Go to the covered parking area on the Southwest side of the Colorado Convention Center and you’ll see what is probably the most controversial work in Denver’s public art collection.  It’s a two-block-long tile mural by artist Barbara Jo Revelle called “A Colorado Panorama: A People’s History.”

Inspired by her reading of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” the mural features the faces of 168 Colorado figures, most of whom are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the history books, but all of whom have in some way influenced the history of the State.  These are not your average white male politicians.  They’re women, African- and Native-Americans, Chicano activists, cattle rustlers, labor leaders, and rebels of every stripe.

Realizing who it was that Revelle intended to include, city officials balked.  They asked her to remove some of the more controversial figures, most prominent among them Chicano activist Corky Gonzales, and the founder of the Colorado chapter of the Black Panther Party, Lauren Watson.

When Revelle refused to capitulate, the city fathers retaliated by withholding the $9000 that had been budgeted for an interactive touch screen meant to aid the viewer in identifying the faces on the wall.  In doing so, they effectively nullified the message the work was intended to convey.

Now, nearly thirty years on, the faces on the wall remain anonymous.  That is, unless you’re willing to hunt down a provisional key to the mural, created in 1996 by the students of CU History professor Dr. Tom Noel (AKA “Dr. Colorado”).  It’s a printed, 11X17 sheet available at the Convention Center’s Offices in that little round annex at the corner of 14th and Welton.  This key gives you the name, and a bare bones (i.e. less than a sentence) description of each figure.  It’s better than nothing, but inadequate if you really want to know who they were and why they’re up there.

Which is why I’ve undertaken to create this blog site.  My plan is to add a description or two each day, and in the end to compile them into a book.  I should mention here, that this is not yet a key to the mural.  These profiles are not yet organized according to the way they appear on site.  I’m writing them randomly for now, and will put them in their proper order once all of them have been researched and written.

Meanwhile, thanks for joining me on this journey through the real history of our beautiful state.