Behind the scenes of Colorado’s civil rights movement

Including a variety of voices in historical research provides a fuller, more accurate understanding of our past. To add more Coloradans’ voices to the historical record, the Colorado State Publications Library partnered with JSTOR’s Reveal Digital service to digitize state agency publications related to the civil rights movement in Colorado.

Reveal Digital is an open access digital archive that provides permanent access to primary historical resources that help researchers of all kinds understand and explain the past. The project focuses on preserving and providing access to voices that are often left out of the mainstream historical record. Reveal Digital currently provides access to 70,000 digital items across six collections.

One of Reveal Digital’s collections is “Behind the scenes of the civil rights movement,” which focuses on civil rights activism of Black, Latine, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander communities. This collection highlights the work of everyday Americans who worked together to create change for their neighbors and their country.

In 2025, the Colorado State Publications Library contributed 39 items to be digitized and added to the “Behind the scenes of the civil rights movement” collection. Most of the items were published by the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which was created in the late 1950s to enforce the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (first called the Colorado Fair Employment Practices Act). SPL’s contributions include annual reports from the Division’s early years, a newsletter that reported on the activities of the Civil Rights Commission, and a variety of research reports investigating discrimination in Colorado.

While each item in the collection provides a fascinating look into the civil rights movement, there are a few reports that are especially interesting:

• Igualdad de Derechos en Colorado (1960): a Spanish-language informational pamphlet that summarizes state anti-discrimination laws relating to employment and housing.
• Survey of Apartment Houses and Apartment House Managers’ Attitudes Towards Minority Group Tenants (1967): describes the results of a survey assessing how apartment managers view minority tenants and provides recommendations for improved awareness of fair housing regulations.
• The Historical Background of Housing Discrimination in the U.S. and Colorado (1984): a useful timeline of events, legislation, and court decisions that affected property rights and civil rights between 1539-1982.

Check out COSPL’s documents and the entire “Behind the scenes of the civil rights movement” collection on the Reveal Digital website.