DENVER — February is Black History Month.
And to recognize its importance, members of Colorado's Black Democratic Legislative Caucus wanted to memorialize it with a special resolution.
The kind of resolution that would normally be uneventful at the State Capitol.
In 2016, 2020 and 2022, resolutions to recognize Women’s History Month passed unanimously.
Last year, a resolution for Italian-American Heritage Month passed unanimously.
Even a Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month resolution passed unanimously in 2017.
But in 2024, a member of the Republican super minority was not supportive.
“Unlike the consensus non-science of Darwin's theory, which considers race to be a primary characteristic, with darker skin being indicative of a lower level of evolution. It's non-science, 100%,” State Rep. Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, said.
DeGraaf, who finished second to take over as new House minority leader last week, took issue with receiving the content of the resolution late on Wednesday and spoke to the House members about his concerns with the resolution.
"We could or should talk about how the first owner of a chattel slave was a free man of African descent. Or how the blood and treasure of Britian and the United States, trillions in today's dollars, went into fighting the slave trade that was promulgated by African and Arabian empires, who would base their economies...” DeGraaf said before being cut off by the House Speaker.
“Rep. DeGraaf, I’m going to put us in a brief recess, thank you,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, said.
DeGraaf would not come back to speak after the recess.
After the House adjourned, the Colorado Black Caucus held a community meeting about a racial equity study bill that would be debated later in the day. At the start of that meeting, State Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, discussed the Black History Month resolution.
"We had a colleague of ours be extremely disrespectful to the Black community and to us, quite frankly, as members,” Herod said.
When it came time to vote on the Black History Month resolution, it had one single no vote: DeGraaf.
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