Local community pushes forward one year after George Floyd s death
NBC News Channel
and last updated 2021-05-25 21:06:34-04
COLORADO SPRINGS â Exactly one year after the death of George Floyd, communities across the country are still mourning and feeling the impacts of what happened, including communities local to southern Colorado.
However, several people that KOAA News5 spoke to said despite what happened, the tragic events have helped open doors for larger conversations about inclusiveness and diversity in our area. After the Black Lives Matters, people wanted to be more inclusive and learn more, so of course they re going to come to their library to get books, videos, and periodicals, said Shirley Martinez, who works for the Pikes Peak Library District. People wanted all of those things to better understand what s happening around them and what s trending.
COLUMN: The Cotton Club still means Everybody Welcome gazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A life-size statue of Fannie Mae Duncan stands outside the Pikes Peak Center, close to where Duncan’s Cotton Club once stood on Cascade Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs. The statue was created by sculptor Lori Kiplinger Pandy and was spearheaded by retired middle school English teacher Kay Esmiol, whose students wrote a play, “Everybody Welcome,” about Duncan in 1993.
Christian Murdock/The Gazette
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Fannie Mae Duncan and friends stand on the street in front of the Cotton Club in 1955. The neon sign on the building reads “Duncan’s Cafe Bar Lounge.” Duncan graduated from the integrated Colorado Springs High School (now Palmer High) in 1938, the first in her family to get a diploma, according to a Nov. 5, 2018, Gazette article. She went into business for herself at age 26. Duncan bought the building that would become Duncan’s Cafe and later the Cotton Club across from the Antlers hotel, when she was just 28. Photograph by Lew Tilley, Courtesy of Pikes Peak Library District, 099-10714
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Fannie Mae Duncan and friends stand on the street in front of the Cotton Club in 1955. The neon sign on the building reads “Duncan’s Cafe Bar Lounge.” Duncan graduated from the integrated Colorado Springs High School (now Palmer High) in 1938, the first in her family to get a diploma, according to a Nov. 5, 2018, Gazette article. She went into business for herself at age 26. Duncan bought the building that would become Duncan’s Cafe and later the Cotton Club across from the Antlers hotel, when she was just 28. Photograph by Lew Tilley, Courtesy of Pikes Peak Library District, 099-10714