Babbs and which lives on in this wonderful neighborhood. Taylor has served the community for many years and became involved when she was directly impacted by a zoning issue, although I suspect that she has been a community organizer and champion long before getting involved with the Park Hill community.

Taylor has taken a key role spearheading the conversation regarding parks, traffic and the community. She has been active in raising the issue of gentrification and honoring the voices of citizens who did not feel they were being heard. She has worked, along with many others, to ensure that the people living in North Park Hill will get a park suited for the immediate neighbors.

Taylor’s efforts have brought together neighbors from many backgrounds to try to solve issues common to all of us. When we ask for help, her first response is “Yes,” and “Let me start working on it.” She always delivers.

Taylor is a gifted graphic designer and small business consultant who has donated her time and skills to create graphics that lead community members in planning block parties, creating their own rain barrels, and working to clean up our neighborhood. Blair served on the 2018 Garden Walk Committee, bringing her helpful and collaborative nature to this annual event.

Her primary occupation is a mother of a Park Hill Panther-ette and Montview Community preschooler, and wife of a spirited Bronco superfan. We are lucky to have her.