DENVER — The first African-American male born in Colorado was posthumously inducted into the 2024 Blacks in Colorado Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Few pictures of William Whitsell remain today, but his impact lives on throughout the Centennial State.
“It lets me understand and just know that I’m standing on the shoulders of a great, great man,” said Damon Jones, Whitsell’s great-great grandson.
According to the Denver Public Library, Whitsell was the first African-American male born in Colorado.
“It probably didn’t even hit him like that … even to know that he was the first Black male born in Colorado,” said Jones.
Whitsell was born in the area now known as Central City, back when Colorado was a U.S. territory.
Jones says his parents traveled to Colorado for the opportunity.
“For them to move to Colorado, and to take refuge up into the mountains up into Gilpin County, where a lot of the work was at that time, it was a lot of mining and a lot of building,” said Jones. “It’s very impactful when you sit and think about it, and sit and think what he had to possibly go through— what they went through to even get here.”